If there’s one challenge I regularly participate in each year, it’s the Back to the Classics challenge. I participate whether I complete it or not as it gets me reading more classics and often helps me with my Classics Club list. I’m so glad that it’s back this year to give me more focus with my reading.
Author Archives: Cleo
Ten Books to Finish in 2022
With both Christmas and New Year now over, I still haven’t posted any challenges and I’m still mulling over what I want to tackle. But what I do have is a couple of lists which I want to focus on. I usually read multiple books at a time but I’ve developed a bad habit over the last few years of starting books and not completing them, even though I have every intention of finishing. So my first list for the new year is unfinished books that I need to … well, FINISH!
Giant’s Bread by Mary Westmacott (Agatha Christie)
Giant’s Bread: “It was New Year’s Eve.”
Main Character: Vernon Deyre
Published: April 1930 (14th published book)
Length: 437 pages
Setting: various: Abbots Puisannts, London, Germany, Holland, Moscow, New York, etc.
My chronological Agatha Christie read continues with Giant’s Bread, her first novel published under the pseudonym, Mary Westmacott. There is no detective work in this story, as Christie/Westmacott treats her readers to a very modern novel. In any case, it must have been a much needed break from the detective novels Christie was expected to write.
Covering a vast number of characters and spanning a few decades of years, this first contemporary novel written under a pseudonym, proves Christie wanted this genre of her writing judged on its own merits instead of being buoyed up by her previous successes.
The Christmas Present by Richmal Crompton
“Mary Clay looked out of the window of the old farmhouse.”
I’ve deviating from my Everyman Christmas compilation with a Christmas story out of a collection of Librivox short stories. The Christmas Present was written by Richmal Crompton, an English woman author, and is a curious story in more ways than one. Let’s find out why …
Vanka by Anton Chekhov
Another Christmas season and it’s time to pull out my Everyman’s Pocket Classics with 20 Christmas stories, each written by a well-known classic author. This year we start with Anton Chekhov’s short story Vanka. which is the sixth story in the compilation and one that will pull at your heartstrings. So let’s meet Vanka …
The Great Ideas ~ The Uniqueness of Man
My, it’s been a long time since I posted on an essay/talk from this project. Even though I was so excited to get to the next section on love, this series on Darwin finally stalled me. It was interesting but after 4 essays delving into Darwin and evolution, I was approaching a stupor. So with some time passed, I’m determined to get through this last essay!
Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Quo Vadis: “It was close to noon before Petronius came awake, feeling as drained and listless and detached as always.”
Quo Vadis was part of the read-along hosted by Nick at One Catholic Life and, thanks to him, I’ve finally finished this book that I’ve long been meaning to read. It was truly fascinating to be completely immersed in the Roman Empire under Nero, and Sienkiewicz did an outstanding job of describing it’s grandeur and excesses, it’s beauty and cruelty, in a way that remains with the reader long after he is finished the novel. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Quo Vadis helped Sienkiewicz win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905.
Classics Club Spin #28 …………. And the Winner Is …………..
Classics Club Spin #28
Another day, another spin and I’m in! I haven’t finished my last spin ….. yet. I’m still reading through The Merchant of Venice but at least I started and do plan to finish so it’s not a complete fail. And I’ve discovered a new energy to read some of the books on my Classics Club list. So a spin is just the thing. Let’s see what comes up …..
Greenmantle by John Buchan
Greenmantle: “I had just finished eating breakfast and was filling my pipe when I got Bullivant’s telegram.”
After his harrowing and unexpected adventures in The Thirty-Nine Steps, we find Richard Hannay with his friend, Sandy, convalescing at home from the Battle of Loos, a battle that made up part of the battles of the First World War. But there are rumblings of a war in the East, a Holy War orchestrated by the Germans and their Turkish allies, that would bring about great unrest and tragedy. Britain cannot afford distractions and therefore Hannay must penetrate the Eastern regions and discover the truth about the secret rumblings.