Tag: Classics

Meme, The Classics Club

The Classics Club – September 2012 Meme

Geoff W

Those jokers over at The Classics Club sure have a sense of humor.

They want us to “Pick a classic someone else in the club has read from our big review list. Link to their review and offer a quote from their post describing their reaction to the book. What about their post makes you excited to read that classic in particular?”

Not asking for much are they?  Hold on a sec while I go read the 375 posted reviews as of writing this (I’m sure there will be more by time I post this.)  But all kidding aside, I think this is a great idea! I think the moderators made an astute decision to further build a community around this challenge.  I’ve already been tagged in two post, thanks Missy at Honeybee’s Attic and Athena at aquatique, and this meme pushes me to reach out and read new reviewers.

I enjoy reading the plethora of The Classics Club reviews out there, I mean my RSS feed has increased by at least 50% since the challenge started, but I settled on Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (my response 5/13). I chose this for two reasons: my next book is Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote and I will eventually read Breakfast at Tiffany’s as part of The Classics Club.

Click here to continue reading.

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%).

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Meme, The Classics Club

The Classics Club – August 2012 Meme

Geoff W

I don’t usually participate in memes, other than the random ones I do in my head, but I think I’ll participate in The Classics Club meme as it’s only once a month and it’s such a great community. If you haven’t checked it out, click the image to the right! Or click here. (I feel like most of you regular commenters are already a part of it!)

My instinct was to say one of the Jane Austen novels. I’ve read each of them at least once and most of them at least twice and I did read my favorite already for this challenge, Mansfield Park – but I decided not to go with Jane Austen.  My next thought was to go with one of the ‘young adult’ novels that I love like something by Madeline L’Engle, J.K. Rowling or Louisa May Alcott, but I vetoed that too.

And then I realized rather than choosing my favorite classic of all time, I’m going to choose my favorite classic I’ve read for the challenge so far. I don’t read a lot of classics in general, as you can see by my very short re-read list for this challenge, so I’m using this challenge to broaden my classic (primarily Western) literature reading.

Click here to continue reading and to see my choice!

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.

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