January 2018 and My Reading Challenges

Christmas at the Town Hall
© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

I've decided to include my reading challenges in this post because I've been doing so little reading lately that I'd have little to say otherwise.  Isn't that pathetic?  Oh well, a new year is here and with it new resolutions, so here goes ........

December went by so quickly.  My grandmother ended up passing away 4 days before Christmas.  It wasn't unexpected but still it was sad to see her go.  We'll certainly miss her but it was fun to remember her stories and the spunk she showed until the end. She had a long life, well lived.

Otherwise, I spent lots of time on the food blog and was so pleased with our 4 months of success.  You can read our 2017 Year in Review, if you want some stats, highlights, bloopers, funny tasting stories and if you want to see what I've been up to.  It was actually alot of fun to write.  I also was able to make it cross-country skiing once.  It was lots of fun, although I can tell I need some practice and my healing-once-broken-thumb does not have the power it used to yet, so I was feeling somewhat lopsided.  In any case, I plan to do much more skiing as the year progresses.  I also went bowling between Christmas and New Years and really enjoyed it so I think I might try to do it more regularly as well.  Too exciting, I know ...... , lol!

A View from Nordic Skiing
© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

As for reading, I did finish off The Pickwick Papers from O's long read-along and almost in time too!!  I also managed to read The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm and I was SOOOO impressed by it. Fromm examines the very rare art of loving and explains that our society does NOT practice any disciplines that will help us love better.  He also gives examples of various views we hold about love that impede our ability to love.  While reading these views, I kept recognizing people I knew ..... it was rather unsettling but very insightful.  I highly recommend Fromm's book!

An Unexpected Local Ice Storm
very beautiful but the poor trees!
© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

January is usually the time to start our yearly challenges and while I originally was so disappointed with my 2017 reading that I was going to do NO challenges this year, O managed to change my mind (although perhaps she doesn't know this! ;-) )  So I am joining the following challenges with little hope of completing them but knowing they will at least focus me and I will read SOMETHING by having them.  Okay, here goes:

Back to the Classics Challenge:

Karen at Books and Chocolate hosts this great challenge again and here are my choices:

A 19th century classic: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
A 20th century classic: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
A classic by a woman author: Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell
A classic in translation: Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
A children's classic: Teddy’s Button by Amy Lefeuvre
A classic crime story, fiction or non-fiction: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
A classic travel or journey narrative, fiction or non-fiction: Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne, or Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson
A classic with a single-word title: Meditations by Marcus Aurelius or, Shirley by Charlotte Brontë or, We by Yevgeny Zamyatin or, Pensées by Blaise Pascal
A classic with a colour in the title: The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
A classic by an author that's new to you: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell or, Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
A classic that scares you: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe or, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Re-read a favourite classic: The Iliad by Homer

TBR Pile Challenge:

Adam at Roof Beam Reader is hosting this challenge to get those books on our shelves read!  My list is here:

1. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
2. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
3. A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by Samuel Johnson and James Boswell
4. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
5. Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son by Sholem Aleichem
6. Lives by Plutarch
7. City of God by Saint Augustine
8. Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
9. The Waves by Virginia Woolf
10. The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
11. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
12. Le Rêve by Émile Zola

Alternates:

Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Victorian Challenge:

This is my first year doing this challenge.  Becky at Becky's Books and Reviews has a number of options.  I have no idea which I'm going to choose at the moment.  I'd love to do the A-Z challenge but I would be delusional to take on that one.  So I will probably just read and fill in some categories.  You can click on the link to look at the categories.

Deal Me In Challenge:

Jay at Bibliophilopolis hosts this challenge and has been very patient with my stumbling attempts to get through it.  I have no illusions that I'll finish it this year but what I love about this challenge is that it gets me reading wonderful stories, poems and essays which I would normally never pick up.  So I can be happy with my incompletedness each year ..... kind of .....

I took what I didn't finish from last year and simply chose new books to fill in the spots where I did read the stories/poem/essay.  Rather boring, but easy.  I need easy this year.

Clubs – Short Stories

A –  Cabbages and Kings - O’Henry

2 –  Excellent People - Anton Chekhov

3 –  The Queen of Spades – Alexander Pushkin

4 –  The Story of A Farm Girl - Guy Maupassant

5 –  The Hammer of God (Father Brown) - G.K. Chesterton

6 –  Doubtful Happiness - Guy Maupassant

7 –  The Honest Thief – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

8 –  The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane - G.K. Chesterton

9 –  The Diary of a Madman - Guy Maupassant

10 – The Birds - Anton Chekhov

J –  The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Gilman
Q -  Love - Leo Tolstoy 

K -  Signs and Symbols - Vladimir Nabakov

Spades – Essays

A – Milton - Charles Williams

2 – England, Your England - George Orwell

3 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream - G.K. Chesterton

4 – On A Faithful Friend – Virginia Woolf

5 – A Note on Jane Austen - C.S. Lewis

6 –  In Defence of Literacy - Wendell Berry

7 –  The Tyranny of Bad Journalism - G.K. Chesterton

8 –  The Hotel of the Total Stranger - E.B. White

9 –  An Apology for Idlers - Robert Louis Stevenson

10 – Sense - C.S. Lewis

J – Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community - Wendell Berry

Q – What I Demand of Life - Frank Swinnerton

K – Death of a Pig - E.B. White

Diamonds – Poetry

A – A Sea Dirge - Lewis Carroll

2 –  Gesang Der Geister Über Den Wassern - Johann Wolfgang

               von Goethe

3 – Nothing But Death - Pablo Neruda (from Poetry Soup)

4 – Sonnett XXIII - Garcilaso de la Vega

5 – Love Sonnet XIII - Pablo Neruda

6 – Resolution and Independence – William Wordsworth

7 – Ode III – Fray Luis de León

8 – Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

9 – To A Mouse – Robert Burns

10 – From Milton [Jerusalem] - William Blake

J –  Easter Wings – George Hebert

Q – On His Blindness - John Milton

K – Phoenix and the Turtle - William Shakespeare

Hearts – Children’s Classic

A – A Triumph for Flavius – Caroline Dale Snedeker

2 – Three Greek Children - Alfred Church

3 –  The Story of the Treasure Seekers – E. Nesbit

4 – Detectives in Togas – Henry Winterfeld

5 – The Spartan - Caroline Dale Snedeker

6 – Shadow Hawk  Andre Norton

7 – City of the Golden House - Madeleine Polland

8 – Red Sails to Capri – Ann Weil

9 – Sprig of Broom - Barbara Willard

10 – Teddy’s Button - Amy LeFeuvre

J –  Call It Courage – Armstrong Sperry

Q – Just David - Eleanor H. Porter

K – Beyond the Desert Gate – Mary Ray 

What is that saying about a wing and a prayer, lol?!

© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

As for other less bookish things planned for January, I am going to, of course, keep working on and building our food blog, Journey to the Garden.  It's something I enjoy (although not quite as much as book blogging) and if I could make some income from it I would be very pleased.  Skiing, of course, is planned and I'm starting a few lessons that I was able to join inexpensively with some homeschoolers, so that will be fun.  I also REALLY need to get back into some sort of exercise regime.  I've been doing some brief aerobics regularly, but I want to incorporate walking, and of course, I'd love to get back into yoga.  On the distasteful side, tax prep should be started now, so I'm not scrambling last minute to do it, and with the added blog for (hopefully someday) profit, I have many more expenses to track.  I wish it could be magically done, but I'm the only magician around here so it's up to me.  Sad but true.  But honestly, my main wish for January is to get back to being organized.  Prayers and wishes for this miracle are gratefully accepted, lol!

In any case, hoping for a wonderful start to the year for everyone!

© Cleo @ Classical Carousel

Back to the Classics Challenge 2017

One challenge I participate in every year is the Back to the Classics Challenge hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate.  I'm under the mistaken impression that because I read mainly classics, that this challenge will be easy to complete.  Ha!  My 2016 challenge is still lacking three books and one extra review.  I'll have to go back through my reads and do some fill-ins.  Whether I achieve successful completion is anyone's guess.

The 2017 challenge has familiar categorizes and those which have been changed up. Here are the guidelines and rules:

The challenge will be exactly the same as last year, 12 classic books, but with slightly different categories. You do not have to read 12 books to participate in this.

• Complete six categories, and you get one entry in the drawing
• Complete nine categories, and you get two entries in the drawing
• Complete all twelve categories, and you get three entries in the drawing

And here are the categories for the 2016 Back to the Classics Challenge:

1.  A 19th Century Classic - any book published between 1800 and 1899.

2.  A 20th Century Classic - any book published between 1900 and 1967. Just like last year, all books MUST have been published at least 50 years ago to qualify. The only exception is books written at least 50 years ago, but published later, such as posthumous publications.

3.  A classic by a woman author. 

4.  A classic in translation.  Any book originally written published in a language other than your native language. Feel free to read the book in your language or the original language. (You can also read books in translation for any of the other categories).

5.  A classic published before 1800. Plays and epic poems are acceptable in this category also.

6.  An romance classic. I'm pretty flexible here about the definition of romance. It can have a happy ending or a sad ending, as long as there is a strong romantic element to the plot.

7.  A Gothic or horror classic. For a good definition of what makes a book Gothic, and an excellent list of possible reads, please see this list on Goodreads. 

8.  A classic with a number in the title. Examples include A Tale of Two Cities, Three Men in a Boat, Slaughterhouse Five, Fahrenheit 451, etc.

9.  A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title.  It an actual animal or a metaphor, or just the name. Examples include To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men, The Metamorphosis, White Fang, etc. 

10. A classic set in a place you'd like to visit. It can be real or imaginary: The Wizard of Oz, Down and Out in Paris and London, Death on the Nile, etc.

11. An award-winning classic. It could be the Newbery award, the Prix Goncourt, the Pulitzer Prize, the James Tait Award, etc. Any award, just mention in your blog post what award your choice received.

12. A Russian Classic. 2017 will be the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, so read a classic by any Russian author. 

And now, the rest of the rules:

• All books must be read in 2017. Books started before January 1, 2017 do not qualify. All reviews must be linked to this challenge by December 31, 2017. I'll post links each category the first week of January which will be featured on a sidebar on this blog for the entire year. 

• You must also post a wrap-up review and link it to the challenge no later than December 31, 2017. Please include links within your final wrap-up to that I can easily confirm all your categories. 

• All books must have been written at least 50 years ago; therefore, books must have been written by 1967 to qualify for this challenge. The ONLY exceptions are books published posthumously.

• E-books and audiobooks are eligible! You may also count books that you read for other challenges.

• Books may NOT cross over within this challenge. You must read a different book for EACH category, or it doesn't count.

• Children's classics are acceptable, but please, no more than 3 total for the challenge.

• If you do not have a blog, you may link to reviews on Goodreads or any other publicly accessible online format. 

• The deadline to sign up for the challenge is March 1, 2017. After that, I will close the link and you'll have to wait until the next year! Please include a link to your original sign-up post, not your blog URL. 

• You do NOT have to list all the books you're going to read for the challenge in your sign-up post, but it's more fun if you do! Of course, you can change your list any time. Books may also be read in any order. 

• The winner will be announced on this blog the first week of January, 2018. All qualifying participants will receive one or more entries, depending on the number of categories completed. One winner will be selected at random for all qualifying entries. The winner will receive a gift certificate in the amount of $30 (US currency) from either Amazon.com OR $30 worth of books from The Book Depository. The winner MUST live in a country that will receive shipments from one or the other. For a list of countries that receive shipments from The Book Depository, click here. 

Possible choices could be:

• The Histories
• City of God
• The Taming of the Shrew
• Travels with a Donkey in Cevennes
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
• The Twelve Caesars
• Shirley
• The Mill on the Floss
• O Pioneers!
• The Merchant of Venice
• A Small House at Allington
• The Last Chronicle of Barset
• 1984
• Dr. Zhivago
• One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
• We
• Crime and Punishment
• Dead Souls

With a dearth of challenges that have been catching my eye for 2017, this one should get some particular focus.  Wish me luck and if you'd like to participate, pop over to Karen's blog and join the fun!

Metamorphoses by Ovid

“My soul would sing of metamorphoses.

but since, o gods, you were the source of these

bodies becoming other bodies, breathe

your breath into my book of changes: may

the song I sing be seamless as its way

weaves from the world’s beginning to our day.”

Publius Ovidius Naso was born in Sulmo, east of Rome in the year 43 B.C.  As a son of an upper middle class family, his father sent him to be educated in Rome to distinguish himself in a career in law or government.  Ovid was known as an exemplary rhetorician and worked at minor magisterial posts before quitting his public career to pursue poetry. Immediate success followed his first published elegy and by 8 A.D., the year in which Metamorphoses was published, he was one of the foremost poets of Rome.

Suddenly, in the same year, the emperor Augustus Caesar banished Ovid from Rome, and the poet went into exile in Tomis on the Black Sea.  The only clues we have to his exile is from Ovid himself where he refers to his carmen, or songs, and his error, or indiscretion.  Speculations abounds as to these two causes.  His poem Ars Amatoria, or The Art of Love, was a poetic manual on seduction and intrigue, which Augustus may have viewed as corrosive to the moral structure of Roman society, and may very well be the carmen of his sentence.  Rome, at that time, was experiencing a period of instability and Augustus was attempting to re-establish traditional religious ceremonies and reverence of the gods, encouraging people to marry, have children, and making adultery illegal.  Ovid's earlier poetry espoused extra-marital affairs and Metamorphoses is ripe with a very pronounced, and oftimes strange, sexual element in the myths recounted. The treatment of the gods is not reverential and perhaps it wasn't surprising that Augustus wished to rid himself of the popular poet.  Lamenting his exile in his poem Tristia and Epistulae ex Ponto (letters to friends asking for help with his return),  Ovid died in Tomis in 17 A.D.

Ruins of Tomis
source Wikipedia

Along with O at Behold the Stars, Cirtnece at Mockingbirds, Looking Glasses and Prejudices ... and Jean of Howling Frog Books, I began to read Metamorphoses in January and what a read it has been!  Here are links to my posts for all of the fifteen books of Metamorphoses:

Book I / Book II / Book III / Book IV / Book V / Book VI / Book VII / Book VIII / Book IX / Book X / Book XI / Book XII / Book XIII / Book XIV / Book XV 

In Metamorphoses (Metamorphōseōn librī), or Book of Transformations, Ovid relates over 200 transformations.  Composed in the epic meter of dactylic hexameter, as a whole, Ovid's tales don't appear to follow an obvious chronological order:  stories break off and are continued in other books; some stories wrap back around on themselves, there is a curious lack of important detail in some (which we know from other sources); and often there are stories nested within stories told in a media res format.  Even how Ovid relates his stories speak of flux and change.

The tales themselves offer a smattering of myths from Greek and Roman legend, including Cadmus, Perseus, Jason, Theseus, Hercules, the heroes of Troy and Julius Caesar, although the narratives can also include mortals and lesser deities.  Murder, rage, hubris, affairs, rape, and judgement of the gods abound in his tales, leaving the reader shocked, disgusted, enamoured, sad, engrossed, irritated, and often, conflicted; Ovid can provoke a myriad of emotions within the same story, evidence of the efficacy of his writing.

Ovid Banished from Rome (1838)
J.M.W. Turner
source Wikimedia Commons  

While Metamorphoses is our primary source for some myths, such as Apollo and Daphne, Phaeton, and Narcissus, the playful and ironic tone of the work suggests that we can't always take Ovid seriously in his delivery, and the myths themselves could have been subject to his alterations.  In addition, the work was set out in fifteen books, rather than the usual twenty-four of the common epic standard, and certain important names and actions are missing from very important narratives, such as Dido, queen of Carthage, Jason and Medea, the Trojan War, etc.  I can't help but feel that Ovid was writing with an agenda.  Was he perhaps attempting to "metamorphoses" the traditional epic poem, the traditional myths and the traditional religious tenor of Rome as well?

Ovid Among the Scythians (1859)
Eugène Delacroix
source Wikipedia

Yet in spite of the speculation, the graphic description, the sexual inferences, the gratuitous narrative and even the confusion, Metamorphoses is unparalleled as a literary adventure.  Ovid's work is certainly one that has a life of its own and its owner a share of its fame.  However, as the poem ends, Ovid reveals that fame and glory were his original intent.

" ..... But with the better part of me, I'll gain
a place that's higher than the stars: my name,
indelible, eternal, will remain.
And everywhere that Roman power has sway,
in all domains the Latins gain, my lines
will be on people's lips; and through all time ---
if poets' prophecies are ever right ---
my name and fame are sure: I shall have life."

While Ovid's works went out of fashion for a time, in the late 11th century classic literature gained a new life.  Ovid's writings began to have a significant influence on culture, the 12th century often being called The Ovidian Age.  As cathedral schools flourished in the early Middle Ages, Ovid's work was widely read as moral allegories, with added Christian meaning.  William Caxton published the first English translation of Metamorphoses in 1480, and the poet's influence continued, imbuing Shakespeare with many of his comparisons.  In fact, the many Ovidian allusions within Shakespeare's works are part of what makes it difficult reading for modern day readers, unless they are familiar with this work.  Ovid certainly has approached a fame and regard worthy of a great poet, and perhaps has vindicated himself within the realms of classic literature.

Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibbons

"It is difficult to make a dull garden, but old Mr. Wither had succeeded."

Stella Gibbons writes rather odd books.  Cold Comfort Farm, her best known and highly acclaimed novel, follows an orphaned, pert young woman to a mucky, rural farm and observes while she neatens and tidies all the morose, lurking, and deranged occupants into their proper places, finding love in the process.  Gibbons has a knack for depicting rather unusual and sometimes bizarre characters, and this flair for the unique has continued in her writing of Nightingale Wood. The introduction to the story labels it as a "fairy tale" and it is, although not along the usual lines one would expect from such a tale.  Gibbons' evil creatures often have angelic faces, and her happily-ever-afters can leave the reader uncertain of reality.  In playing with her characters, Gibbons appears to play with society and even the reader himself.  Her writing is not easily defined.

When Viola Wither finds herself a widow, parentless and very nearly destitute, she must accept the hospitality of her in-laws for her subsistence.  However, the Wither household is a quirky one, yet Viola, with her quiet and rather doe-eyed vacuity, manages to navigate the excessive expectations of her father-in-law, the ineffectualness of her mother-in-law and her two sisters-in-law, one who is a rather mannish, outdoorsy, opinionated woman, and the other a dull, thin, conventional woman with strangled hopes from an overbearing father.  Yet, in spite of the tedious country life she is forced to accept and Viola's credulous and nascent view of the world, she somehow manages to find her Prince Charming in this unlikely place.

"It has been hinted that her nature was affectionate; now that it had received encouragement there was no holding it; she was in love, so much in love that she did not realize that it was Wednesday morning and the letter had not come; and that the man she was in love with was the legendary Victor Spring.  Victor had now become Him.  He was less of a real person than ever.  She never once thought about his character or his income or his mother.  She was drunk.  She wandered about like a dazzled moth, smiling dreamily, and running downstairs when the postman came, crying:  'Anything for me?'"

Right away, we notice that Gibbons fairy-tale has some rough edges, that will never be filed smooth.  It is romance, but romance with an uncomfortable twist.  While Viola's Prince Charming is not only handsome, debonair and rich, he's also engaged to be married.  And although he is physically attracted to Viola, he doesn't even seem to remember her name.  His reaction to Viola after the ball is not one of an idealized lover:

"He was most strongly attracted to her, but not romantically.  The intentions of the Prince towards Cinderella were, in short, not honourable: and as we have seen, he thought it the prudent thing not to see her.

Sleeping Beauty
source Wikimedia Commons

However, this story is not only about Viola, and the Withers.  We have a number of other unconventional characters who populate the pages of this unique novel:  Hetty, Victor's cousin who loves books and her family not so much; Saxon, the young, handsome chauffeur whose family has come down in the world, as he tries to manage his rather slovenly, yet sexually indiscriminate mother; the loud and dirty woodland Hermit who takes great delight in terrorizing the gentry with his insightful, yet indelicate observations; and many, many more colourful personalities.  It's a kaleidescope of the English country life of the 1930s, but while the surface is nice and tidy, underneath there are swirling passions, undisclosed sentiment, and hidden resentment.

Certainly the novel has a fairy tale flavour to it, sprinkled with hyperbole, but Gibbons ensures that she imbues it with a healthy dose of realism.  In a lovely fantasy-style, Gibbons bestows on each character their heart's desire, yet the outcome of their desires are firmly entrenched in the reality of the 1930s, and their desires can perhaps turn out not to be as desirable as first expected.  On one hand, Gibbons shows incredible insight by investigating human desires, and then showing us how capricious the hand of fate can be, and how indiscriminate human nature can be, yet sometimes she doesn't seem to like her characters, almost manipulating and abusing them in a way that makes you wary of liking them, even if you wish to.  Reality descends on the characters, but often they seem to reject it, living inside a mental shell of their own making.  It's sort of an odd experience.  I feel that I've witnessed an explosion of Dodie Smith meets Virginia Woolf and I'm not sure if I like it.

Having written over 20 novels, Gibbons was rather annoyed that none of her other works received the attention of Cold Comfort Farm, yet perhaps the criticism is somewhat deserved.  While I enjoyed this book, I felt that it was difficult to really get to know any of the characters.  Perhaps this mental barricade was due to the radical treatment that Gibbons gives her characters, pressing the loud pedal at one time, and the soft at another.  Just when you think you have a character sketched, they behave in a way completely unexpected and you have to start all over again with a likeness.  The characters themselves struggle not only within the definitions Gibbons imposes on them, but societal definitions and self-definition, so the read becomes somewhat unsettling.  A fairy tale, yes, but a splintered fairy tale, where actuality rears its ugly face and blows away the clouds of expectations.

Prince Charming (1948)
Rene Magritte
source Wikiart

2016 Challenges ..... Here I Come!

Karen @ Books and Chocolate is once again hosting my favourite challenge of the year, the Back to the Classics Challenge.  Admittedly, it's my favourite challenge because it's my easiest challenge. About 95% of the books I'm reading lately are classics, so I'm all over this one.  I don't usually make a list for this challenge, as the books I read naturally correspond with the categories, however, I want to concentrate on my Classics Club List for this coming year, and my WEM Biographies Project continues, so there are some "maybe" titles that I can choose:

• The Lord of the Flies - William Golding (#11)
• Metamorphoses - Ovid (#4)
• Framley Parsonage - Anthony Trollope (#9)
• The Man in the Iron Mask - Alexandre Dumas (#6)
• The Time Machine - H.G. Wells (#7)
• The Man Who Knew Too Much - G.K. Chesterton (#8 or #12)
• That Hideous Strength - C.S. Lewis (#7)
• The Gulag Archipelago - Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (#10)
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X (#5)

Once again O at Behold the Stars is hosting the Reading England challenge.  I did well with my attempt at this challenge this year, so I've decided to do it again and learn more about English counties!

I don't have any set books planned for this one, but I'd like to read some counties that I hadn't covered in the 2015 Reading England challenge. And I still have to read my nemesis, Thomas Hardy, so his works are a possibility.

As well as concentrating on my Classics Club List, I also want to have some focus for my Shakespeare Project and I was happy to find The 2016 Bardathon Challenge.  

I'm planning to aim for the Mix-and-Match Shakespearean, reading, watching, performing (ha!), and/or listening to 5 plays.  I think I'll begin with Henry V, since it's the only play that I haven't read from the Henriad.

I'm looking forward to getting back into the Bard!

I joined the Books in Translation challenge last year and really enjoyed it, so I've decided to participate again this year.  I'm going to try for the Bilingual level, which is 7 - 9 translated works during 2016, but hopefully I'll be able to make the top level, Linguist, reading 10 - 12 translated works for the year.  

The 2016 Books in Translation challenge should work well with my Ancient Greek Reading Challenge.  

I've participated in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge every year and last year was the first year that I didn't make it and ended up 2 books short.  Yikes!  So in 2016, I need to regain my streak and manage to read at least 1 book per week. If I can't, I'm going to cry.

Jay at Bibliophilopolis hosts The Deal Me In challenge, my most challenging of challenges!  I tried it for the first time last year and failed miserably, yet it was my most valuable challenge because it forced me to read essays, poetry, short stories and children's classics that I wouldn't have read otherwise.  My list for this year:

Clubs – Short Stories

A –  Cabbages and Kings - O’Henry

2 – The Runaway - Anton Chekhov

3 –  The Queen of Spades – Alexander Pushkin

4 – Le Horla – Guy de Maupassant

5 – The Tell-Tale Heart - Edgar Allan Poe

6 – The Life You Save Might Be Your Own- Flannery O'Connor

7 – The Honest Thief – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

8 – A Little Woman - Franz Kafka

9 –  A Haunted House - Virginia Woolf

10 – The Birds - Anton Chekhov

J –  The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Gilman

Q – The Eyes - Edith Wharton

K -   Signs and Symbols - Vladimir Nabakov

Spades – Essays

A – Milton - Charles Williams

2 – Doodles in the Dictionary - Aldous Huxley

3 – A Midsummer Night’s Dream - G.K. Chesterton

4 – On A Faithful Friend – Virginia Woolf

5 – Shooting an Elephant - George Orwell

6 – Hamlet : The Prince or the Poem - C.S. Lewis

7 –  The Tyranny of Bad Journalism - G.K. Chesterton

8 – The World of Tomorrow – E.B. White

9 – Out of Your Car, Off Your Horse - Wendell Berry

10 – Sense - C.S. Lewis

J – Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community - Wendell Berry

Q – Different Tastes in Literature - C.S. Lewis

K – Vulgarity - G.K. Chesterton

Diamonds – Poetry

A – A Man’s a Man for a’That – Robert Burns

2 –  Gesang Der Geister Über Den Wassern - Johann Wolfgang

               von Goethe

3 – The Morning of Life - Victor Hugo

4 – Sonnett XXIII - Garcilaso de la Vega

5 – A Lover’s Complaint - William Shakespeare

6 – Resolution and Independence – William Wordsworth

7 – Ode III – Fray Luis de León

8 – Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

9 – To A Mouse – Robert Burns

10 – Tears, Idle Tears - Alfred LordTennyson

J –  Easter Wings – George Hebert

Q – On His Blindness - John Milton

K – Phoenix and the Turtle - William Shakespeare

Hearts – Children’s Classic

A – A Triumph for Flavius – Caroline Dale Snedeker

2 – Three Greek Children - Alfred Church

3 –  The Story of the Treasure Seekers – E. Nesbit

4 – Detectives in Togas – Henry Winterfeld

5 – Big John’s Secret – Eleanore M. Jewett

6 – The Tanglewood’s Secret – Patricia St. John

7 – The Wolves of Willoughy Chase - Joan Aiken

8 – Red Sails to Capri – Ann Weil

9 – Sprig of Broom - Barbara Willard

10 – Teddy’s Button - Amy LeFeuvre

J –  Call It Courage – Armstrong Sperry

Q – Tales from Chaucer - Eleanor Farjeon

K – Beyond the Desert Gate – Mary Ray 

And last, but most exciting, is the Ancient Greek Reading Challenge which I posted about here.  I'm planning on reading the dramatists, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, some comedies, and perhaps even make it to Plato and Aristotle if I'm feeling rather brave.

Other than these 2016 challenges, I have on-going projects such as:

My C.S. Lewis Project:  

I did wonderfully the first year but last year was a sorry sight.  I need to read at least a couple of Lewis this year.  Mere Christianity should be a "gimme" and I'd also love to start and finish The Screwtape Letters.  Otherwise Miracles is my favourite and The Abolition of Man would be a good one to try, as I struggled with it the first time I read it.

My Barsetshire Chronicles Read:

Sigh!  This was a complete failure last year.  I didn't even get one book read. The next up is Framley Parsonage, so I'm going to have to focus, focus, focus!

The Well-Educated Mind Biographies:

Okay, this is one challenge where I'm doing well, thanks to Ruth!  She keeps me honest.  Next up is Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.  There are 10 biographies left before we move on to Histories, so hopefully we'll finish them all this year.

My Shakespeare Project:

I've been moving reasonably slowly through this lately, but at least I'm moving.  I hope my Bardathon challenge will help me read some more of the Bard in 2016.


I'm also doing a few read-alongs including O's The Pickwick Papers Read-Along, Amanda's Children's Literature Event in April, and a few of us are reading Ovid's Metamorphoses (beginning now) and Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queene (beginning mid-April).  If anyone wants to join in on the last two, please let me know.  We keep getting new recruits!