Sunday, May 15, 2011

In Which I Feel I Am Being Remiss

A few days ago I posted about a new challenge that I was giving myself and that I was inviting other bloggers to participate in. Here's the link to the "Books I Should Have Read By Now Challenge." A few of the people who have decided to participate (i.e., Kayleigh at Nylon Admiral and Karen at Book World in My Head) have already listed some of the books that they're considering reading for the challenge and I haven't done so. As creator of this challenge, that's just plain negligent. :)

So, here's the scoop: I'm choosing to read at least two books a month (the Avid Reader level) and I'm using this challenge as a way to make me read all of those classics that are piling up on my bookshelves that I inexplicably have yet to read. As the challenge runs from June to December, that adds up to twelve books (if not more). Here's the ones that I'm thinking of reading:

-The Adventures of Tom Saywer by Mark Twain
-David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
-Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
-Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
-Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
-The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
-Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
-Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
-Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
-Heidi by Johanna Spyri
-Paradise Lost by John Milton

Two of these novels (David Copperfield and Little Women) are ones that I started reading and was really enjoying and then life got in the way...twice. That's right, I've gotten halfway through both books on two occasions and was forced to set them aside for just long enough that it wasn't worth getting back into them. One of them (Tess of the D'Urbervilles) is a book that I "read" for a class in high school, which meant that I disliked it so much that I got halfway through it and then Sparknoted the rest. I'm willing to give it another chance, however, especially because I have several followers who swear by this book and I'm curious to see if maybe I was just missing something the first time around. Jane Eyre was begun the summer after my senior year of college and my interest in it started waning about halfway through and I've never picked it up since; this is something I'd like to rectify. The rest of them are books that I've never even opened before so I'm really excited to get into them.

This list is subject to change, but for now this is what I'm planning on.

-Gabe

6 comments:

  1. It should be an interesting 6 months of reading Gabe, some great books on your list! Good luck with Paradise Lost, that is one of the books that I find incredibly daunting and can't bring myself to pick up. One day...perhaps.

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  2. Fantastic list. Some of my favourite books are on there. Good luck with returning to Uriah Heep ;)

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  3. I think I might post my list with a 'subject to change' disclaimer! It's currently a list of classics and books I've owned for over 1 year (one I've had through 2 house moves).

    Btw it's over 7 months if it's June to end of year, so you get an extra two. I think most people have thought it's 6 months though.

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  4. Kayleigh: Thanks! I've had it for such a long time that I forgot it was even there or I may have gotten into it before this. LOL. It does seem rather daunting but I was forced to read part of Idylls of the King in AP English and it can't possibly be any worse than that (I hope).

    Karen: Thanks! I think what makes Uriah even worse for me is that I saw a film version of David Copperfield and the man who played him was just so unbelievably sketchy and he creeped me out to no end.

    Ellie: I can't believe I didn't catch that. I think I was skipping August when I counted it out because I kept coming up with six and couldn't understand why. Then I was like, "Wait a minute, I'm missing a month." Thanks for pointing it out. :) I'll be adding two other books to that list sometime soon.

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  5. I think it's a great idea to go through some classics ..... I have had the idea, and then gotten sidetracked by something shiny and new that has come into the library. :)

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  6. I do it, too. I know that I love classic literature but there are so many books that I want to read and I know that I'll never get to them all. Lately I've been reading a lot of modern stuff so I think it's about time I knock some of those classics off my list.

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