Tag: Classics Book Challenge

Classics Club Events

Classics Spin #23 (Mostly French Classics)

Fariba

Will THIS be the Classics Spin challenge I actually complete? Who knows. At least, it’s an excuse for me to make a list of 20 book on my physical TBR that I look forward to reading. I am currently living in Geneva and in a couple months I will have to move back to the US. Unfortunately, I lack self-control and have bought too many books. Therefore, I am including those books on this list. Thankfully, most of them are classics. May is going to be a play-heavy month.

1.  Robin des bois (the two novellas: Le Prince des voleurs and Robin Hood le proscrit) by Alexandre Dumas

Robin Hood 3 - Ivanhoe et l'arc de Robin - Historia Draconis

2. The Journey of Neils Klim to the World Underground by Ludvig Holberg

The Journey of Niels Klim to the World Underground by Ludvig Holberg

3. La Farce de maître Pathelin

La Farce de maître Pathelin - Poche - Takashi Imashiro, Livre tous ...

4. Le Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d’Arc by Charles Péguy

Le mystère de la charité de Jeanne d'Arc (French Edition): Charles ...

5. L’Abbesse de Castro by Stendhal

L'Abbesse de Castro, Stendhal | Livre de Poche

6. Le Thébaïde by Racine 

Thebaide (Folio Theatre) (French Edition): Jean Baptiste Racine ...

7. Gouverneurs de la rosée by Jacques Roumain

Gouverneurs de la rosée - Jacques Roumain - Payot

8. Le Château de ma mère by Marcel Pagnol

Le Chateau de ma mere Buch jetzt bei Weltbild.ch online bestellen

9. La Gloire de mon père by Marcel Pagnol

La Gloire de mon père - Marcel Pagnol - Payot

10. L’Illusion comique by Corneille

L'illusion comique (Théâtre) (French Edition): Pierre Corneille ...

11. Clitandre by Corneille

Clitandre: Tragi-comédie by Pierre Corneille

12. The Origin of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt

The Origins of Totalitarianism (Penguin Modern Classics): Amazon ...

13. Alexandre le grand by Racine

alexandre le grand eBook by jean racine - 1230001941302 | Rakuten Kobo

14. Andromaque by Racine

Andromaque - Jean Racine - Babelio

15. Les plaideurs by Racine

Les Plaideurs (Théâtre): Racine, Jean

16. Brittanicus by Racine

Amazon.com: Britannicus (Pocket classiques) (French Edition ...

17. Bérénice by Racine

Bérénice - Jean Racine - Babelio

18. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (I’ve decided that it’s a classic of modern fantasy. Good enough.)

Underground Reading: Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay - Pornokitsch

19. Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson

Amazon.com: Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption ...

20. Les Tragiques by Agrippa D’Aubigné

Les Tragiques by Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné

Regardless of the number selected, I will have to read these books soon. Otherwise, they will have to be donated unread.

Classics Club Events

Classics Spin #17 List

Fariba

I am super excited to participate in Classics Spin #17 because I haven’t participated in years. Like everyone who joined the Classics Club Blog, I made a list of fifty classics. Unfortunately, I have ignored this challenge in the past three years, so I am nowhere near completion. Reading lists remind me of school, and I have enough reading lists to go through in graduate school. Because I predominantly read classics anyway, I don’t feel guilty about fudging the rules a bit to participate in the Classics Spins.

My list this time will include 20 classics that are on my physical and/or electronic TBRs. In January 2018, I implemented a challenge that has effectively slowed my book buying to a halt. And so far, I am quite pleased with the results. Borrowing has encouraged me to take more reading risks. I read more broadly and diversely than I did in the past.

Please note that some of the books on this list are relatively recent classics. Finally, the books are in chronological order by date of publication.

  1. Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE) – Ovid
  2. The Chronicles (c. 1370-1380) – Froissart (abridged by Penguin)
  3. Piers the Plowman (c. 1370-1390) – William Langland
  4. The History of King Richard III (c. 1513-1518) – Thomas More
  5. Notre-Dame de Paris [The Hunchback of Notre-Dame] (1829) – Victor Hugo
  6. North and South (1855) – Elizabeth Gaskell
  7. The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses (1888) – Robert Louis Stevenson
  8. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) – Oscar Wilde
  9. Life of St. Francis of Assisi (1893) – Paul Sabatier
  10. Cyrano de Bergerac (1897) – Edmond Rostand
  11. The Souls of Black Folk (1903) – W.E.B. Du Bois
  12. The Scarlet Pimpernel (1905) by Baroness Emma Orczy
  13. The Voyages of Dr. Doolittle (1922) – Hugh Lofting
  14. Sous le soleil de satan [Under Satan’s Sun] (1926) – Georges Bernanos
  15. The Seven Storey Mountain (1948) – Thomas Merton
  16. The Old Man and the Sea (1952) – Ernest Hemingway
  17. Another Country (1962) – James Baldwin
  18. A Single Man (1964) – Christopher Isherwood
  19. The Chocolate War (1974) – Robert Cormier
  20. Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) – Diana Wynne Jones
Reflections

My Blogging Experience

Fariba

Every night around midnight a car comes by to pick up some people living in the next door apartment complex. I know they’ve arrived when I hear music booming from a car stereo. As I write, it’s 12:10 am. The car has picked up its passengers and driven away.

_____________________

Today, I want to talk about my blogging experience. I believe I started this blog in 2013. Before December 2013, I had launched two blogs that failed within the first six months. I have kept other blogs in addition to this one since 2013, but none of those other blogs gave me much pleasure. I wasn’t very passionate about the topics I was writing about. I also didn’t belong to any community, so I felt very alone. I finally started Exploring Classics to review books and to discuss them with others. Because I didn’t know many people who read the kinds of books I enjoyed, I took to the internet to see what was out there. I wanted to talk about classics with other readers, but most people my age read YA. After searching for blogging communities, I came across the Classics Club Blog. If you are following this blog, you probably already know who they are. But I’ve included a link just in case.

I used to be a lot more active in the Classics Club and the blogging community in general. I participated in most of the club challenges and read dozens of blog posts a day. I still read a handful of posts every day, but I don’t comment nearly as often as I used to.

Then last summer, I renamed my blog Exploring Literature because I wanted it to reflect my current reading tastes. I no longer read only classics. I read modern literary fiction from time to time, but the bulk of my reading is nonfiction. I wonder whether it’s appropriate to have a nonfiction section on a blog called Exploring Literature. Does nonfiction constitute literature?

I have changed a lot since 2013. Not only have my reading tastes changed, but I would like to think that I’m more mature now than I was at 20. My old design reflected my teenage age, so my blog needed a facelift. I strongly disliked being a teenager, so I don’t want my blog to remind me of those years.

I would like to reintegrate into the Classics Club blogging community. I enjoy blogging and sharing my thoughts, but I miss the experience of reading the classics with others. I also miss interacting with certain bloggers.

I am very happy with the direction my blog is going. I am finally making the posts that I told myself for years I wanted to make, but I didn’t have the motivation to follow through. In the past year, I’ve developed a renewed interest in book blogging. I also enjoy reading book reviews more than ever before.

But I am a bit disappointed by my lack of involvement in the blogging community. I have barely made a dent in my Classics Club list, and I haven’t communicated with certain bloggers in months. I would like to rejoin the Classics Club community in 2018.

Classics Club Events, Voltaire

March Event – Reading Candide

Fariba

Hello everyone, so I have been thinking for some time about having a read-a-long event for a well-known French classic. I have decided on Candide by Voltaire. This classic is widely available in translation. Here is a Goodreads summary of the novel:

“Brought up in the household of a powerful Baron, Candide is an open-minded young man, whose tutor, Pangloss, has instilled in him the belief that ‘all is for the best’. But when his love for the Baron’s rosy-cheeked daughter is discovered, Candide is cast out to make his own way in the world. 

And so he and his various companions begin a breathless tour of Europe, South America and Asia, as an outrageous series of disasters befall them – earthquakes, syphilis, a brush with the Inquisition, murder – sorely testing the young hero’s optimism.”

The event will be from March 1-31.

I will be reading the work in the original language, but all posts will be in English. Here is the posting schedule:

Monday, March 10 : chapters 1-8

Monday, March 17: chapters 9-16

Monday, March 24: chapters 17-24

Monday, March 31: chapters 25-30 (last post)

After I post about a series of chapters, you have a whole week to comment on those chapters.

So who’s interested? It is fine if you do not comment every week of the event, but I’m hoping for a great discussion.