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Victober


KEV67

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Does anyone do Victober? It's a BookTube (YouTube) thing. Katie from Books and Things and three other readers with YouTube channels mount a series of Victorian literature challenges. It's either a lot of fun, or a lot of reading. Last year the challenges were to read something by an author you'd liked before, to read a Victorian collection of letters or diary, to read something you'd been putting off for a long time, to read something in your favourite genre, and to read Shirley by Charlotte Brontë. Then you discuss them on GoodReads. I don't always feel the challenges are very scientifically selected. OTOH, it's a rare opportunity to discuss Victorian literature with other people. It takes place in October. I am guessing the group read will be Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell: she's well ahead in the poll. I don't know what the other challenges are yet. I hope one of them will allow me to read Framley Parsonage, because that's on my TBR shelf.

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Or listen to Victorian literature on Audible or any of the other talking book sites. As someone said elsewhere Victorian literature was made for reading aloud, I didn't like Trollope at all before I discovered him on Audible now I'm addicted. I'll be moving on to Dickens soon (I still have a hang up about reading him from having being made to plough through David Copperfield when I was 8).

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2 hours ago, France said:

Or listen to Victorian literature on Audible or any of the other talking book sites. As someone said elsewhere Victorian literature was made for reading aloud, I didn't like Trollope at all before I discovered him on Audible now I'm addicted. I'll be moving on to Dickens soon (I still have a hang up about reading him from having being made to plough through David Copperfield when I was 8).

So many people are put off from reading Dickens by school. I was put off him. I decided to give him another chance on his 200th anniversary, by reading Great Expectations. It was the most moving book I've ever read. Bleak House comes near it in that's it's so well written. I have read about another six of his books. They all have  something but none were be as good as Great Expectations and Bleak House in my view.

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  • 4 weeks later...

The Victober challenges have been set:

  • Read a book about the countryside or about the city
  • Read a book with a female main character
  • Read a sensation novel
  • Read a popular Victorian book you have not read yet
  • Read Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

I am not sure I like the challenges. In particular, I do not like the read a book about the countryside or the city challenge. Isn't that most Victorian novels. I don't like the read a popular Victorian book challenge neither because they have said that can be a book that was popular when it came out or a book that is popular now. Those are two quite different things. Nevertheless, I will read East Lynne, which is a sensation novel and a bestseller and has a female main character. It sounds quite interesting. I thought about reading Trilby by George du Maurier about a young artist's model called Trilby, which was extremely popular when it came out. I might read that another time. I will make a start on Framley Parsonage after East Lynne. I will not read all the Gothic Tales, but I might read Lois the Witch. I am not sure I like the sound of it, though. I considered reading Agnes Grey, which is also quite short.

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On 13/08/2021 at 11:22 PM, KEV67 said:

OTOH, it's a rare opportunity to discuss Victorian literature with other people.

I am always willing to talk about Victorian literature :lol:.

 

I do think the concept sounds interesting, I'll have a think about joining in! Although, you are right about the 'countryside or city' category; I'd find it more difficult to think of an example that is not set in the countryside or city. And popular at any point in history is also extremely vague. Technically anything that we can still get in print could be in that category. 

 

Unless you'd like to set up a Victober-style group read here just for the forum? We could set up a poll for the categories. I would definitely be up for that :)

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I can see you can have up to ten options on a poll. In the Victober rules, you are allowed to read a work of literature that completes more than one challenge. I quite like that idea, because in the past the four organisers presented a challenge each, then there was a group challenge, and a read-along. That can amount to a lot of reading. Personally, all I am prepared to read is one long story, a shorter story, and some shorter works. such as essays or poems. However, some readers take on a lot.

 

So how do you want to do this? Perhaps each participant (or first 10) issues a challenge. Then we present the challenges in a poll and the top three or four are picked?

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16 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

I'm in

 

11 hours ago, KEV67 said:

So how do you want to do this?

Excellent! :D I definitely agree that there shouldn't be a ton of reading, I wouldn't be able to do that either. Adding poems and short stories would make that much more manageable. 

 

11 hours ago, KEV67 said:

Perhaps each participant (or first 10) issues a challenge. Then we present the challenges in a poll and the top three or four are picked?

That sounds good to me! If fewer than ten people have challenge suggestions by next week then participants can suggest a second challenge. Alternatively, if a lot of people want to make suggestions, we can change the format slightly and do the poll in rounds.

 

I will be back soon with my challenge suggestion :lol:

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7 minutes ago, Raven said:

 

What is a sensation novel? (I've not come across the term before, but I'm assuming it doesn't have anything to do with posh crisps...)

 

The exemplars are The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret, and East Lynne. They generally include stuff like secret identities, bigamy, murder, blackmail, amateur sleuths, and young women being locked up in lunatic asylums. Their heyday was the 1860s.

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36 minutes ago, KEV67 said:

 

The exemplars are The Woman in White, Lady Audley's Secret, and East Lynne. They generally include stuff like secret identities, bigamy, murder, blackmail, amateur sleuths, and young women being locked up in lunatic asylums. Their heyday was the 1860s.

 

 

Thanks for that.  I probably could have looked it up, but we are here to engage!

 

(Slightly disappointed posh crisps are not involved...)

 

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Just to note, I've moved this thread over to Reading Challenges.

 

On 10/09/2021 at 12:32 PM, lunababymoonchild said:


So would I!  :lol:

:lol: 

 

15 hours ago, vodkafan said:

I'm in by the way :ph34r:

It would have been weird to have a Victorian event without you!

 

15 hours ago, vodkafan said:

I second  Lady Audley's Secret!  That is supposed to be the most shocking sensation novel of it's time. And I doubt any of us have read it yet.

I haven't! Just to check, is your challenge suggestion to read Lady Audley's Secret or to read a Victorian sensation novel?

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Sorry been out of it for a few days. I haven't really put any thought in yet , I just saw Lady Audley's Secret mentioned and knew it was a well known example of the genre.

The book I was going to put forward was A Victorian Family 1870-1900 by Molly Hughes  but that was before I saw the categories, and it won't fit any of those mentioned, being a memoir. (and it is a trilogy!)

Back to the drawing board... 

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11 hours ago, vodkafan said:

The book I was going to put forward was A Victorian Family 1870-1900 by Molly Hughes  but that was before I saw the categories, and it won't fit any of those mentioned, being a memoir. (and it is a trilogy!)

Back to the drawing board... 

You don’t need to follow the categories from the first post, we’re doing our own version, so throw any suggestion in there! Whatever you think people will enjoy most. We’ll all vote at the end to decide which challenges to go with :)

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Okay, as it has been a week now, I'd like to make a second suggestion! 

 

Challenge Suggestion 5: Read something from a Victorian periodical (non-fiction, short fiction, serialised novels and poems all count). Here's a link to all the periodicals edited by Dickens, in case anybody wants to have a browse before deciding: Welcome to DJO .

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