2025 Deal Me In Challenge

Deal Me In Challenge

Here I go again with a 2025 Deal Me In Challenge. I skipped a year but this year I have someone to keep me company and push me to actually accomplish something. So we’ll see how it goes.

My own personal Deal Me in Challenge has four categories that correspond to the suits of playing cards:

♣️ Clubs: Short Stories;
♠️ Spades: Essays;
♦️ Diamonds: Poetry
♥️ Hearts: Children’s Classics.

Here is my Deal Me In Challenge 2025 List:

♣️ Clubs – Short Stories:

A♣️ – The Honest Thief – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2♣️ – The Shot – Alexander Pushkin

3♣️ – The Story of A Farm Girl – Guy Maupassant

4♣️ – Quench the Spark – Leo Tolstoy

5♣️ – Le Chêne et le Roseau (The Oak and the Reed) – Jean de la Fontaine

6♣️ – A Warning to the Curious – M.R. James

7♣️ – The Unpresentable Appearance of Colonel Crane – G.K. Chesterton

8♣️ – The Happy Family – Hans Christian Andersen

9♣️ – Bezhin Lea – Ivan Turgenev

10♣️ – The Maiden Without Hands – The Brothers Grimm

J♣️ – L’Enfant et le Maître d’Ecole (The Boy and The Schoolmaster) – Jean de la Fontaine

Q♣️ – A Cup of Cold Water – Edith Wharton

K♣️ – The Diary of a Madman – Guy Maupassant

♠️ Spades – Essays

A♠️ – A Modest Proposal – Jonathan Swift

2♠️ – Once More To The Lake – E.B. White

3♠️ – Letters from Birmingham Jail – Martin Luther King, Jr.

4♠️ – The Man Who Thinks Backwards – G.K. Chesterton

5♠️ – The Art of Political Lying – Jonathan Swift

6♠️ – Employments of A Housewife in the Country – Samuel Johnson

7♠️ – Of The Feeling of Immortality in Youth – William Hazlitt

8♠️ – Of The Inequality Between Us – Michel de Montaigne

9♠️ – The Tyranny of Bad Journalism – G.K. Chesterton

10♠️ – Psycho-analysis and Literary Criticism – C.S. Lewis

J♠️ – Self-Reliance – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Q♠️ – Reflections on Gandhi – George Orwell

K♠️ – Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community – Wendell Berry

A Young Man and a Girl Playing Cards (1606-1669) Rembrandt van Rijn
~ source Wikimedia Commons

♦️ Diamonds – Poetry

A♦️ – From Milton [Jerusalem] – William Blake

2♦️ – To A Mouse – Robert Burns

3♦️ – Love Sonnet XIII – Pablo Neruda

4♦️ – Gesang Der Geister Über Den Wassern – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

5♦️ – Ode III – Fray Luis de León

6♦️ – Sonnet 57 – William Shakespeare

7♦️ – A Sea Dirge – Lewis Carroll

8♦️ – I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud – William Wordsworth

9♦️ – The Tiger by William Blake

10♦️ – The Lake Isle of Innisfree – William Butler Yeats

J♦️ – Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost

Q♦️ – Sonnet XXIII – Garcilaso de la Vega

K♦️ – Sonnet 73 – William Shakespeare