Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

What are you currently reading? What are you planning to read over the next month?

Please use this thread to let us know what you are currently reading. You can also let us know your plans for future reading. Feel free to update your reading and planning as often as you like.

Remember, you can also record and list your current and future reading on your Personal Challenge Thread, your Bingo Challenge Thread, and your Buffet Challenge Thread.

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Current-
Other than a couple of more Christmas stories, I have started my last book for 2025, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare.

Future-
January Start and Finish
*Pale Fire, O&N
*Allan Quatermain, O&N
Zorba the Greek, New School
Kew Gardens, Group/Short Story
*Love Songs, #14 Genre Poetry
Nevada Barr - *Ill Wind, #14 Neglected Author
*My Mortal Enemy, Century

Start
*No Name, Long Read
Family Matters place library order on 10th gives me 6 weeks from delivery, Amok
*The Long Valley, Short Story/Novella can start and stop as needed
*The October Country, Short Story/Novella can start and stop as needed

thanks

for Dec - wrapping up:

There are 2 books that I will not get around to, I under-estimated how long it would take me to read *. I've also been reading more about Edgar Allan Poeand will spill into next year. For this year (with 9 days left) I'm focusing on finishing:

*The Romance of the Three Kingdoms 80% read
Pride and Prejudice 60%

Rough plan for 2026, to finish the 2 I didn't get to this year + read more of history of science, and also films, I have roughly 20 novels lined up, a handful of plays, making another attempt at poetry, that's the theory.

For Jan 2026, I am planning to read:

The Argonautika
War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad
Prometheus Bound
Hedda Gabler

There's more and will add as I go along.

(I've also posted this on my personal challenge thread in this group.)

Lately, I have gone a little insane in all the reads I have been trying to join. I don't know if this is all going to work out, but here are my current plans and my January plans:

DECEMBER WRAP-UP

Finished:
✔ The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G.K. Chesterton ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash ★★★★★ (4.5)
✔ The Lightning Bottles by Marissa Stapley ★★★ (2.5)
✔ The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell ★★★★★ (5.0)
✔ A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg ★★★★ (3.5)

Starting and Plan to Finish by End of Month:
in progress 93% Satantango by László Krasznahorkai
in progress 38% St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton

Started and Will Spill Over into Next Month:
in progress 8% Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (re-read) by Susanna Clarke
in progress 73% Half Bad by Sally Green
in progress 21% Small Spaces by Katherine Arden

Will Fit in if Time Permits:
When the Sparrow Falls by Neil Sharpson
The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

JANUARY LOOK-FORWARD:

Will Begin the Month with These:
Maurice by E.M. Forster
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

Am Trying to Fit These In:
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear

I like the idea of this current and planned reads thread!

I'm nearing the end of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. It's fantastic, and will be my last challenge book to complete bingo.

For the rest of the year, I'll continue with these:
Emma by Jane Austen
Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields
The Garden Party and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield
and hope to start
The Spy Who Came In from the Cold by John le Carré

And January is coming up fast! Here's what I have planned.
Group reads:
Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

As far as the others, I want to wait to see what I'm in the mood for, but some possibilities:
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
Skylark by Paula McLain
The Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

Finishing in December:
The Wandering Earth by Liu Cixin
Elbows Up!: Canadian Voices of Resilience and Resistance
The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
Polar Vortex: A Family Memoir by Denise Dorrance

December/early January (maybe) reads on Hoopla:
The Passing of the Dragon by Ken Liu
Future Science Fiction Digest, Issue 6, March 2020

January:
Book club reads for Jan & Feb: Ice by Anna Kavan and Neuromancer by William Gibson
Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey
The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart

Pam wrote: "January:
Book club reads for Jan & Feb: Ice by Anna Kavan and Neuromancer by William Gibson
"

Ice was a fascinating read Pam! The imagery and language are often beautiful, though the story is hallucinatory and contradictory by design. Curious to hear what you think of it!

My last book of the year is in progress:
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)


January Plans 2026
St. Francis of Assisi by G.K. Chesterton (1923)
A Cry of Angels by Jeff Fields (1974) 392 pages
The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart (1962) 400 pages
I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories by Ray Bradbury (1969)


January always seems to be my books that were left from over-planning the previous year.

Thanks for setting up this thread, Bob!

January Goals
I'm hoping to get a solid start on my 2026 challenges!

Buffet and Bingo Challenges
James: The Ambassadors (1903)
Forster: Howards End (1910)
Woolf: "Kew Gardens" (1919)
Woolf: To the Lighthouse (1927)
Faulkner: "Spotted Horses" (1931)
Faulkner: "Barn Burning" (1939)
Faulkner: The Hamlet (1940)
Williams: The Glass Menagerie (1944)
Burgess: A Clockwork Orange (1962)
Howard: Quantities: Poems (1962)
Burgess: The Novel Now: A Guide to Contemporary Fiction (1971)
Rich: Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 (1973)

Non-Challenge Books
Gaddis: The Recognitions (1955) <-- finish
Rawls: Where the Red Fern Grows (1961)
Simpson: Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (2020)
Lewat: The Aquatics (2021)
McSweeney's Issue 74 (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern): 25th Anniversary Issue (2024)
Beilin: Sea, Poison (2025)
Fosse: Vaim (2025)
Searls: Analog Days (2025)
Smith: Gliff (2025)

Long Reads
Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
Conjunctions 83 Revenants (2024)

Maybe/Added Later
Narayan: Malgudi Days (1943) <-- Challenge

I am starting off a bit too ambitiously by listing a number of books I plan to read. I probably will not get to several of them. I will move the books I do not read to the next month. Also I have several books carrying over from last year. I will decide whether I wish to continue or drop them some time during the month, and hopefully that will get my plans in order.

Will Finish:
Zeke and Ned Larry McMurtry
A Complicated Kindness Miriam Toews
The Berlin Novels Christopher Isherwood
The Honorary Consul Graham Greene
King of Ashes S.A. Cosby
The Well of Loneliness Radclyffe Hall
Mrs. Bridge Evan S. Connell
Excellent Women Barbara Pym
Prelude to Terror Helen MacInnes
Family Matters Rohinton Mistry
Zorba the Greek Nikos Kazantzakis
Howards End E.M. Forster
We Computers: A Ghazal Novel Hamid Ismailov
Cécé Emmelie Prophète
Daisy Miller Henry James
Ugliness Moshtari Hilal
The Queen of Swords Jazmina Barrera
The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam Lana Lin
Wintering Out Seamus Heaney
Memorial Days Geraldine Brooks
One Day I'll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995 Helen Garner
The King of Elfland's Daughter Lord Dunsany





shorts:
Kew Gardens Virginia Woolf
The Poor Relation's Story Charles Dickens


Continuing:
Republic Plato
The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny Kiran Desai
The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 Rick Atkinson
Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter Simone de Beauvoir
Watt Samuel Beckett
Effingers Gabriele Tergit
No Name Wilkie Collins

Just finished reading: Le Rêve / The Dream by Émile Zola.

In progress: Re-read of Paris: Les Trois Villes - Tome 3, book 3 of the Three Cities, a Trilogy by Émile Zola

Short term planned reads:

L' Oeuvre / The Masterpiece by Émile Zola
Le Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac
No Name by Wilkie Collins (as soon as I get the book)
Bel-Ami by Guy de Maupassant

Long term: let's see.

I hereby declare my "January Eleven":

6x 2025 carryover:
I Am a Cat Soseki, Natsume 1905
Jurassic Park Crichton, Michael 1990
The Loser Bernhard, Thomas 1983
Pop. 1280 Thompson, Jim 1964
The Towers of Trebizond Macaulay, Rose 1956
Regency Buck Heyer, Georgette 1935

5x 2026 "new build"
A-Z "A": The Axe (Master of Hestviken #1) Undset, Sigrid 1925
A-Z "B": G. Berger, John 1972
A-Z "C": No Orchids for Miss Blandish Chase, James Hadley 1939
author-more: Little Boy Lost Laski, Marghanita 1949
re-read: The Information Amis, Martin 1995