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Good Morning Read Along Friends! Greetings from the slightly cold, very autumnal Cotswolds. How are we all? Get to the books I hear you say??!? I have poured over Google, searched in depth. read lots of reviews. And as I wanted to try and keep it to as many as I possibly could being free to download on to a kindle or PC/tablet.
Rather than have a monthly, please vote, hello PLEASE vote, VOTE NOW, taking up a week. I have chosen for you/us. I hope you like them. Read what you want of them, pick and choose when to join in. As I know some of you would like to have the real book in your hand and feel the paper, turn those delicious pages and if old giving that wiff that only old books have, I have made the list for the year. Everyone can then take their time to hunt the books out. Myself, I am going to keep a list in my purse, then if I am in a charity shop or a second hand shop, I can look for any of these titles. Yes, I have a kindle, but I still love to have the real book sitting in my hand. There is nothing like it.
Ok, calm down here is the list.
October 2016 - North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
November 2016 - A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
December 2016, Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
January 2017 - Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen
February 2017 - The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood
March 2017 - Middlemarch, by George Eliot
April 2017 - Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
May 2017 - Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
June 2017 - The Colour Purple, by Alice Walker
July 2017 - Tess of the D'ubervilles, by Thomas Hardy
August 2017 - Passage to India, by E M Forster
September 2017 - Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
17 comments:
I'm sorely tempted to join in. It looks a great list and I'm ashamed to say I have never read any of those books. I am not very well read. Would we need to commit to them all or just participate in some months? X
I agree so much. A real book, the smell of a brand new one, oh and the aroma of bookshops!! Alas it has been many years since I've smelled a new book or a shop but now and again I buy second hand from alibis online. The joy of receiving the parcel. Am reading a whodunnit at the moment along with Elizabeth Gaskell. Finding her a bit slow going after the modern novels. Reading on. Your list is something different to read.
Good list Sol. Wuthering Heights is probably my all time favourite classic with Jude The Obscure not that far behind. I can't read North and South for longer than an hour at a time. That could be me though. How long (you did say) have we got to read it?
Hi Jules, I havent read many of them either, this is why I am trying to do this read along. Encouragement to read things outside of my normal YA fiction. You can pick and choose when you would like to join in. What ever book takes your fancy.
Hi Linda, I wanted to do as many classics as I could. I am particulary looking forward to reading the handmaids tale again. I read this at school and was really wound up by it. as you are in your youth about things. I am wondering if I will completely change my thoughts on it. looking forward to all the books. I hope everyone has time to find the books over the next few months! I am going to try and not read ahead on the books, making it a race to read as many as I can. No, I want to read them and reread all the parts I like.
Keep reading! I hope she picks up for you!
Hi Dave, you have until the 20th November to read it. This is why I am doing the read along, to force myself to read books I wouldnt. Lol I hope it does pick up though. Have you seen the TV adaptation?
I think it's on You Tube Sol. No I haven't seen it. There are audio versions too. I have lots of half read books. Will plod on. Seem to spend more time reading blogs than books these days. I think reading classic books is a discipline.
Amazingly I've read 8 of your 12 books. Like N Dave, Jude is one of my all time favourites; I always read it when I'm ill.
Hey Dave, this is the idea behind me doing the read along. A date to make me read it, else I would give up as I have never really read books like this. As I have said before, school for me was a place to see my friends, not for learning and especially not reading.
Hi Cro, 8! Wow, that is fab. Maybe we could slip Jude in there somewhere as well. More people might like that?
The only ones on the list I haven't read are the Margaret Atwood and the Alice Walker, so this is as good an excuse as any (or better than) to fill in the gaps - and I've still got most of the rest somewhere around here.
I only re-read 'Jude' a couple of years ago - and that was for a third read, so maybe I'll be skipping that, but depends on how the mood takes me.
Btw: I've seen that I can buy a second-hand copy of 'North and South' online for just over two quid so that's what I'll probably do.
Btw2: It's 'A' Christmas Carol - sorry!
Jude pops up many times in discussions etc. I would like to dip into it and see what it is all about
Excellent Ray, fab that you found it. Mine arrived today. already taken a good bite of the book. Will change the post in a minute. Thanks
Hi Linda, maybe if there is a short book we can slip Jude in there somewhere.
I've read nine of your choices. They are all excellent books. I must say, though, that Tess of the D'urbervilles is the saddest book I've ever read. It's tragic, but Hardy is a brilliant writer. Nabakov is one of the greatest stylists ever.
Love,
Janie
Hi Janie, I read Tess every year. Poor, poor sorrow. I was a time when women were worthless to some. I cant wait to read all of them
I am glad to have found you as I have read nearly all of these in the past and could use a refresher. Not sure I'll be able to do "North and South" so I'll get a jump start on the Dickens. Incidentally, there's a book titled "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" by Thomas Foster (I think) that makes reference to a great many of these books/authors. It might provide some good insights while reading.
Hi Mrs Armstrong, welcome to my blog. Join in where ever you like. I will look that book up. Thanks!
I wandered down to that second hand bookshop I mentioned, Sol, and (just as well I went) they did have not only 'North and South' but 'Passage to India' as well, each at just £1.95. (The latter one, I DID read my sister's copy). Still yet to find 'Handmaid' and 'Purple', but they can easily be got from Internet booksellers when the time comes.
So I'm all set up to start. Only problem is fitting it all in while still keeping to my reading schedule of other things in the works - such as I've been reading a Shakespeare play (including the commentaries, sometimes longer than the plays themselves) every month for over 50 years and can't spoil that now. (November it's the turn of that gore-fest, 'Titus A'.) Plus I've yet got to finish all the James Bond novels this year, for the 4th (or maybe 5th) time - and there's another three to go. But, get them all in I shall!
At least not working helps otherwise I'd never manage it.
Hooray Ray!!!! some good news for sure. I had North and South arrive Sunday. I am on the case already. Had to stop another book, I can then focus on it completely. Hopefully the other books will show up
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