A Picture Book reading challenge? Do you sense a trend? Am I going easier and easier with my reading? 😉 Perhaps, but I couldn’t resist this Picture Book Reading Challenge hosted by Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews.
What makes this challenge fun is that she has different categories for reading:
I used to regularly participate in the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge. It was one of my favourite challenges and was reasonably easy for me to accomplish. Then life became busy and 52 books now seems almost impossible to read in a year. But 2019 is a new year and I’m determined to make reading more of a priority. So the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge is back on Classical Carousel!
For this challenge, all you have to commit to do is to read 52 books, 1 during each week of the year. The rules are relatively broad and easy to accomplish:
Already I have some books on my radar to read including Tom Jones, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Moby Dick, David Copperfield, Kidnapped and The Grapes of Wrath.
I’m excited to add the 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge to my Back to the Classics, and Newbery Award challenges for 2019! What challenges are you going to participate in in the new year?
Yes, it’s chilly winter weather. We haven’t received any snow yet but only because it’s been sunny. A few days ago, I woke to -6ºC weather and brrrrr!!! …. it certainly wakes you up in the morning!
© Cleo @ Classical Carousel
A Newbery Reading Challenge for 2019! What could be better?! This is a new challenge for me, a challenge to read Newbery Award & Honor Books and Caldecott Medal and Honor books. I love children’s books and this is an opportunity to focus on some of these books for 2019.
Julie from Smiling Shelves is hosting the Newbery Reading Challenge for 2019 and the rules are as follows:
There are five different levels to the Newbery Reading Challenge but I’m going to aim for the easiest, L’Engle at 15-29 points.
Mother and Child Reading by Alfred Smith Carlton source Wikimedia Commona
Here it is again, the Back to the Classics Challenge where we are challenged to read a number of classic books during the year! I’m very scared to attempt any challenges after the reading year I had in 2018, but I’m sloughing off my failures and having a very positive, sunny attitude towards my reading in 2019! With that in mind, I’m going to join Karen at Books and Chocolate‘s Back to the Classics Challenge! Here are the categories and possible book choices for them:
The Magdalen Reading ~ Rogier van der Weyden (Public Domain) source Wikimedia Commons
While the books listed are not set in stone, I’m going to try to stick as closely to them as I can. I think I’m most looking forward to the comedy category ….. I definitely need some comedic relief lately! 😉 I’m also excited about reading another Greek play and perhaps getting back into sync with my ancient Greek challenge, and I do need to read another Shakespeare to get me going on the Bard again. So many classic books, so little time!
If you’d like to join this challenge too, just hop over to Books and Chocolate and sign up. It’s truly one of the best challenges of the year!
source Wikipedia
Brrr! After an unusually warm autumn, the temperature has dropped and today I woke up to a chilly -4ºC morning. However, the sun is shining brightly and while there is a nip to the air, there is warmth in front of the fire and what better day to list my top 10 winter reads for those frosty days of winter.
1. The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
In the Bookcase is hosting A Literary Christmas challenge and since I’ve been so neglectful of many of my other challenges this year, I wanted to try to finish on a high note. Therefore, I’m joining!
All I have to do is to make a list of Christmas books I’d like to read and then finish as many of them as I can on or before December 31, 2018. I should have some time off this Christmas so I have high hopes of doing well with this challenge. Plus, I can slot in some wonderful (shorter) children’s Christmas classics, which will make it a little easier on me.
With my first Classics Club list complete, it’s time for another. This time it was easy, as I used unfinished books from my first one. So without further ado, here is my second Classics Club List with 50 books to read from November 30, 2018 to November 29, 2023!
The Republic (380 B.C.) – Plato
Aristotle, Ethics (330 B.C.) – Aristotle
Lives (75) – Plutarch
The Twelve Ceasars (121) – Suetonius
Meditations (170-180) – Marcus Aurelius
Address to Young Men (363) – Saint Basil
“As I write, highly civilised human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me”
As we can tell from the first line, Orwell wrote England Your England during the conflict of World War II yet the essay turns out not to be about the war but about something very dear to Orwell’s heart: the British people.
Orwell states that the people in the planes trying to kill him must be very much like the British people; but patriotism and national loyalty trumps all, a fact that Hitler and Mussonlini were able to grasp. Differences between nations are based on differences in outlook and the English are highly differentiated, distinctive and recognizable from their country terrain, to their visual appearance, to their manners. Yet while these attributes can vary substantially from area to area, the English have a common national identity. How is that possible among so many differences? Orwell investigates.
November 18, 2018 has come and gone and I can’t believe that my five year anniversary date with the Classics Club has come around so quickly! It seems like only a year or so ago I was compiling my list and wondering how I was going to read so many books. So how did I do with it? Well, here’s what I accomplished ….
First of all, I went completely overboard and instead of choosing the recommended 50 books, I chose 170 books! Eh, not particularly my most wise decision, especially considering the content of some of them. Needless to say, I didn’t finish my list but, on a brighter note I did manage to read 66 of them, which is better than 50. I also had a few of them (The Histories, Paradise Lost, Metamorphoses, Hamlet and History of the Peloponnesian War come quickly to mind) where I posted by chapter/book/act, so that was a big task in itself and expanded my reading time. I’ve also started Bleak House, City of God, Crime and Punishment and Dead Souls from my original list, I just didn’t finish in time. 🙁
So here is my first Classics Club list, which I will call complete!
My list:Ancients (5000 B.C. – A.D. 400): (9 books read)
The Odyssey – Homer (end of the 8th century B.C.) March 23, 2014
The Histories (450 – 420 B.C.) – Herodotus (because I love my Greeks!) April 17, 2017
The History of the Pelopponesian War (431 B.C.) – Thucydides (a very
interesting war. I can’t wait to get Thucydides viewpoint) June 15, 2017
Oedipus Rex (429 B.C.) – Sophocles (Sophocles is one of my favourite
Greek playwrights) May 25, 2014
Oedipus at Colonus (406 B.C.) – Sophocles June 24, 2014
Antigone (441 B.C.) – Sophocles December 28, 2014
Apology (after 399 B.C.) – Plato December 12, 2013
Defense Speeches (80 – 63 B.C.) – Marcus Tullius Cicero (I’ve started this
and love it!) August 20, 2014
Metamorphoses (8) – Ovid (I will finish this!) March 31, 2016
Medieval/Early Renaissance (400 – 1600 A.D.): (6 books read)
The Rule of Saint Benedict (529)? – Saint Benedict December 2, 2015
Romeo and Juliet (1591 – 1595) – William Shakespeare October 13, 2014
Richard II (1595) – William Shakespeare November 30, 2014
Henry IV Part I (1597) – William Shakespeare December 21, 2014
Henry IV Part II (1596 – 1599) – William Shakespeare December 24, 2014
Henry V (1599) – William Shakespeare June 22, 2016
Othello (1603) – William Shakespeare October 28, 2014
Hamlet (1603 – 1604) – William Shakespeare January 27, 2015
King Lear (1603 – 1606) – William Shakespeare December 3, 2014
Paradise Lost (1667) – John Milton (time to use my guide by C.S. Lewis) February 27, 2014
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – Jonathan Swift (I wonder if I’ll like it) January 3, 2015
Candide (1759) – Voltaire March 21, 2014
Sense and Sensibility (1811) – Jane Austen January 25, 2015
Persuasion (1818) – Jane Austen (I have read every other Austen novel but
this one. For shame!) February 21, 2015
Eugene Onegin (1825 – 1832) – Alexander Pushkin December 1, 2013 & February 8, 2014
The Pickwick Papers (1836 – 1837) – Charles Dickens (a fun read!) November 5, 2017
Wuthering Heights (1847) – Emily Brönte February 1, 2014
David Copperfield (1850) – Charles Dickens January 15, 2014
Modern (1850 – Present): (34 books read)
Villette (1853) – Charlotte Brönte March 31, 2016
The Warden (1855) – Anthony Trollope (looking forward to starting The
Barchestershire Chronicles) April 8, 2014
Madam Bovary (1856) – Gustave Flaubert (just because) April 4, 2014
Barchester Towers (1857) – Anthony Trollope August 7, 2014
Framely Parsonage (1860 – 1861) – Anthony Trollope December 8, 2016
Fathers and Sons (1862) – Ivan Turgenev September 19, 2014
War and Peace (1869) – Leo Tolstoy (going on and on and on ……) August 3, 2014
Erewhon (1872) – Samuel Butler May 16, 2015
La Curée (1871 – 1872) – Emile Zola (continuing the Rougon-Macquart
series) April 23, 2014
The Brothers Karamazov (1880) – Fyodor Dostoevsky (I can’t wait for this
one!) November 10, 2016
The Black Arrow (1888) – Robert Louis Stevenson November 20, 2013
L’Argent (1891) – Emile Zola August 21, 2015
Dracula (1897) – Bram Stoker (scary ….. not my favourite genre) October 19, 2015
The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) – G.K. Chesterton (love Chesterton!) August 20, 2014
Where do I go from here …..?? I’m going to condense my original list to 66 and roll many of the ones I didn’t read into my second list. Which I’m going to keep to 50. See! I do learn by experience!! Stayed tuned for the second list which I’ll post soon!
