I give myself a C on this year's challenge. I love reading classics and read more than show up on the challenge, but fitting them into categories proved to be a bit of a challenge.
I think 7 out of 12 is respectable but 5.5 were rereads, and 3 to 4 are generally considered children's fare. Personally I don't think Jules Verne's book would be read by today's children, though I know it was a staple in years past.
I feel badly that I didn't get a translated classic read (I did get Emile Zola's The Paradise for this purpose, but ran out of time). I also feel badly that I didn't get a non-white author of a classic done either.
1. A 19th Century Classic - Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, reread
2. A 20th Century Classic - By the Shores of Silver Lake, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, reread
3. A classic by a woman author - Middlemarch, by George Eliot, reread
4. A classic in translation.
5. A classic by a non-white author.
6. An adventure classic - did a reread of Robert Louis Stevenson's incomparable Treasure Island, reread.
7. A fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian classic. Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, will never reread!
8. A classic detective novel.
9. A classic which includes the name of a place in the title. The Small House at Allington, by Anthony Trollope - book 5 in the Barsetshire novels.
10. A classic which has been banned or censored. I thought that Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes would qualify, but I couldn't find evidence that it had been banned or censored.
11. Re-read a classic you read in school (high school or college). Emma by Jane Austen, reread.
12. A volume of classic short stories - Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories, by L.M. Montgomery, reread of the two stories that were chapters in Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Windy Poplars.
9 (by my count) out of 12 ain't bad! I agree with you about 20,000 Leagues...I must have read an abridged version as a child because as an adult I found it overly long and tedious.
ReplyDeleteI have never read Treasure Island which I really need to remedy!
You're right--I did make it to 9! Oh well, I always was better at reading than counting :). Treasure Island is wonderful--it stands the test of time whereas 20,000 Leagues sinks like a stone.
DeleteYou read some great books this year.
ReplyDeletemany of my blogging friends participate in The Back to The Classics Challenge. I read so many Classics anyway, I should join in for 2017.
I think you did great! There's always next year for the others. :)
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Nicely done Jane. Looking forward to everyone's choices for the 2017 categories.
ReplyDeleteI think you did great as well. At least this challenged pushed you to read more than you would have without it. Congratulations on finishing book 5 of Barsetshire. I'm just starting it after spending 2 years getting through Framley Parsonage, which I loved at the end. I will not take that long with A Small House!
ReplyDeleteAll the best for your reading adventures in 2017!