Kylie's Classics Challenge

[Kylie]

Kylie's Classics Challenge

 

Seeing as I love reading classics above all else, I just have to give this challenge a go! I'm going to put my 'classic' classics in this thread along with my 'modern' classics.

 

I love that the term 'classic' is ambiguous because it means I can fiddle the years to suit my own needs So for this challenge I'm going to label any literature prior to 1900 as 'Classic' and any from 1900 to around the mid 60s as 'Modern Classic' (even though in everyday life I would just refer to them all as Classics ).

 

I'm also going to cheat a bit and list the classics I read last year, because that's when I really started getting into them and it would be a shame having them missing from the list.

[Kylie]

'Classic' classics and 'Modern' classics, in the order they were read, with year published and rating out of 10.

 

The Catcher In The Rye 8/10

JD Salinger, 1951

 

Catch-22 10/10

Joseph Heller, 1961

 

On The Road 8/10

Jack Kerouac, 1957

 

Metamorphosis 7/10

Franz Kafka, 1915

 

The Great Gatsby 8/10

F Scott Fitgerald, 1925

 

The Day Of The Triffids 8/10

John Wyndham, 1951

 

The Count Of Monte Cristo 9/10

Alexandre Dumas, 1844-1846

 

The Invisible Man 8/10

HG Wells, 1897

 

Brave New World 9/10

Aldous Huxley, 1932

 

Lord Of The Flies 7/10

William Golding, 1954

 

Pride And Prejudice 10/10

Jane Austen, 1813

 

A Tale Of Two Cities 9/10

Charles Dickens, 1859

 

The Trial 7/10

Franz Kafka, 1925

 

Waiting For Godot 5/10

Samuel Beckett, 1952

 

A Christmas Carol 9/10

Charles Dickens, 1843

[Kylie]

A selection of classics on my TBR pile:

 

Classics

Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen: Persuasion

Jane Austen: Sense And Sensibility

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

Charles Dickens: Bleak House

Charles Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby

Thomas Hardy: Far From The Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy: Tess of the D'urbervilles

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House Of The Seven Gables

Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter

James Joyce: Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man

Rudyard Kipling: The Jungle Book

Mary Shelley: Frankenstein

Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels

William Makepeace Thackeray: Barry Lyndon

William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair

Jules Verne: 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Emile Zola: Nana

 

Modern Classics

Frances Hodgson Burnett: The Secret Garden

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

Tom Collins: Such Is Life

Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man

AB Facey: A Fortunate Life

Frank Herbert: Dune

Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game

DH Lawrence: Sons And Lovers

Joan Lindsay: Picnic At Hanging Rock

Henry Miller: Tropic Of Cancer

Henry Miller: Tropic Of Capricorn

Margaret Mitchell: Gone With The Wind

Sally Morgan: My Place

Boris Paternak: Doctor Zhivago

Ayn Rand: Atlas Shrugged

Nevil Shute: A Town Like Alice

Betty Smith: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

John Steinbeck: East Of Eden

John Steinbeck: The Grapes Of Wrath

John Kennedy Toole: A Confederacy Of Dunces

Nathaniel West: The Day Of The Locust

Edith Wharton: The House Of Mirth

John Wyndham: The Chrysalids

 

Books that I'm reading are in blue. Once read, they'll be moved to the next post.

[Kylie]

Crime And Punishment 8/10

Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866

 

To Kill A Mockingbird 10/10

Harper Lee, 1961

 

Lolita 9/10

Vladimir Nabokov, 1955

 

The Bell Jar 8/10

Sylvia Plath, 1963

 

Black Beauty 4/10

Anna Sewell, 1877

 

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland 8/10

Lewis Carroll, 1865

 

Dracula 10/10

Bram Stoker, 1897

 

Of Mice And Men 9/10

John Steinbeck, 1937

 

A Clockwork Orange 10/10

Anthony Burgess, 1962

 

Through The Looking-Glass 8/10

Lewis Carroll, 1871

 

The Time Machine 8/10

HG Wells, 1895

 

Slaughterhouse-Five 9/10

Kurt Vonnegut, 1969

 

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest 10/10

Ken Kesey, 1962

 

Carmilla 8/10

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, 1872

 

Peter Pan 8/10

JM Barrie, 1911

 

Anne Of Green Gables 8/10

Lucy Maud Montgomery, 1908

 

Lady Chatterley's Lover 5/10

DH Lawrence, 1928

 

Diary Of A Nobody 9/10

George Grossmith, 1892

 

The Midwich Cuckoos 7/10

John Wyndham, 1957

 

Emma 9/10

Jane Austen, 1816

 

Great Expectations 9/10

Charles Dickens, 1860

 

The Town And The City 9/10

Jack Kerouac, 1950

 

The Thirty-Nine Steps 6/10

John Buchan, 1915

[Kylie]

Today I've started Through The Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll.

 

This will be my 10th classic for the year, which I'm pretty happy with! There are probably 5 more on the list that I really want to read before the year is out, so I'm going to set myself a target of 15, which also happens to be how many I read last year!

[Kylie]

I finished Through The Looking-Glass a couple of days ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. Next up on the classics list will probably be One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but first I need to start re-reading the Harry Potter books in preparation for the release of the final novel next month.

 

I was going to leave it until the beginning of July to start reading them (they're light reading so it shouldn't take long to get through them) but I really want to start on them soon so after the Stephen King novel (Different Seasons) that I'm reading right now, I might get through a couple of HPs and then start on Kesey's novel.

[Kylie]

OK, so next up on the classics list isn't One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. I didn't have enough time to get it started in between Harry Potter books and I've since moved on to Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut as I've been desperate to read it for a little while now. So far, so good!

 

I've also started listening to an audiobook of JM Barrie's Peter Pan, spoken by Jim Dale. This is my second attempt at an audiobook. The first time I tried, I went for a walk through some botanic gardens and got completely distracted by everything that was happening around me (which wasn't much - I'm just easily distracted ). I'll try to concentrate more this time

 

So that's one 'modern' classic and one 'classic' classic on the go. After that, nothing is going to get in the way of reading One Flew Over...!

[Kylie]

I've given up on the audio version of Peter Pan again; I just can't concentrate on audio books at the moment. I've decided to just read the ebook instead. Once read, that'll complete my goal of 15 classics for the year, so I might up the goal to 20, which should be easily achievable.

 

After Peter Pan, I'll be moving onto Anne of Green Gables for the August Reading Circle. And hopefully I'll have time left over at the end of the month to read Lady Chatterley's Lover, which I didn't get around to last month.

[Mels_bells]

Lady Chatterlys Lover- I know someone who says its really good. What is it about?

[Kylie]

Hi Mels Bells!

Lady Chatterley's Lover was chosen as the July book for the Reading Circle. A lot of our members read it and like it; you can read more about their views here. Kell also provides a very handy synopsis in the first post.

[Kylie]

An update to my Classics Challenge:

 

August has mostly been a good month for reading; I've been reading classics all month long so I've gotten a few out of the way (see earlier post for my ratings).

 

For starters, I finished One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. I read Carmilla by J Sheridan Le Fanu for the Comparative Reading Circle before moving on to Peter Pan by JM Barrie, which I read after giving up on the audio version.

 

Then came Anne Of Green Gables by LM Montgomery, which I read for the August Reading Circle and thoroughly enjoyed; I will definitely be reading more of the Anne... series in the future.

 

Things took a slight turn for the worse with Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence, which I was catching up on for the July Reading Circle, before decidedly picking up again when I read Diary Of A Nobody by George Grossmith .

 

I'm hoping my luck will hold out as I am now reading The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham. I believe this has received high praise on BCF by other members, and as I've already read and loved The Day Of The Triffids, I'm sure I'll enjoy this one too.

 

With the exception of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, all books I've read so far have been ebooks on my iPod, so it's a nice change to be holding a solid book (The Midwich Cuckoos) in my hands again.

[Kylie]

Bit of an update on how my Classics Challenge is going:

 

Finished The Midwich Cuckoos and Emma and have now moved on to Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I've been reading it for a week already but I haven't read much because I've not been able to concentrate on it for long periods at a time (been very tired in the last week and have had a bit going on). I have a long weekend coming up so I'm hoping to get plenty of reading done after I get plenty of sleep

 

Even though I've already reached my revised target of 20 classics for the year, I'm going to try to knock off a few more. I would love to get through the following before the end of the year (in this order):

 

Jack Kerouac: The Town and the City

Thomas Hardy: Far from the Madding Crowd

Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game

Truman Capote: In Cold Blood

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre

William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair

 

That works out at 2 per month and they're all quite lengthy!

[KathleenMacIver]

So how did you like Emma?

[Kylie]

I absolutely adored it, Katie I wrote a gushing review on my other (main) reading blog. I can't wait to read more of her work - she's one of my favourite authors. Have you read Emma? If so, what did you think?