Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

❌B1: 18th Century or Earlier Classic Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week 💒 ⭐️
❌B2: Book Chosen by the Cover Inferno 👹 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌B3: European Classic Les Liaisons dangereuses ✍🏻💋 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌B4: Telegraph’s 100 Novels List Eugene Onegin 💏 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌B5: 20th Century Classic One of Ours 🏕🚢🎻 ⭐️⭐️⭐️

❌I1: Book from the Group’s Bookshelf Prior to 2019 The Age of Innocence 💵 💍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌I2: New-to-You Author Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze 💃🦸‍♀️🕵️‍♀️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌I3: Classic Play Hippolytus ⚡️😍💀⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌I4: Literary Prize of Your Country Normal People 😍🤦‍♀️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌I5: Classic on Your Bookshelf For over a Year Chronicle in Stone 🇦🇱💣 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

N1: South American Classic
❌N2: Short Story Collection Monday or Tuesday 🤷🏼‍♀️💐 ⭐️⭐️
❌N3: FREE SPACE Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History 💊🔪☠️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌N4: Poetry or Essay Collection Essays on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare Compared with Greek and French Writers: Volume 12 🎭 ⭐️⭐️
❌N5: Asian Classic Miss Sophie's Diary and Other Stories 👬🛏 ⭐️⭐️

❌G1: Winner of a Foreign Literary Prize Brother 🎤👨🏾‍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌G2: Classic By a Female Author The Adventures of David Simple 💑 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌G3: Classic Non-fiction The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself ⛵️⛓ ⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌G4: Written by Nobel Laureate As I Lay Dying 🛌💀⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌G5: Book from the Group's 2019 Bookshelf Common Sense 📖🇺🇸 ⭐️⭐️

❌O1: 19th Century Classic Bleak House 🤷🏼‍♀️📚😒 ⭐️⭐️
O2: Classic Sci-fi or Fantasy
❌O3: Classic Comedy or Satire Vile Bodies 🎩🍾 ⭐️⭐️⭐️
❌O4: Classic Romance The Reader 📖🛁 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
O5: 21st Century Potential Classic

Ideas! There's a lot of possibilities to start with!

These are the squares that take a bit more thought from me -

B4 Telegraph 100 Novels -
Midnight's Children
✔︎Eugene Onegin
On the Road
Underworld
The Grapes of Wrath
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
David Copperfield
The Portrait of a Lady

I1 Group bookshelf prior to 2019
The Iliad
Paradise Lost
Despair
The Portrait of a Lady
The Grapes of Wrath
✔︎The Age of Innocence
The Brothers Karamazov
For Whom the Bell Tolls

I3 Classic Play
A Streetcar Named Desire
Death of a Salesman
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
No Exit
Hedda Gabler
The Seagull
✔︎Hippolytus

I4 Literary Prize of your country
A Brief History of Seven Killings
Midnight's Children
The English Patient
Rites of Passage
Schindler's Ark
Half of a Yellow Sun
A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing
✔︎Normal People

N1 South America
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The House of the Spirits
Death in the Andes

Hope you have fun with this challenge for 2019, Pink. Love seeing your ideas and possibilities.

Thanks for ideas for some categories. They are helpful to me in my plotting and planning for 2019!

I recently read Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa and really liked it. It would be another good option for South America topic. He fits in Nobel Prize winner, too! You have a lot of excellent book to choose from. I really enjoyed No Exit last year. That was my first attempt at Sartre.

I don't know what to say about "The House of the Spirits" except that it is in my challenge too, but "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is very good and if you haven't read it you definitely should.

House of the Spirits is my all time favorite book. I hope those of you who choose to read it will enjoy it.

Brina wrote: "House of the Spirits is my all time favorite book. I hope those of you who choose to read it will enjoy it."

Your love for this book is the reason I added it to my list!

Tammy wrote: "I recently read Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa and really liked it. It would be another good option for South America topic. He fits in Nobel Prize winner, too..."

Thanks for the recommendation :)

Thanks for the list, I-4 Literary Prize of your country. It helps me find one for G-1 Winner of a Foreign Literary Prize. I think I have already admitted to being lazy. Thanks again.

Bob wrote: "Thanks for the list, I-4 Literary Prize of your country. It helps me find one for G-1 Winner of a Foreign Literary Prize. I think I have already admitted to being lazy. Thanks again."

Haha, I'll be doing exactly the same with other people's challenges. The bonus of having an international book group!

Great list of possibilities! :0)

Love your list of possibilities! I can't wait to see which ones you choose. Hope you have fun with the challenge :)

And I’m off...two books down.

As I lay dying - 3 stars
Reflections on the seven days of the week - 1 star

Good start. I love the emojis and why not if motivates you to get the books checked off faster ;)

Thanks, I thought the emojis might make things more fun! Wonder if they’ll work for everything I read!

B5 - 20th century classic
One of Ours by Willa Cather

I found this a well written, but sometimes uneven story about a disillusioned young farming man, who found his own solace on the battlefield. 3 stars

Pink wrote: "B5 - 20th century classic
One of Ours by Willa Cather ***

I found this a well written, but sometimes uneven story about a disillusioned young farming man, who found ..."

Definitely not her best work.

I feel the same way about One of Ours. I enjoyed the first half, while he was still in the United States, much better than the second half of the book.

Marilyn, would you recommend another by Cather? I’ve only read this and My Antonia, which I didn’t like so much.

Pink wrote: "Marilyn, would you recommend another by Cather? I’ve only read this and My Antonia, which I didn’t like so much."

Try Death Comes for the Archbishop. Or if you would rather commit to a shorter work, the novella My Mortal Enemy.

Thanks for the recommendation

I read four books in January, which are nicely scattered across the bingo board.

Best book - Les Liaisons dangereuses 5 stars
Worst book - Reflections on the Seven Days of the Week 1 star
Average - One of Ours and As I Lay Dying 3 stars

I envy the skills I don’t possess. Your Bingo card is great!

I agree! It's gawjuss!!!

Thanks Bob, to be honest I’m amazed myself that I was able to do it, I’m usually rubbish at things like that!

How did you do that?! Amazing!!

Samanta wrote: "How did you do that?! Amazing!!"

I saved the bingo image, then used fotor.com as a free online photo editor. To add the book covers, I just copied the picture I wanted, uploaded and cropped it to size on top of the bingo picture. Then I saved the entire photo and uploaded back to goodreads, using the html code. There are probably easier ways of doing it, but like I say, these things are not my forte!

I’ve added two more books to my board -

I2 New to you author - Fantomina; or, Love in a Maze by Eliza Fowler Haywood 4 stars

This was great fun and a nice quick read in one sitting.

N2 Short story collection - Monday or Tuesday by Virginia Woolf 2 stars

Typical Woolf! A meandering writing style, but with a disctinct charm. Some of these stories were bizarre and wonderful, but most were too dreamlike and confusing for me.

Pink wrote: "Samanta wrote: "How did you do that?! Amazing!!"

I saved the bingo image, then used fotor.com as a free online photo editor. To add the book covers, I just copied the picture I wanted, uploaded an..."


Very cool. I also was wondering how to do that. I really admire yours, but do not have confidence I could replicate it. Nice job!

G1 - Winner of a foreign literary prize
Brother by David Chariandy

I’d never heard of this, but it kept showing up on BorrowBox (online library) under the category of prize winners, so I thought I’d give it a try. I’m glad I did, as it was a well written and enjoyable story, focused on the relationship between two young and struggling brothers. 4 stars.

O3 - Classic Comedy or Satire
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh

There was a point in the second half where the biting satire and absurdity wore thin, but the writing saw me through and it was a solid 3 stars. I preferred Decline and Fall, although they're really quite similar books.

B2 - Book chosen by the cover
Inferno by Dante Alighieri


I knew immediately what book would fill this category and it’s a beauty! I had no intention of reading Dante’s Inferno when I picked it up (full price in an actual bookshop, almost unheard of for me!) but I couldn’t resist the embossed design. Unfortunately it sat languishing on my shelf for the past five or so years, but 2019 was its lucky year! I’m glad I finally gave it a chance, it was a beautifully written and complex book, but I can see why we’re still reading it 700 years later! 3.5 stars

I am glad you liked it Pink. It did seem very daunting but for me was well worth the effort. The historical backstories were fun. That said, I don't think I would read Purgatario or Paradiso.

I1 - Book from the group’s bookshelf prior to 2019
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Really good! I can see why this is talked about still and gets such high reviews. 4.5 stars

O4 - Classic Romance
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink

I loved this! A bit of a dubious romance really, between a 15 year old boy and older woman, who has darker secrets than starting an affair with a minor. I enjoyed the sparse writing, the love, guilt, complexities of relationships and humanity as a whole. I went into this completely blind and I think it worked best that way, not knowing what was coming in the second half. 5 stars

You're on a roll! I'm now compelled to read The Age of Innocence and The Rader. And your copy of Inferno is very beautiful indeed.

Lotte wrote: "You're on a roll! I'm now compelled to read The Age of Innocence and The Rader. And your copy of Inferno is very beautiful indeed."

Thanks, I’d recommend them both :)

Wow! one more and you are half way to a black out. If we had an award for best B2 cover I think you would win.

Thanks Bob, my board is filling up nicely, but not bingo yet!

N3 - Free Space
Lady Killers: Deadly Women Throughout History

For a grisly topic, this was an enjoyable and breezy read! 3 stars

G3 - Classic Non Fiction
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Written by Himself

More a providential account of transantlantic sailing in the slave trade, this was an unusual narrative, written with the purpose of ending British participation. 3 stars

G5 - Book from the group’s 2019 bookshelf
Common Sense by Thomas Paine

I found this ok, setting out reasons for American independence. It was quite a contrast to my previous book, written around the same time, both with their own motives, either to abolish British rule of colonies, or that of slavery. Two sides of the same coin perhaps. 2 stars.

B4 - Telegraph's 100 Novels List
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin

This was so much more enjoyable than I expected. Definitely helped along by a great translation and narration (Falen, read by Stephen Fry) 4 stars

Oh and that makes my first level 1 bingo! Only took 15 books this year!

^5! :)

Pink wrote: "Oh and that makes my first level 1 bingo! Only took 15 books this year!"

Congratulations on the Bingo!

Ooh I like that picture set up Bingo of yours, Pink. Perhaps I'll mess around in Paint later today.

Congrats on your Bingo!

Pink wrote: "Oh and that makes my first level 1 bingo! Only took 15 books this year!"

Congrats to you!