Tag: Class

2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 134: Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Geoff W

I want to like Dickens—I really do. The only problem is that I’m convinced if he had a better editor these books would have been BEYOND amazing. The same thing happened while reading Great Expectations to me while reading A Tale of Two Cities. There were probably 200(+) pages in the middle of the book that just felt waffly and I could’ve done without. The openings were both great, once I got used to the language, and the endings were PHENOMENAL!

Great Expectaions counts for both my Mount TBR Challenge (20/25) and The Classics Club (11/100)!

I don’t want to boil this down to a love story, because it is so much more, but we all know my responses generally focus on one theme that really strikes me and the love of Pip for Estella definitely overwhelmed everything else (with the exception of his learning to love Magwitch). But seriously, how can you not be bowled over by the following quote? Click here to continue reading

2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 131: A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

Geoff W

I knew very little about Charles Dickens going into reading A Tale of Two Cities. Seriously, the most I know I’ve got from either The Muppets version of A Christmas Carol or the Doctor Who episode from a few years ago. (Yay Gwen!) I am glad, however, that I’m reading two of Dickens’ greatest most well-known novels this year as it is his 200th birthday! What better year to read it than on such an occasion?

I picked up this version of the book almost exactly a year ago helping my sister move to New Hampshire for grad school, mentioned in my very first Lunchbreak Interlude! I really only picked it up because I’d never read Dickens, it was incredibly cheap and is staggeringly beautiful I think – both the black and the red are actually imprinted so the cover has texture; and the pages are uneven cut. This novel counts as part of my Mount TBR Challenge (book 19 of 25 – 76%) and The Classics Club (book 10 of 100 – 10%).

Click here to continue reading.

2012 Challenges, Books, Quotes, The Classics Club

Book 119: Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

Geoff W

So sometimes it sucks to be well read, or at least appear so. A friend visited last weekend and she mentioned the ending, thinking I was re-reading it, which marred the ending for me. I had no idea how the story ended and although I would’ve had a good idea leading up to the moment she mentioned, I spent more time wondering when ‘it’ would happen rather than enjoying the story for the last 300+ pages.

Anna Karenina counts for the Mount TBR, Tea and Books, Back to the Classics and The Classics Club – and more importantly it puts me over the 50% mark on ALL 2012 challenges. (Right on goal for the year!)

Overall I’m really glad I read this. If not for the challenges I joined this year I doubt I ever would have gotten around to reading it. Not only did it make me have a new desire to learn more about Russia and it’s people, but it made me want to actually visit Russia. (At least theoretically, I’m still leaving Doctor Zhivago on my Back to the Classics as a place I realistically won’t visit.) What was probably most surprising about the novel was that they were just normal everyday people like in all the other classics I’ve read – and that Russia isn’t all snow and ice! Russia has farming and society and all the things I never thought it had. I enjoyed Tolstoy’s various characterizations of Russian high society – some desperately wanting to be European, and some desperately wanting to stay independent/non-European, especially when they travel in Europe.

Click here to continue reading.

2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 109: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë

Geoff W

How scandalously shocking! From divorce and debauchery to alcoholism and adultery, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was not only startling, but it was well ahead of its times in terms of Brontë’s revelations of the mistreatment of women, education of children and the inability to women to fend for themselves and their children regardless of position or circumstance.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall counts for both The Classics Club (4/85) and Mount TBR Reading Challenge (14/24). And although I enjoyed this novel, it will be some time before I read Villette, The Professor, or Shirley – definitely need a break. It also doesn’t hurt that I somehow ended up with two books from the library which I’m very excited about—books about books are always awesome! (And by somehow I mean I put them on reserve and am very happy they arrived quickly.) However, let’s jump in to my musings on the novel.

Click her to continue reading.

2012 Challenges, Books, The Classics Club

Book 108: Agnes Grey – Anne Brontë

Geoff W

A love story to make you smile. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Agnes Grey and although it was somewhat predictable, I felt it was well written and worthy of its place in the Brontë compendium. (Not the right word, someone help me!)

Reading Agnes Grey has even inspired me to follow it up with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne’s second novel. Agnes Grey counts for both my Mount TBR Challenge (13 of 25 – 52%) and The Classics Club (3 of 85 – 4%).

Let’s start with the end. I rarely leave the last line of a novel uncovered because it might hint at something, but this one doesn’t reveal anything and it was so finite that it just made me laugh and truly appreciate the way in which Anne Brontë wrote the novel.

“And now I think I have said sufficient.”

The finiteness of this line is perfect. It doesn’t allow for conversation or for interpretation – it says what it means and closes the novel succinctly. I feel as if I should close all of my email sand blog posts with said line, as it’s so cheeky and yet, somewhat humorously, sufficient.

Click here to continue reading.