2016 - What classic are you reading?

I'm kicking off the new thread for 2016! Happy New Year to everyone :-)

I am rereading Tess of the d'Urbervilles via the Simon Vance audiobook -- I last read this Hardy book back in my college days so it is due for a revisit.

I have also been struggling with Madame Bovary -- I own it in paperback but I kept falling asleep when I tried to read it. I then tried the Librivox audiobook but it didn't keep my attention either (plus it is one of those collaborative recordings which I find distracting). Yesterday I checked out the Juliet Stevenson audiobook from Hoopla which seems to be a big improvement... but I am still not loving this story.

I'm plowing through Nineteen Eighty-Four, does that count as a classic? I must say I am struggling to get into it but it's one of those ones I feel I should read. I had the same dilemma with A Catcher in the Rye recently too.

I'm about 200 pages into Vanity Fair. I felt it is time for Becky Sharp and myself to start off the new year together.

I'm in part 2 of Crime and Punishment. I had been avoiding this for years. I guess I wasn't in the mood for it. Today, it's the perfect book for me to read. I'm liking it so far.

>4 bjbookman:. I love Vanity Fair! Enjoy :)

I finished T.E. Lawrence's massive and classic war memoir, Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I am now continuing my tradition of starting each calendar year with a Joseph Conrad novel. This year I'm up to Chance, one of the few I've never read. In an irony not all that uncommon, I guess, Chance was Conrad's first real commercial success and yet is now considered one of his weaker novels. Anyway, I'm sure my love for Conrad's writing style will carry me through.

>7 rocketjk:, wow, you read that quick! I have a beat up copy of all that Wisdom on the TBR pile, but I won't get to it in 2016. I would like to read more Conrad. That title sounds like one that helped pay his bills, so at the least we can thank it for allowing him to write some of his others with a more free hand.

Currently reading Lolita which makes me feel awfully creepy, being a middle-aged male and all. My first time reading Nabokov, and he is very smooth.

#8> "That title sounds like one that helped pay his bills, so at the least we can thank it for allowing him to write some of his others with a more free hand."

Well, that would be nice, but in fact the commercial success that Chance created for Conrad came towards the end of his career, in 1913. By the time of the Chance success, most of what we now consider his major works were already written. He still had ten more years of writing and six more novels in him, but of those, only Victory (1915) is considered to be among his best. However, what the success of Chance did facilitate was Conrad's enthusiastically received tour of the U.S.

I decided to abandon the struggle with Madame Bovary -- I will probably try again someday but right now it was boring me to death.

I finished listening to Simon Vance's narration of Tess of the d'Urbervilles -- I haven't read this Hardy classic since my college days & found that I hadn't retained much of the story. Some of Hardy's best prose but man is the story depressing!

As an antidote to the Hardy, I am now reading The Diary of a Provincial Lady which is amusing me considerably.

>10 leslie.98:, my usual fix when a classic is dragging me down is to do some background reading. Try reading up on the angst-filled labour Flaubert devoted to writing Bovary, his careful review and choosing of every single word (granted, I was stuck reading the English translation ...), and why it was a turning point in how novels are written. Although if you're reading it purely for the story, I'm afraid it's not going to get any better.

I feel the same way about Hardy; I'll have to take my own advice if I ever pick him up again.

>11 Cecrow: Thanks for the advice -- when (if) I decide to pick it up again, it might help to view it in those terms. And who knows, another translation might help...

After several years of seeing >7 rocketjk: start the year with a Conrad novel, I was moved to emulation and am now reading Under Western Eyes. Only about a quarter of the way through but am liking it so far (though not as much as The Secret Agent, which I am sure reflects my tastes more than it does Conrad's writing!)

#12> "am now reading Under Western Eyes. Only about a quarter of the way through but am liking it so far (though not as much as The Secret Agent, which I am sure reflects my tastes more than it does Conrad's writing!)"

No, as a matter of fact, The Secret Agent is considered one of Conrad's true masterpieces, and Under Western Eyes is not generally thought of anywhere near as highly. So, if it means anything to you, your reactions very much mirror those of the great Conrad reading public in general. Which is not to say that Under Western Eyes is not worth reading and not enjoyable. I've read it twice, over the years, and enjoyed it both times. But I fully agree that it's not up there with the Secret Agent!

>13 rocketjk: lol - glad to hear that I am in the "in crowd" on this!

Leslie, you're so hip, it's scary!

>15 rocketjk: ROTFLOL!

Either science fiction or short stories aren't usually discussed in this group, but I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed The Diamond Lens by Fitz James O'Brien, first published in 1858 in the Atlantic Monthly. It's about a young man whose passion for microscopy leads him to murder and tragedy. I had never heard of the author before but found the Diamond Lens published in small 1909 hardcover with a nice design and was intrigued by the first few paragraphs of the short introduction.

I'm reading War and Peace and will be for quite some time.

I just read War and Peace. Very good, very long.

>18 jfetting:, >19 jnwelch: I've just read the super abridged version, it can be summed up as there was war and then there was peace. It didn't have much character development but I liked how it ended.

>18 jfetting:, I hear you, but it's got plenty of story to earn the page count. I've just started another Russian great, Crime and Punishment ... one of those titles it's tricky to get the correct touchstone for, apparently.

I started The Brothers Karamazov, but got sidetracked by some Siberian explorers and Giacomo Leopardi. I have to force myself to read about people making asses of themselves, and that's what the early part of the Brothers seems to be concerned with. It's so embarrassing to witness...

I recently finished a very disappointing edition of Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp, translated by John Payne. The translation was stilted and hard to take, especially in the audiobook form.

I forgot to post here but I read the Victorian satire The Diary of a Nobody in January -- I thought it was very amusing but I can see that it wouldn't appeal to everyone. Funny how humor is so individual while tragedies tend to be universal!

Now I am reading a Wodehouse (Jill the Reckless) which I had wanted to listen to as an audiobook but both the David Ian Davies recording available to me through the library and the LibriVox recording don't seem to be hitting the mark for me. I think that I will go back to reading it on my Kindle! Now I need to find another audiobook to fill those times when I need my eyes for something else, like folding laundry...

>23 leslie.98:, I recently read this interesting article about the Aladdin story which suggests that this particular tale was (perhaps) invented in France, not in Arabia: http://www.tor.com/2016/01/21/fairy-tale-and-the-other-realm-as-social-commentar...

>24 Cecrow: I saw on Wikipedia that the origins of this were unclear, with no real evidence of a Middle Eastern fable prior to Galland's French 'translation'. Some scholars speculate that it might be from the Turkistan area rather than Arabia so I am counting it for this month's GeoCAT (even though that is a pretty tenuous connection). I hadn't thought of Galland as actually inventing it though. Thanks for the link!

It took me about 250 pages before I got into The Brothers Karamazov, but it ended up being one of the best novels I've ever read. Crime and Punishment would be a close second on my Dostoevsky list.

>26 wjburton: wjburton: Have you ever read The Idiot?

No, but it's on TBR list. A friend recommended it to me many years ago.

>27 bjbookman: & >28 wjburton:

I've read all three of the Dostoevsky books mentioned, here. Crime and Punishment I've read twice. I enjoyed The Idiot, which is more or less a comedy of manners. In order of preference for me, of these three, are Crime and Punishment, the Brothers Karamazov, which was mostly great but a bit of a slog in parts, and the Idiot. All three, of course, are classics for a reason.

Last night I began Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley. Modern Library put this novel at number 44 on their 1998 list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

I am rereading Lady Windermere's Fan via LibriVox's full cast recording. I had forgotten how many wonderful lines this play has!

>30 rocketjk: I read that eons ago when I was in college. All I remember is that I liked it but nothing about the book itself! If you end up liking it, maybe I will decide to reread it.

I just finished The Small House at Allington. So enjoyable.

>33 MissWatson: Trollope is so fun to read :)

I read the Norwegian classic Hunger. Even after several days, I am still not sure what I think about it -- some of the main character's actions are so bizarre!

>35 leslie.98: I loved Hamsun's Hunger as a kid. He's one of those apparently awful people (Nazi sympathizer)/excellent writers that give me difficult mixed feelings.

For school, I am reading Fifth Business, and for pleasure, I am reading Doctor Zhivago. I am not too far into either one, but as of right now, I am greatly enjoying both!

I just finished listening to the LibriVox recording of Penrod which was quite fun. Sort of a suburban Tom Sawyer character...

>7 rocketjk: Have you heard of Castle Hill Press? they published a two volume paperback of the complete 1922 Seven Pillars of Wisdom - I have yet to read the abridged popular trade version

http://www.castlehillpress.com/publications/2014_seven_pillars_1922_paperback.sh...

>39 ironjaw:

Thanks for the info! Sounds like a cool company. I'm just going to keep my old hardcover edition, though. Cheers!

This discussion has brought my attention to the Wikipedia page for Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Seems like there's a lot of versions to be aware of. My copy appears to be based on the 1926 Subscribers' Edition.

I finished Point Counter Point. This is Aldous Huxley's "novel of ideas" about the intellectual/philosophical life of London's upper and high middle class between the world wars (or, as Huxley was experiencing it, since the book was published in 1928, after the Great War). It is interesting in places, with a generous supply of Huxley's sly wit, but also tedious for significant stretches. Your mileage may vary.

I read Synge's play The Playboy of the Western World today - I liked this better than Riders to the Sea. I guess that you could call it a black comedy, though it didn't end very humorously...

>43 leslie.98: The Imprint Society edition?

>41 Cecrow: Yes there is a quite an interesting story behind it and the complete 1922 Oxford text:

Lawrence is one of my special interests and I have been subscribing to the Castle Hill Press editions for some years. They have published exhaustive accounts of the publication history of Seven Pillars as a background to their publication of the complete 1922 text. Lawrence returned from his desert exploits a troubled man and his efforts to put it all down on paper did nothing to alleviate his distress. I've always marveled at his having the determination to sit down and rewrite the book all over again after he lost the manuscript at Reading station in 1919.

The publication history of Seven Pillars is quite complicated. Basically, Lawrence's earliest extant text is the so-called 'Oxford' text. This, the result of much rewriting and revision, he had privately printed in a handful of copies in 1922. He circulated these to various friends and critics for their private comments. Bernard Shaw was one of these.

However, he thought it too long and expensive to produce for his subscribers, so he reduced it by around 84,000 words (some 200 pages). Thus, the subscribers' (abridged) edition appeared in 1926.

After his death in 1935, Jonathan Cape brought out a trade edition following the subscribers' text. This abridgement is the one reprinted ever since, that is, until 1997, when for the first time (apart from the literally 4 or 5 copies mentioned above) the full 1922 Oxford text was published by Castle Hill Press in another subscribers edition.

A trade edition of this, slightly revised, was published by J. & N. Wilson in 2004.

A 2-volume trade paperback reprint was published in 2014. For this edition the introduction had been revised to take account of more recent research, and the award-winning index by Hazel Bell updated with the help of the Japanese translators.

Mainstream publishers continue to reprint the 1935 trade edition. Revolt in the Desert was Lawrence's response to a publisher's request at the time of the first subscribers' edition for a public trade edition. He thus abridged the subscribers' abridgment to produce this volume which was published in 1927. As this predates the trade edition of 1935 by 8 years, it can fairly be said, as far as the general public is concerned, to pre-date Seven Pillars.

>44 kdweber: I have an old (1940s) book called "Five Great Modern Irish Plays" which has the 2 Synge plays I mentioned in it. I actually listened to the L.A. Theatre Works audiobook/radio play while reading it, which I found to be a good combination. I like to see/read the stage directions and descriptions (which the audio didn't have) but hearing the Irish voices definitely added to the experience.

I guess it is somewhat ironic that I read a classic play in a book with that title!

I am reading Rogue Male - I thought that I knew what this was about but it turns out to be something different.

I finished The last chronicle of Barset and feel a little sad to part with them.

>47 leslie.98: I started this last night and thought the same.

>48 MissWatson: I loved the Barchester series! And that last one was so satisfying in how it tied up so many different threads :)

Rogue Male turned out to be a book with considerable suspense even though you know by the way it is written (as a first person memoir) that he will survive.

>49 leslie.98: Yes, that was really very well done!

>47 leslie.98: >48 MissWatson: Is there a new edition of Rogue Male out, or is it just coincidence that three people have posted reviews in the last couple of days?

>51 thorold: I am not aware of any new edition. Several of us were reading it as a buddy read/group read so that is probably why you are seeing it mentioned a lot recently.

Though I thought that >50 MissWatson:'s comment was referring to the Trollope!

>52 leslie.98: You're right, I could have phrased that a little better...

>52 leslie.98:, >49 leslie.98: Aha! I was remembering that it had an upsurge in popularity when the film came out, but I hadn't quite registered that that was in 1976. Tempus fugits!

>50 MissWatson: Perhaps it's not so difficult to imagine Mr Crawley taking up his hunting rifle to deal with an evil dictator, if there was no other way. But probably not with quite the same motive as Household's narrator...

>54 thorold: LOL!! I hope that Mr. Crawley wouldn't have the same motive - it would ruin his reputation if he did :P

I am now reading And Quietly Flows the Don; what a treat! I have finished the first of 4 parts - hopefully the other 3 will be just as good.

Continuing my chronological reading of Dickens novels with Martin Chuzzlewit.

I'm readingMémoires d'Hadrien which is turning out to be eminently readable.

>57 MissWatson:, nice; one of those titles I'll pick up a copy of if I happen to see it, but haven't happened across it in three years anywhere since I first started watching.

Classics I've read so far this year:

The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob by George Eliot
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

and I'm working my way slowly through:

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson and
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

and hope to get to:

The Prime Minister and The Duke's Children by Trollope

I just finished The Diary of a Nobody by George and Wheedon Grossmith. It's pretty funny. You sympathize with the narrator, even though you understand why even his own friends and son laugh at him.

Next up, either Adam Bede or Fanny Hill. Haven't decided yet, but I borrowed both from the library.

>59 kac522:, wow ... contemplating Clarissa a year in advance, I'm trying to clear the decks of all serious reading around it, so that's pretty amazing.

>60 madpoet: I liked The Diary of a Nobody too!

I am making my way slowly through Don Quixote at the moment. And I recently started reading The Federalist Papers -- not my typical type of reading but so far I am finding it interesting.

I am starting The Age of Innocence. After hating Ethan Frome in high school, I avoided Edith Wharton for years. We'll see how this one goes!

Fanny Hill is a lot more erotic than I was expecting in an 18th Century novel. No wonder the author and publisher were arrested. I was expecting something more akin to Moll Flanders. This is... entertaining!

>63 sparemethecensor: I absolutely loved The Age of Innocence. I'm regretting my aversion to Wharton learned in high school. This is an enthralling book both in plot and philosophy. You can see that I read the entire thing in four days, staying up later than intended last night to finish it. Highly recommended.

I am finishing up Unconditional Surrender by Evelyn Waugh (although my edition is titled The End of the Battle). This is the third book in Waugh's "Sword of Honour" trilogy about the principled and capable but somewhat hapless Guy Crouchback and his journeys through World War Two. I had to go back and reread the first two books first, as I had left this third book too long. I will need to think about this third one for a while. The tone of the first book is fairly broad comedy. Things change somewhat in the second book, but 40 pages from the end of the trilogy, the tone has grown much sharper. I will wait to comment further until I finish the book.

>66 rocketjk: I really like Waugh but somehow have never gotten around to reading the Sword of Honor trilogy. I have listened to the BBC radio adaptation so I know the basic story though and my memory is that it does get more biting towards the end.

>64 madpoet: Interesting! I have a lovely hardcover copy of Fanny Hill that I haven't gotten around to reading yet partly because I also thought it would be another Moll Flanders...

I am reading Joseph Conrad's Victory: An Island Tale which I am liking a lot though I don't understand Shomberg hates Heyst so much...

>67 leslie.98: Wow, Victory. I will be reading that next January as it is up next in my "start the year off with a Conrad novel" tradition. I read the book in grad school back in the 1980s. My memory of it is that it has the most evil antagonist this side of Iago. I'm looking forward to my upcoming re-read.

By the way, having finished Unconditional Surrender, I've posted my reflections on my 50-Book Challenge thread, here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210833

>67 leslie.98: How is Victory? I like Conrad, but that's one I haven't got around to reading yet.

Fanny Hill may just be the most explicitly erotic book I've ever read... this is basically 18th Century porn. (It gets more explicit as the book progresses)

>67 leslie.98:, from what I recall about Victory, I think his hate is a jealousy thing.

I stand by my review of Fanny Hill from a few years back; it's like Dickens trying to be erotic and so it sounds kind of funny. But celebrate your freedom to read what you like, because this one didn't get out from under the shadow of censorship until 1973. Considering it was written in 1748, that's some kind of record.

Hmmm... 18th century porn - I don't know how I feel about that!

I am liking Victory very much though I have basically not read anything for a week because I got immersed in my cable's week long free access to Starz channel's Outlander series & some other shows normally not available to me...

I'm a geek and I love the classics, although that is not all I read. Two of my favorite authors are Thomas Hardy and George Eliot. Sorry to be late in joining, but didn't know this group existed. So far, in 2016 I have read the following classics (1 star stinko 3 stars average, 5 stars superior)

War and Peace*****
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot*****
The Far Pavilions by M.M.Kaye***
Theresa Raquin by Emile Zola***
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery***
Lorna Doone by R.D. Blackmore *** 1/2
Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson****
The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas***
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith*** 1/2

I have looked around the boards and don't see many current (wow--thought there were a lot of geeks who read the classics!).

>72 Tess_W:

Welcome!

I love Daniel Deronda. It's so underrated.

I'm reading some of Steinbeck's shorter novels. I just finished The Moon is Down. I'm looking forward to Cannery Row-- I hope it is as entertaining as Tortilla Flat.

>72 Tess_W: Welcome Tess!

>74 madpoet: It is. Even more so, for me.

This past week i finished Three Soldiers by John Dos Passos. Dos Passos' second novel, first published in 1921, still packs a punch. Three Soldiers is about the absurdities and terrors experienced by American enlisted men during World War I in France. But even more, it is about the tedium, frustration and humiliations of military life in general, at least as experienced among the ranks. The grimness of the narrative is mitigated by Dos Passos' obvious affection for his characters, and by his often joyous physical descriptions of Paris and the French countryside, and the life to be found there.

>77 rocketjk: I have a great fondness for Dos Passos, having fallen in love with his U.S.A. trilogy in college. I have Three Soldiers on my Kindle but having just finished a WW1 book, I will wait a while before reading this.

I am currently reading Arnold Bennett's The Old Wives' Tale. I enjoy the way he slips in little jabs at the customs & ideas of the people. I am also liking the Stoke-on-Trent locality (even though he calls it something else) -- so many of the English books I read are set in either London or in the north (Yorkshire etc).

Read several shorter works by Henry James over the last few years, so I'm finally trying a longer one (and purportedly his most friendly), The Portrait of a Lady. Very good so far; and I feel this is a classic that benefits from reading spoilers in advance to appreciate the dramatic irony, which the introduction of my edition was only too happy to provide.

Hi there. I think I started this group. I cant remember lol

Reading War and Peace has been one of my greatest accomplishments lol
I loved it. I loved the War scenes but I wasn't fond of the romantic parts of the story. Too unrealistic or at least too far from my own experiences ;)

Here is the review I wrote for that book

I had to read this book because a lot of other Russian literature refers to Tolstoy's works, especially this one. It was interesting but challenging to get through.
It is definately an elitists view of Russia. I would now like to read the same thing from the peasants point of view! :)
The characters were entirely frustrating and I wasn't really fond of any of them. The women were all portrayed as a bunch of airheads. Natasha, who is supposed to be Tolstoy's depiction of the ideal woman, is the most annoying, trivial, brainless person I have ever read of. Marya is supposed to be Tolstoy's ideal of the good spiritual woman. I didn't see her as spiritual at all but she was religious. Everyone in the book fell in love at the drop of a pin. It seems you can be madly in love by just looking at a complete stranger LOL
The most impressive thing about this book by far was the battles, Tolstoy's view of how the war between Russia and France unfolded and concluded, and the philosophy. I also learned a lot about the 'lack' of art and strategy of the old sword and cannon combat style of warfare. LOL It's these qualities that make it Russia's greatest novel.
Glad it's finished! :)

Emile Zola is one of my favorite writers. I think my first one was The Earth. That got me wanting more :)
I've read a few since then.

My review for Therese Raquin

This was an outstanding book. It was full of suspense, it was a great character study, and it was Zola's first mature work as an author.
Zola was an author that could convincingly write of the depths of a person's soul. He was masterful at setting a scene to reflect the mood of the novel. He was of the first to write unconventionally, avoiding morality judgements. He wrote of the lower classes and of how their environment and heredity effected their lives.
Everything Zola wrote was a masterpiece and this book is no exception.
If you have never read Zola your missing one of the greatest novelists of all time.

http://www.librarything.com/catalog/BookAddict&deepsearch=zola

Oh I read the Far Pavillions too! It was ages ago when it first came out. I loved it. It was magical

<81 I read War and Peace in Jan-Feb. this year. I was just the opposite of you--I liked the interactions, even the love stuff (although I steer clear of any reading romances) as it portrayed a social history. I really disliked the war sections, especially about 2/3 of the way through, which seemed as if they would last forever

>83 BookAddict: I also read The Far Pavillions which I did not particularly care for.

>82 BookAddict: Theresa Raquin was my first Zola. I found it dark and I was a bit disappointed--I think I was expecting more zing!

>84 Tess_W:

Tess we have the exact opposite in taste in books lol

I adored Therese Raquin!

I am with >84 Tess_W: regarding Therese Raquin (and it was my first Zola as well). Sorry >85 BookAddict:!

I finished Elmer Gantry yesterday which I loved! I have seen the Burt Lancaster-Jean Simmonds movie a few times so I figured I knew what to expect but the book was very different from the film! The film was based on one small part of the book and even that was quite changed.

Now I am reading my first Anne Bronte -- Agnes Grey. It is an easy read but I can see why this is not as well known as her sisters' books.

>86 leslie.98: I also just started Agnes Grey. So far I'm enjoying it and find it very accessible.

After taking some time off to finish school (yay!), I'm back ('nother yay!).

Rereading Jane Eyre, picked up a copy at the library, thinking about buying it since this is the third time I'm reading it.

It's a Bronte fest!

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad slogging through!

Pearl ruled Lord Jim about 40% of the way through, just awful! Am now re-reading a comfort book, Wuthering Heights.

I love that term "Pear ruled"! Conrad is a bit dense, I'll admit.

I love Vanity Fair. It was the first book I read as a grown-up when I decided it was time to read the classics. My high school didn't teach classics? to kids that were not going to college. Those were not the good old days. College for me came in my 40s.

I may decide to re-read about Becky again, now that you've reminded me how much I loved her.

I'm with you on C&P. Haven't yet gotten past first few chapters of Brothers. I haven't given up for good though.

Ohhhh-kay. I've begun an extra long classic, A Dream of Red Mansions, also known as The Story of the Stone. It's one of the 'four classic novels' of China. Which means it is 4 volumes, each with 600+ pages. It's good, so far, but I keep thinking: 2,000 more pages to go! I hope it's worth it.

Returned Jane Eyre to the library and picked up another light re-read, Moby-Dick.

I'll be bringing that brick with me on vacation this week!

Good luck >94 madpoet:!

I am trying my first Margaret Oliphant with The Marriage of Elinor. I am not very far along but already finding Elinor a bit trying!

>96 leslie.98: Thanks Leslie!

Let us know how you like it. I've had it on my shelf for about 5 years in a good Beijing translation , but the length is daunting.

So far, A Dream of Red Mansions is much easier to read, and more interesting, than I imagined it would be. Having some knowledge of history, and having lived in China for many years, probably helps.

I had to look up some of the Chinese measurements, though. For example, a 'tael' (liang) of silver is about 30 grams, worth $20 today. But I think silver had more value back then, judging by what people were buying with it.

It's the same problem you run into with any old novel. What is an 1840s shilling or guinea worth today?

Just read a very lengthy and overly detailed introduction prior to starting The Trial. That was almost a trial in itself.

I recently finished Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, certainly a classic in the noir genre. Wicked and wonderful throughout.

>101 rocketjk: I read that a few years ago & was amazed that the book was even better than the film since that Fred MacMurray/Barbara Stanwyck movie is so excellent! A few months ago I read another Cain which is an excellent movie, The Postman Always Rings Twice -- if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

I finally made time for The Old Man And The Sea which I did like more than my other attempts at Hemingway, but his writing still leaves me a bit cold. I still don't fully understand why he's such a big deal...

>103 Darth-Heather:, I've only read A Farewell to Arms and thought that wasn't bad. I'm at least going to join that old man's fishing expedition sometime, as another attempt.

I totally had to go looking for a profile picture when I saw your user name. I was not disappointed.

I revisited a childhood favorite in audiobook form -- R.L. Stevenson's Kidnapped. I don't think that I had read this since I was about 14 and was pleased to find that I enjoyed it just as much as an adult.

>105 leslie.98: I read Kidnapped (for the first time!) a couple of years back and loved it.

I am now toying with the idea of reading more Stevenson with the sequel Catriona... but I must finish up a few library books first!

>100 Cecrow: A painful, great, book.

So far this year I've read Walden, Oliver Twist, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night and Rappaccini's Daughter.
Currently I'm reading Treasure Island aloud to my 7-year-old son -- it's a lot of fun doing all the voices....

>109 kermaier: I can imagine, especially Long John Silver!

I have (unintentionally) read two thrillers from 1919, 1920 back to back. Both were very good -- The Green Rust by Edgar Wallace was a post-WW1 thriller/suspense novel and The Great Impersonation was set in the time leading up to WW1. Not too surprisingly, both featured Germans as the 'bad guys'.

Reading a prose version of The Odyssey. More action-adventure than The Iliad was, so I'm liking this one better.

I liked The Great Impersonation so much that I am now reading another Oppenheim, The Strange Boarders of Palace Crescent, on my Kindle.

I am also listening to the audiobook of Theodore Dreisler's Sister Carrie...

Finished with Homer, and as I'm about to send my kids off to school I'm doing a bit of the same with James Joyce's Ulysses.

I am now listening to the audiobook of H. Rider Haggard's She. I must admit that the first occurance of someone saying 'She-who-must-be-obeyed' made me laugh -- it is so linked in my mind with Rumpole talking about his wife!

Which version were you reading?

I'm in the midst of the Pickwick Papers, not sure what I think of it yet.

>117 .Monkey.:, episodic, n'est-ce pas? He even apologizes for it in the introduction, lol. Have you read the hunting party chapter yet? Loved that one, my favourite bit in the whole book.

>118 Cecrow: That's early on, right, with the rooks? I just read that yesterday, I was giggling, hahaha

>116 cs80: I assume you are asking about >114 Cecrow:'s Homer?

I read The Mysterious Stranger, Mark Twain's final book. I must say that I didn't like it as much as his more famous books such as A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court...

>116 cs80:, >120 leslie.98:, re Homer I was reading E.V. Rieu's prose version. Didn't feel as much of a cop-out as when I did that with the Iliad, since Odyssey lends itself well to novel format.

I have been reading/listening to Sinclair Lewis's Main Street -- I thought that I had read this before but none of it is familiar so I must have been mistaken. I am finding it rather depressing...

I've just started the Finnish classic, Seven Brothers, by Aleksis Kivi, considered one of the very first, if not the first, novels written in the Finnish language, and still one of the very best.

Going on a fishing trip with The Old Man and the Sea

I am listening to the audiobook of The Woman in White -- I read this several years ago and thought I would revisit it this way. The story has a different feel now that I know what will happen...

So over a month has passed since anyone has commented. This group seems to have become mostly inactive -- is there somewhere else I should be to find discussions about books written pre-1950?

I have struggled my way through Joseph Conrad's Nostromo -- I generally like Conrad but this one did not appeal to me despite the fact that the plot itself was fairly interesting. Ah well...

I just read 2 Conrad short stories--"Amy Foster" and "The Secret Sharer." Conrad works in small doses for me, but I just couldn't get up the gumption to read Lord Jim.

I'm also listening to Trollope's The Prime Minister, plan to read some Dickens in December, and hoping to get back into My Life in Middlemarch which fell by the wayside months ago. Oh, and a Bronte (probably The Professor) for Paul's BAC in December.

>126 leslie.98: & >127 kac522:

Funny how we all have different perspectives. Conrad is my favorite author and Lord Jim is my favorite book, ever. As for Nostromo, while I've enjoyed reading it a couple of times (the first time in a grad school Conrad seminar, so I had to), it's not a favorite of mine, either. One of the problems is that so much of the first third of it is pure exposition. Also, it doesn't have the ring of authenticity of Conrads' sea novels, Africa and South Sea novels, or even his London novels, I think because Conrad never visited South America.

On a lighter note, I am currently enjoying P.G. Wodehouse's Cocktail Time - I just discovered the Uncle Fred books this year and while not quite as hilarious as some of the Jeeves and Woosters, they do make me laugh.

I am finally approaching the end of Les Misérables! It's a good book, it's just so long while being so sad so often. I don't mind long and I don't necessarily mind sad, but the combination is rather difficult.

I've started reading The Maltese Falcon, my first hard-boiled detective fiction. Pretty good so far, the detective in this style sort of reminds me of modern super-heroes - dark and brooding.

>131 Cecrow: While I am not a big fan of hard-boiled & noir detective fiction, preferring the style of Agatha Christie, I do like Dashiell Hammett & Raymond Chandler. If you end up liking The Maltese Falcon, you should try Farewell My Lovely or James M. Cain's Double Indemnity!

>130 .Monkey.: Congrats on finishing Les Mis! I don't mind long books but I didn't like the long digressions Hugo had. Some day though, I do plan to read his other famous book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame...

I am reading The Unclassed the 1884 text, by George Gissing. His second novel.

I'm reading what I think is fair to call a classic biography: Madame Curie by her daughter, Eve Curie.

>134 bjbookman: I have enjoyed the few Gissing novels I have read. What is that one about?

I finished the 4th Richard Hannay book, The Three Hostages, by John Buchan. I liked this one much more than the previous one (Mr. Standfast)! Now I have only one left to go -- The Island of Sheep.

>136 leslie.98: leslie.98: Gissing wrote about prostitution. This novel was banned from the lending libraries. Reviewers called Gissing the English Zola. A lot of this novel was based on Gissing's life.

I will have to add it to my TBR.

I am presently enjoying some of Richard Wilbur's translations of Moliere -- right now, The Bungler.

I have started the 2017 thread:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/245437