Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
Book Talk
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Current & Planned Reading
Mod
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
thanksfor 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. My page on the buffet challenge the buffet challenge has an overview of my reading year.)
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)
Short Stories
Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf (1919)
Taking the Veil by Katherine Mansfield (1930)
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 (1967)
✔️Rich: Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972 (1973)
Non-Challenge Books
✔️Gaddis: The Recognitions (1955) <-- finish
✔️Rawls: Where the Red Fern Grows (1961)
✔️Padgett: "Toujours L'Amour" (1973) from Very Collected Poems
✔️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
✔️Bradbury: Dandelion Wine (1957) <-- Challenge
✔️Feiffer: Passionella and Other Stories (1959) <-- Challenge
✔️du Maurier: Don't Look Now (1971) <-- Challenge
✔️Cruse: Stuck Rubber Baby (1995)
✔️Andreas: Addicted to War: Why the U.S. Can't Kick Militarism (2015)
✔️Solomon: An Unkindness of Ghosts (2017)
✔️Bongiovanni: The Stonewall Riots: Making a Stand for LGBTQ Rights (2022)
✔️Pynchon: Shadow Ticket (2025)
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:
A Complicated Kindness Miriam Toews
The Berlin Novels Christopher Isherwood
Family Matters Rohinton Mistry
Cécé Emmelie Prophète
One Day I'll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995 Helen Garner
shorts:
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
The Dead Secret Wilkie Collins
The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s Jason Burke
I think I will stand pat with what I have finished this month and move remaining books to the post of my plans for February,
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.
Last year I embarked on an overly ambitious personal challenge called Tim's Around the World in Classics. The list included several very long landmark novels; completing many of them felt like a major accomplishment!This year I would like to continue the journey by retaining the list but working with it in a more open-ended way. This means that I would ignore certain books I don't want to read right away, and add books I do want to read within different countries.
For example, in England I want to add all of Jane Austen, after reading Mansfield Park and Emma in 2025, all of George Eliot, after reading Middlemarch in 2025, all of Elizabeth Gaskell, following Mary Barton in 2025, all of Elizabeth Bowen (Anglo-Irish), and the Barchester novels of Anthony Trollope.
To Nigeria, I will add Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (1964), following last year's Things Fall Apart (1958), two parts of a trilogy.
To Japan, I will add a book or two by Yukio Mishima, to follow last year's reading of his Spring Snow (1967, part of a sequence of books) and (more distantly) The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu (1000).
To Germany, I will add On Tangled Paths (1887) by Theodor Fontane.
To India, I will add Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (1991), and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (1997).
I will add Norway to my list for Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset (1909).
To USA, I want to add a book or two by Zora Neale Hurston, at least Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934).
Beyond the personal challenge:
An emerging trend is my wanting to read multiple works by the same author (see England, above). Toward the close of last year I read my first Balzac novel, Cousin Bette (prompted by the Classics group), and that has led me to seek out all his books, so in 2026 I will continue to read Balzac, probably in something close to historic chronology. I am now in the midst of Catherine De' Medici with its tediously long introduction, called "About..." I really enjoy the richness of Balzac's prose, his characters and his attention to descriptive details, and I like the puzzle of figuring out when he is being serious, satirical, humorous or cranky.
Last year, I came upon The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1962) by Giorgio Bassini and discovered that it was part of a trilogy of novels, Il romanzo di Ferrera (Italy), so I want to read the other two books.
Additional recent discoveries (again prompted by members of the Classics group) are the English novels of Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym, so on my reading pile are Taylor's The Sleeping Beauty (1953), In a Summer Season (1961) and Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont (1971). The Taylor and Pym novels continue the rich portrayal of English social life in Austen, Gaskell, Eliot and Trollope, and in Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen, making up a composite English "human comedy" of their own.
I welcome further suggestions from Classics members to complement the books and writers listed above!
I did pretty well in finishing what I wanted in December, and several of them were wonderful! There was really only one that I didn't care for.DECEMBER 2025: (final)
Completed:
✔ The Keepers of the House (Shirley Ann Grau) ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (G.K. Chesterton) ★★★★ (4.0)
✔ The Lightning Bottles (Marissa Stapley) ★★★ (2.5)
✔ The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox (Maggie O'Farrell) ★★★★★ (5.0)
✔ A Land More Kind Than Home (Wiley Cash) ★★★★★ (4.5)
✔ Satantango (László Krasznahorkai) ★★★★ (3.5)
✔ A Redbird Christmas (Fannie Flagg) ★★★★ (3.5)
✔ St. Francis of Assisi (G.K. Chesterton) ★★★★ (4.0)
In Progress and Will Spill Into January:
Small Spaces (Katherine Arden) 68% complete
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Susanna Clarke) 8% complete
I've started a reread of Les Misérables which I'm really enjoying. I'm also rereading Howards End for the group, and The King of Elfland's Daughter, which I've not read, for the buddy read.Beyond that I wanted a mystery, so I picked up The Cater Street Hangman for another visit, and am enjoying it all over again. Clearly I'm in a reread mood right now. :)
Updated from plan on message 4 above.📖current read📖; ⬅️ up next; ✔️read
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms ✔️read 4*
Pride and Prejudice ✔️read 5*
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 now reading:
War Music: An Account of Homer's Iliad ✔️read 5*
Prometheus Bound✔️read 4*
Brave New World ✔️read 4*
The Argonautika 📖current read📖
Games at Twilight and Other Stories ✔️read 4*
Big Mama’s Funeral ⬅️ up next
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus ⬅️ up next
non-Classic Reads
Antarctica ✔️read 4*
Hannibal Rising 📖current read📖
not included: individual short stories. Complete list found here on my 2026 bookshelf https://www.goodreads.com/review/list...
(I've also posted this on my personal challenge thread in this group. My page on the buffet challenge the buffet challenge has an overview of my reading year.)
January Reading PlanCurrent Reads:
✔1 Night Shift- King
✔2 The Prisoner's Throne (top priority)
✔The Dead Romantics (top priority)
❌Witch King (top priority)
5 Hemmingway short stories
6 Speed of Dark (top priority)
✔19th century Women horror short stories (continue)
✔8 Mr. Mercedes-King (top priority-edit-planning to restart 1/11
Future Reads:
15Thursday Murder Club (edit-planning to start this week 1/11
Dracula (maybe-continue)
10The Mysterious Mr. Quin (maybe-start)
How to Become the Dark Lord... (maybe or later-continue)
Mr. Wrong # (later probably-start)
13The Familar (later probably-start)
14City of Fallen Angels (maybe-continue)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen.
The first Pulitzer winner I have read and it quickly became a favorite. Award winning literature is seldom this fun and accessible. An excellent novel about espionage, identity, immigration and a lot more.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Bob, thanks for setting up this thread! January Goals
I'm hoping to get a solid start on my 2026 challenges!
Starting and Plan to Finish by End of Month:
✅ Catch-22 (Buffet challenge) completed Jan 9
Bel-Ami (Buffet challenge, Buddy Read) (in progress)
The Plague (have not started)
Will Make Progress, But Will Spill Over Into Next Month:
⭕️ The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Buffet challenge) (in progress)
Linear Algebra for Everyone (Buffet challenge) (will start)
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (Buffet challenge) (will start)
The Joy of Abstraction: An Exploration of Math, Category Theory, and Life (have not started)
My January: ✔️ = Finished. ⭕️ = In progress and will/may finish.
❓= Might read or start. 📖 = May reread for Book Club.
✔️ Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf.
✔️ Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry.
✔️ No Name by Wilkie Collins.
✔️ Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote.
✔️ Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis.
❓ Go Tell It to the Mountain by James Baldwin.
❓ The End of Nature by Bill McKibben.
⭕️ The Elements by John Boyne.
⭕️ 📖 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.
Most of these books are for Bingo or Buffet Challenges, or I may work them into Buffet. I may add to this list if I accomplish reading all these. I will update my progress later this month as I finish books or start new ones.
1/12/ 26 Update: Okay, it’s only 6 days later and, as usual, I am already deviating from the plan. I added two books starting and one maybe, plus I have also been reading short stories by Hemingway and others, which I am not even counting.
✔️ Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
⭕️ Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
✔️ My Friends by Fredrik Backman.
1/27/26 Second Update. Six books finished and two open circles still in progress. My Friends was the first 5 star book for 2026. Half of a Yellow Sun and Family Matters are also quite good.
1/30/26 Third Update. Started The Elements by John Boyne.
1/31/26. I finished No Name.
That closes January and I will start a new post for February.
2025 reads I finished in JanuaryThe Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas - this was my 2025 long read but I didn't quite finish it before New Years festivities!
Austral by Carlos Fonseca - A book club read that I was supposed to have read by the start of December (oops). It was hard going but I'm glad I perservered
Started and finished in January
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
The Artist by Lucy Steeds
Murder at the Black Cat Cafe by Seishi Yokomizo
Currently Reading
Scattered: A Top 5 Sunday Times bestseller by Aamna Mohdin
A Bookshop of One’s Own Jane Cholmeley
Currently reading:Death on the Nile
Planned for 2026(in no particular order) :
Fahrenheit 451
The Picture of Dorian Gray
The Master and Margarita
Gulliver’s Travels
The Silence of the Lambs
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
and more to come
So, far I'm reading the following:Alaska
The Light of Day
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
and hope to get to soon:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Peril at End House.
After that, not sure, but probably tackle some books on my to-read list.
Franky, you are smart to tackle Alaska in January! How is it going? I think here in Chicago it would just make me feel cold!
Terry wrote: "Franky, you are smart to tackle Alaska in January! How is it going? I think here in Chicago it would just make me feel cold!"Terry, I specifically wanted to read it during the winter so started in late December. A frigid 50 degrees here in California ...brr... lol. It's pretty dense and tough to get through, but interesting and has that epic saga kind of feel to it. It is definitely a marathon, not a sprint. I'm trying to read a little bit each day, but with the two other books.
I read Michener’s Chesapeake last year and loved it, so I will get to Alaska someday. It’s in the mid-30s here today with snow flurries expected in the next hour, but at least we had sun for a few hours. Maybe I should read Alaska when it’s 90 degrees in summer!
Mod
@Terry, I have heard of Chesapeake and want to get to it someday. I agree with reading a very "cold" book in the middle of summer heat. I read one of Dan Simmons' books, The Terror, in the middle of July during a heat wave. @ Bob, I agree. The level of research the author must have put into this is astounding. I have Hawaii on my radar. And I agree about time: too many books, too little time!
Mod
I have never read Michener! I’ve always heard his books are very good, but I was daunted by their lengths. I should probably add him to my list. Should I try Hawaii? Any suggestions for my first Michener read? :)
Mod
Tales of the South Pacific would be excellent for a first Michener read. Not a doorstopper.
Katy wrote: "Terris wrote: "I have never read Michener! I’ve always heard his books are very good, but I was daunted by their lengths. I should probably add him to my list. Should I try Hawaii? Any suggestions ..."And it was the basis for the Broadway show, South Pacific, so that you can sing along.
The Source was my favorite Michener novel. It traces the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel through the layers of a fictional archaeological site. Each chapter is a story based on the artifact that was discovered.
Katy wrote: "Terris wrote: "I have never read Michener! I’ve always heard his books are very good, but I was daunted by their lengths. I should probably add him to my list. Should I try Hawaii? Any suggestions ..."I have not read the author either, but someone must have already mentioned this one this year (maybe was you Katy), because i have it already bookmarked to read. 👍
Finished the deservedly obscure 1912 work
The ostrich for the defence by William H.Hile [2/5] review,Also although i'm not using achievements online this year i still started another book partially because its what i call an Unquel (pronounced uncle), a word i made up meaning a work connected to another by a different author, so i started the 1909 novel
A Columbus of Space by Garrett P. Serviss, because you know its related to that story about the guy on the island...Only after starting it did my brain kick in and go, 'you know Crusoe was the guy on the island right, not Columbus?' That's embarrassing... Complete mental faceplant, :lol .
Pharmacdon wrote: "And it was the basis for the Broadway show, South Pacific, so that you can sing along.The Source was my favorite Michener novel. It traces the history of the Jewish people and the land of Israel through the layers of a fictional archaeological site. Each chapter is a story based on the artifact that was discovered...."
My dad was a huge Michener fan. His favorites were Tales of the South Pacific and The Source. Not because he was religious, he wasn't at all, but I think the level of story telling and history appealed to him.
I'm not as much of a fan, and haven't yet read either of the above. But I enjoyed Caravans when I read it.
Finished Roadside Picnic
[4/5] which was really good.Slightly annoying that
Solaris just came in at the library just because i also started another book only last night,
The Mystery (1907) by S.E.White & S.H.Adams. So i have 3 books on the go now. I will have to prioritize Solaris though. I actually have like 5 other books on order but most i put a delay on so hopefully they will arrive at good intervals.
Picked up a 1972 mass market paperback of Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie at Planet Books, a local used bookstore. I will read this soon.
Michele wrote: "Picked up a 1972 mass market paperback of Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie at Planet Books, a local used bookstore. I will read this soon."Great find. Interesting. This appears to be neither Poirot nor Marple, right?
According to Fantastic Fiction, Death Comes as the End is set about 4,000 years ago in Egypt, so a bit before Poirot and Miss Marple's time! I've checked it out because I need to read an historical fiction for a challenge and I'm trying to decide if that would fit. It would fit the theme, but the idea of the challenge is to push readers out of their reading comfort zone. Since I know I like Agatha Christie, I'm mulling over whether reading this would really push me out of my reading comfort zone.
KeenReader wrote: "According to Fantastic Fiction, Death Comes as the End is set about 4,000 years ago in Egypt, so a bit before Poirot and Miss Marple's time! I've checked it out because I need to re..."
If I may butt into this conversation, I think it will count! It's not at all like Christie's other books, and if you do't normally read historical fiction it will stretch you. She went way outside of her zone to write it, so IMO it works just fine.
Finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Often cited as one of the best Western novels, it lives up to such high praise. It has the rhythm of a bestseller and the character depth of literature.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Still reading:Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Reread. I'm taking my time and savoring it.
The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie Jr.
Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver
Started:
Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke
Paladin's Strength by T. Kingfisher
Waiting to be picked up at the Library:
Night Flight by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Good morning! I've finished only two books this month:
The Thousand-Mile Summer in desert and high sierra (1964) by Colin Fletcher (1922-2007) , a nonfiction classic; and
The Greatest Game: The Montreal Canadiens, the Red Army, and the Night That Saved Hockey(2010) by Todd Denault. Both five stars ⭐.Currently reading:
The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818).Planning to read:
I'm Walking as Straight as I Can: Transcending Disability in Hollywood and Beyond (2011) by Geri Jewell;
Ten Innings at Wrigley: The Wildest Ballgame Ever, with Baseball on the Brink (2019) by Kevin Cook;
The Boys of Winter: The Untold Story of a Coach, a Dream, and the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team(2005) by Wayne Coffey;
Profiles in Pennsylvania sports: Athletic heroes and exploits from past and present in the Commonwealth where sports are almost everyone's passion (1975) by Paul B. Beers;
Palestra Pandemonium: A History Of The Big 5 (2002) by Robert S. Lyons;
In the Lake of the Woods (1994) by Tim O'Brien;
The Echo Machine: How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America(2025) by David Pakman;
How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading (1940) by Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001).I'm ridiculously far behind, and it may take months to get through them all.
Jim
I’m currently completing a close read (re-read) of Wuthering Heights and selective entries from The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë. I have on order, A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë by Katherine Frank, that I hope to get to next.Also, I’m currently reading A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman, and have started The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
KeenReader wrote: "According to Fantastic Fiction, Death Comes as the End is set about 4,000 years ago in Egypt, so a bit before Poirot and Miss Marple's time!I've checked it out because I need to read an historical fiction for a challenge and I'm trying to decide if that would fit. It would fit the theme, but the idea of the challenge is to push readers out of their reading comfort zone. Since I know I like Agatha Christie, I'm mulling over whether reading this would really push me out of my reading comfort zone"
Teri-K wrote: "If I may butt into this conversation, I think it will count! It's not at all like Christie's other books, and if you do't normally read historical fiction it will stretch you. She went way outside of her zone to write it, so IMO it works just fine."
Thanks for the info! I've pencilled it into that challenge slot, although I'm not sure when I'll get to it. I think I am fully committed , or more likely, over committed, already next month. By the way, I don't think you were butting in, you were joining the conversation
Franky wrote: "Michele wrote: "Picked up a 1972 mass market paperback of Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie at Planet Books, a local used bookstore. I will read this soon."G..."
Correct. It is a stand alone book set in Ancient Egypt. I finished reading it and liked it.
Now that I'm nearly done with my January reading, here's what I'm looking forward to for next month:February Goals
Buffet and Bingo Challenges
Pontoppidan: Lucky Per (1904)
✔️Faulkner: "Centaur in Brass" (1932)
✔️Faulkner: "Mule in the Yard" (1934)
Woolf: Three Guineas (1938)
Williams: A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
✔️Faulkner: The Town (1957)
Knowles: A Separate Peace (1959)
✔️Said: Representations of the Intellectual (1994)
Non-Challenge Books
Howard: The Damages (1962)
Tournier: Friday (1967)
Padgett: Selections from Tulsa Kid (1979)
Frame: A State of Siege (1989)
Towles: A Gentleman in Moscow (2016)
✔️Krasznahorkai: Spadework for a Palace (2018)
Conjunctions 83 Revenants (2024) <-- finish
Ford and Scofield: Slapping Leather: Queer Cowfolx at the Gay Rodeo (2024)
✔️Harwicz: Unfit (2024)
Ismaïl: Hyper (2024)
✔️Muldoon: Joy in Service on Rue Tagore (2024)
✔️Gary Jackson: small lives: poems (2025)
Joy Williams: The Pelican Child: Stories (2025)
Ali Smith: Glyph (2026)
Long Reads
Dumas: The Count of Monte Cristo (1844)
Maybe/Added Later
✔️Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter (1850) <-- challenge
Mann: Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories (1936) <-- challenge
✔️Dick: The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1945) <-- challenge
Kozińsky: Being There (1970) <-- challenge
Vonnegut: Bluebeard (1987) <-- challenge
Shree: The Roof Beneath their Feet (2001)
McEwan: What We Can Know (2025)
Schreiber: Iris and the Dead (2025)
Szalay: Flesh (2025)
Vázquez: The Endless Week (2025)
McSweeney's Issue 79 (2025)
Just finished Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. Letting that settle in a bit. Watched the 1996 movie and am working on step-by-step review (as an example for my students for their own book reviews).On my to-read list:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wall
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
I'm also in the last third of the book The Horse: A Galloping History of Humanity, which I'm listening to on audio during chores and driving.
I'm always inspired when I read this thread. It's about the time I should think about plans, so will play with some ideas here. In addition to planned reading, I've gone on a number of tangents in January.
Finished in January
To Shine One Corner of the World: Moments with Shunryu Suzuki
The Undiscovered Self by C.G. Jung
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton
Stories: Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf, two Dickens, and four Hemingway.
In Process
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - a fantastic start to start my year of reading Atwood.
Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry - group read. Fascinating story about family and culture.
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat - a weird fable-like story full of symbols
An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy - tangent. Will be at this one for a while
De wereld van Breugel 1525-1569 (Time-Life Bibliotheek der Kunsten by Timothy Foote - tangent. Enjoying paging through paintings of this fave painter.
Coming Up
Group reads:
This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor
Black History Month Possibilities:
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (also challenge)
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston
The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
Long-term project:
Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust
Possible Challenge Books:
To a God Unknown by John Steinbeck
Dearly by Margaret Atwood
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
Mod
Novels Started and Finished-
✔️*Ill Wind, #14-Neglected Author
✔️*Allan Quatermain, O&N
✔️Zorba the Greek, New School
✔️The Frozen River, Members Choice
Short Stories, Novellas, Anthologies Started and Finished-
✔️ Don't Look Now and Other Stories, Title Story Only
✔️Kew Gardens, Group-Short Story/Novella
✔️The Angel of the Odd, Short Story/Novella
✔️The Leader of the People, Short Story/Novella
✔️R is for Rocket, Short Story/Novella
✔️*The Lifted Veil, S/S Poll for March, 1859 a reread
✔️*My Mortal Enemy, Century
✔️*The Crucible, #14 Genre-Play
✔️*Love Songs, #14 Genre-Poetry
✔️*The October Country, Short Story/Novella
Unfinished, Started in January, Continue in February and Finish
*No Name, Long Read
Family Matters Library Book, Amok
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston, 2024 - M's Book Club
The Hemingway Stories, Short Story/Novella
Planned for January, Not Started-Pushed Back
*Pale Fire, O&N
*The Long Valley, Short Story/Novella
February's Plan-Carved in Butter, Not Stone
Novels
Continue from January and Finish
*No Name, Long Read
Family Matters Library Book, Amok
The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife by Anna Johnston, 2024 - M's Book Club
Start-
*Pale Fire, O&N
*The Mysteries of Udolpho,1794 Members Choice, Buddy Read, Kindle
*Early from the Dance by David Payne, 1989 ReRead
*Project Hail Mary
Short Stories, Novellas, Anthologies
Continue -
The Hemingway Stories, Short Story/Novella
Start -
*The Long Valley, Short Story/Novella
*I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories 1969, Buddy Read, Kindle
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
Books mentioned in this topic
Mrs Dalloway (other topics)The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (other topics)
The Mysteries of Udolpho (other topics)
The Mysteries of Udolpho (other topics)
March (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Virginia Woolf (other topics)Solzhenicyn A. (other topics)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (other topics)
Stephen May (other topics)
Lisa Ridzén (other topics)
More...
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.