December brings us to the end of the
Classics Challenge, hosted by Katherine at November's Autumn. I had never joined a challenge before when I signed up for this last November (along with the TBR Double Dare). I have really enjoyed participating, in reading the books and then considering different aspects of them through the monthly prompts. I've also enjoyed seeing what others have read, which has added some books to my TBR shelves. Thanks again to Katherine for hosting us!
I didn't manage to read everything on the list that I originally drew up for the Challenge (which fortunately didn't disqualify me) :
- Jane Austen's Persuasion - which I'm currently re-reading.
- Anthony Trollope's The Three Clerks
- Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own - still on the TBR shelves.
- George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion
- Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Women - also still languishing on the TBR shelves.
- Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men on the Bummel
- Henry Fielding's Tom Jones - I made it to page 452 (of 871) before giving up - but I will finish it.
Other classics I posted about for the Challenge include Charlotte M. Yonge's
The Heir of Redclyffe, Oscar Wilde's
Salome and The Importance of Being Earnest, Mark Twain's
The Innocents Abroad, and William Makepeace Thackeray's
Vanity Fair.
Now I'm off to collect my cool "challenge completed" button!
What an impressive reading year! Your reading Fielding reminds me of another doorstop novel I've been wanting to get around to, Thackeray's Pendennis. Maybe in 2013.
ReplyDeleteFay. I was so taken with Vanity Fair that I quickly found a copy of Pendennis - which is sitting on my TBR shelves, quite the doorstop as you say! Maybe we could have a reading group :)
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on completing the challenge! I quit somewhere around July and now I really regret it - i wish that I had stuck with it.
ReplyDeleteThank you! though I can't claim too much credit. I was reading classics that I could fit into the challenge - if I'd had to stick to my reading list I wouldn't have done very well.
ReplyDeleteI just want to put in a good word for Mary Wollstonecraft. I thought Rights of Women was a wonderful book. Much easier to read than I had expected, too.
ReplyDeleteJames, I do want to read it - I bought it after hearing a lecture on education of women in Austen's times that cited it. I'm encouraged to hear that you found it easier to read. The first few pages are a bit intimidating!
ReplyDeleteSorry I just now am dropping in to congratulate you on completing the challenge. I loved participating in it too, and am trying to find a good classics challenge for 2013. I'm not into "rules" so just want to find other classics readers to chat with as I work my way through my list.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, I'm a big fan of Pygmalion and hope to reread it in 2013, likewise Importance of Being Earnest. Vanity Fair is one of my all-time favorite novels (although I thought I would never say it, but multiple readings makes me see it in new lights). I adore Persuasion, and look forward to The Three Clerks someday soon! I found A Room of One's Own unreadable, but Virginia Woolf and I are not sympatico, I'm afraid. I would love to read Vindication, but that will take tremendous willpower.
Happy Holidays and best wishes for a wonderful book-filled new year!
Jane, thank you! Happy holidays to you too! One of my favorite parts of the challenge was seeing what other people were reading, and I'm glad to have "met" you through it. I'm going to miss those monthly prompts.
ReplyDeleteI admit, I haven't really taken to Virginia Woolf's fiction, so I thought I'd try some of her non-fiction.