Classics Club Spin

 It's time for another Classics Club Spin! You can find out about it here. My list:

1. The Watsons by Jane Austen
2. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
3. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
4. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
5. My Antonia by Willa Cather
6. The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
7. In the High Valley by Susan Coolidge
8. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
9. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
10. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
11. The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell
12. Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
13. Elizabeth, Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin
14. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
15. Further Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
16. Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery
17. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
18. The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild
19. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
20. The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge

Hopefully, this will help me to make a bit of progress with my list, of which I've been rather neglectful of late.

October Books

I haven't done a monthly recap post for a while, but I haven't posted much lately so I thought I'd do a summary of what I've read this month.

 

 

Firstly, I finally finished Lord of the Rings! I think it's been round about a year, perhaps just over, since I first picked up The Fellowship of the Ring. I tend to be very slow about reading long books - I need to take breaks to read other things in the middle - but I didn't quite expect to take so long to finish. I did enjoy it, and am partly tempted to start over again with FOTR, since it feels like an age since I read that. At any rate, I can now say that I have read it.

I made some progress with Mount TBR this month; I'm still hopelessly behind my goal of 24 books, but I did get a few off: The Return of the King (as mentioned above), Scarlet by Marissa Meyer, and Forged in the Fire by Ann Turnbull. Scarlet was a disappointment - despite having really enjoyed Cinder (last year), I found this a bit of a chore to get through; I think I just wasn't that interested in Scarlet and Wolf or their story. I did enjoy the bits with Cinder and Kai more. I'll probably still move on to Cress eventually, as it sounds like I'll enjoy it more, but it's not a top priority. Forged in the Fire I really enjoyed - despite also taking me a long time to read - but it's the kind of book you can quite easily put down and come back to without too much trouble. It's the sequel to No Shame, No Fear, which I read quite a number of years ago now, about Quakers and religious persecution in seventeenth-century England; this book (as the title suggests) deals with the years of the plague and the Great Fire of London. I'd recommend both books, and am looking forward to reading the third one, Seeking Eden.

 

Other books I've read this month:

The Bookseller's Tale by Ann Swinfen (reviewed here)

Jane Austen and Names by Maggie Lane; this was quite an interesting read, although short, although I already knew a bit about the subject so there wasn't that much that was new, and there were a couple of things that were incorrect, although these were pretty minor things. There was an index of names mentioned in Jane Austen's book at the back, which I thought was helpful.

Mr. Majeika on the Internet by Humphrey Carpenter; a fun, but kind of wacky children's book, that I'd definitely have enjoyed as a child.

Adrienne and the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer; enjoyable, but I prefer the earlier books in the series.

A Very Distant Shore by Jenny Colgan; this was OK.

 

Also, this is my 100th post! I find it hard to believe I've written so many, but there you are.

2017 Reading Challenges

I've decided to sign up for a couple of reading challenges this year. First, Mount TBR, hosted by My Reader's Block, because I have a lot of books that I've bought but haven't got around to reading yet, and I really want to make some progress on the stack this year. I've decided to sign up for Mont Blanc, which is 24 books that I already own. This doesn't sound particularly challenging but it's twice as many as I managed last year, so it seems a reasonable number to aim for! I'm including Kindle books that I paid for, but not free ones.

 

I've also discovered the Old School Kidlit reading challenge hosted by Read-at-Home Mom. This sounds very much my sort of thing, so I decided to participate. The idea is to read classic or older children's books, with monthly themes; January's theme is Award Winners, and I will probably be reading either The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge or The Circus is Coming by Noel Streatfeild, both of which have won the Carnegie award, and both are currently sitting unread on my shelf, so this will also help my progress towards Mount TBR.

 

 

Besides these challenges, I'm also going to try to read one book from my Classics Club list, one non-fiction book and one re-read per month. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'd like to aim for it! This month I'm reading The Two Towers for the Classics Club, L is for Lifestyle by Ruth Valerio for non-fiction (although I have several other non-fiction books on the go which may or may not be finished this month), and I've just finished re-reading Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince, which I recently got the sequel to but realised that I remembered very little about this book! I enjoyed it just as much this time around, and am looking forward to reading the next book, North Side of the Tree.

Classics Club Spin!

It's time for another Classics Club Spin! I've had limited success with these so far - I completed the first book a few days late, and have yet to complete the second - but I can never resist this sort of thing so I thought I'd have a go at this one anyway. I've been making pretty slow progress with my list so far so I need something to spur me on to read more from it :)

My Spin list:

1. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
2. The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
3. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
5. In the High Valley by Susan Coolidge
6. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
7. The Growing Summer by Noel Streatfeild
8. The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild
9. The Watsons by Jane Austen
10.  Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
11. Clouds of Witness by Dorothy Sayers
12. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Gaskell
13. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery
14. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
15. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
16. My Antonia by Willa Cather
17. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
18. Elizabeth Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin
19. The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge
20. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Classics Club Spin (Again)

It's time for another Classics Club Spin. Last time I did finish my book but was a few days late in doing so; hopefully I'll do better this time.

Five books I'm slightly intimidated by:

1. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore

2. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

3. Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell

4. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott

5. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

Five books I've been meaning to read for ages:

6. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

7. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

8. Elizabeth Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin

9. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

10. The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild

Five books I can't wait to read:

11. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

12. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

14. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery

15. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Five books I'm neutral about:

16. Villette by Charlotte Brontë

17. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

18. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

19. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder

20. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Classics Club Spin

I'm participating in the next Classics Club Spin. This requires listing twenty books from my list, then next week a random number will be announced and I have to read whichever book is that number on the list. (Click on the picture to find out more.) I've tried to include a mixture of books that I'm looking forward to reading and books that I'm slightly apprehensive about.

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams
2. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
3. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
4. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
5. My Antonia by Willa Cather
6. In the High Valley by Susan Coolidge
7. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
8. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
10. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
11. Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
12. Elizabeth Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin
13. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
14. The Light Princess and Other Stories by George MacDonald
15. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery
16. The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery
17. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
18. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
19. The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild
20. The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge

In which I join the Classics Club

I've decided to join the Classics Club! The idea is that you challenge yourself to read at least 50 classics in five years (or less), and review them on your blog. This shouldn't be too much of a challenge for me since I read a lot of classics anyway, but I hope it will encourage me to review books more as well as being a chance to connect with other readers of classics. If you want more information about the challenge, you can find out about it here.

This is my proposed list of books to read; it may change over time. Most of the books are ones I already own but haven't read yet, with a few others that I just really want to read. At the moment I am setting my goal for completion at three years from now (so February 7, 2019) but I may change this depending on how the challenge goes.

1. Watership Down by Richard Adams
2. Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott
3. The Watsons by Jane Austen
4. Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore
5. Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
6. Villette by Charlotte Brontë
7. The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
8. My Antonia by Willa Cather
9. The Innocence of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
10. The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
11. In the High Valley by Susan Coolidge
12. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
13. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
14. Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
15. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
16. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
17. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
18. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
19. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
20. The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell
21. Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell
22. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
23. Cotillion by Georgette Heyer
24. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
25. Elizabeth Captive Princess by Margaret Irwin
26. Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain by Margaret Irwin
27. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
28. The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
29. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
30. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
31. The Light Princess and Other Stories by George MacDonald
32. At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald
33. The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
34. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
35. Further Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery
36. The Story Girl by L.M. Montgomery
37. Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery
38. Pat of Silver Bush by L.M. Montgomery
39. Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
40. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
41. Macbeth by William Shakespeare
42. The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfeild
43. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
44. Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson
45. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
46. The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
47. The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
48. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
49. On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder
50. The Chaplet of Pearls by Charlotte Mary Yonge