Category Archives: Classics

Update for Classics Club 50 – Round TWO

January 5, 2024Celebration, Challenge, Classics, Classics Club, Lists, Pie, Wian2023, Year End SummaryChallenge Status Update, guilty admission: I DNF's Villette and attempted Jude the Obscure but didn't get very far..., Only 4 to go!Care

When I committed to my first Classics Club 50 at the start of 2015, I made a list of fifty books that seemed interesting to me; either titles were ones I needed extra motivation to read, or I thought maybe I was missing out, and/or a few were just a whim or an idea that the author or the book was impressively classic and I wanted to find out why.

I gave myself permission to substitute books and thus, I finished that Five Year Challenge having read 50+ books that were over 25 years old.

However, there were 13 of that original list I missed.

Four years now into my second commitment to read another 50 Classics and wanting to give myself an update post for motivation and preparation for the next twelve months, I am curious how many “classics” I have read so far. ___________________________________________________________________________

Question 1: Did I read many of my next set of 50 listed on 1/1/2020?
Question 2: Did I manage to tackle any of the non-read titles from my original 50?

ANSWERs:

Welp, I didn’t keep a record of any second set of 50 – in fact, I’m not sure I even made a definitive list and/or didn’t keep it static. I think I only made a goodreads tag listing 25-yo books and added to it as time went by.

Q: BUT CARE! Did you read any of those 13?!

A: YES! I read THREE: Cry the Beloved Country, The Three Muskateers, and They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple. (Which was by far my favorite of those.) WHICH leaves the following ten to be considered as options for my next 12 months.

But wait! How many classics did I read in the last 4 years? Perhaps I’ve completed the challenge and didn’t even realize it. YES again. I read 46!! I now only have to read 4 more books published 25 years ago or longer and I’ll have completed Round TWO of the Classics Club 50.

Considering that I’ve committed to two Irving books for various challenges: Cider House Rules to satisfy a book with a neurodiversity #ReadICT, and Hotel New Hampshire, also for #ReadICT, I’m not sure which two off the chart above I want to read… The shortest ones? The ones not written by a white man? The ones I own? (A Confederacy of Dunces or Jude the Obscure)

I’ll let you know in December.

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Happy New Year!

Copyright © 2007-2024. Care’s Books and Pie also known as and originally created as Care’s Online Book Club. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

2024 #ReadICT Challenge

January 2, 2024Celebration, Challenge, Classics, ListsLibraries are essentialCare

My town’s library runs an annual challenge called “READ ICT”. My town is Wichita Kansas and ICT is our airport code. A post on our group’s Facebook page went viral and now we have LOTS of people who don’t live anywhere near Kansas joining in and I think it is wonderful. And fascinating! And a bit amusing. So many book lovers; the more the merrier!

If you really want to know more, visit the official library page with all the details here.

If you want to see what I will be reading to satisfy this challenge, read on:

Category 1: a book with a map – River of the Gods by Candice Millard
Category 2: a book you meant to read last year – Wellness by Nathan Hill
Category 3: a book about something lost or found – Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones
Category 4: a collection of stories, poems, or essays… – Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
Category 5: a book by or about someone neurodivergent – Cider House Rules by John Irving
Category 6: a book set in space – <<<< taking recommendations >>>> but I’m thinking the latest Murderbot
Category 7: a book someone told you not to read – Florida by Lauren Groff
Category 8: a book with season in the title – Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson
Category 9: a book featuring an animal sidekick – <<<< taking recommendations >>>> (but will be looking for a children’s book)
Category 10: a book with a recipe
Category 11: a book published in the year you turned 16 – Hotel New Hampshire, another one by John Irving
Category 12: a book by an indigenous author – Mean Spirit by Linda Hogan

Follow my GoodReads tracking here.

So if you know any good books that also include recipes, recommend – especially if a PIE recipe! I am not worried about this category, I can always read through a cookbook.

AND, if anyone wants to read anything WITH me for a buddy read or buddies-read, let me know.

Oh dear, I just realized that I didn’t even glance at the ToB books for this year to see if any qualify. Other than Wellness, I mean. Well, HUH. Maybe one of those has an animal sidekick?

One more share, I have already baked a pie this year: presenting Sugar Cream Pie aka Hoosier Pie

Happy New Reading Challenge Year! Eat some pie.

2024 What’s in a Name Challenge

January 1, 2024Celebration, Classics, Wian2023the WIAN image will go to the host blog signupCare

Here we go again! my favorite reading challenge, the one that is less pressure and most engaging to me for year round fun. It gets me to look carefully at the books on my shelves that need to be read.

The What’s in a Name Challenge Categories for 2024 are:

Double letters – Wellness or The Bee Sting or Happiness Falls
An NFL team – Florida by Lauren Groff (has a Panther on the cover, which is close to a Jaguar?! or links to Carolina?! LOL) or The Giant’s House by E McCracken
A natural disaster –
A virtue – Fierce Love or The Love Hypothesis or River of Gods (has Courage in the subtitle) or Inciting Joy by Ross Gay
A shape – Lady Tan’s Circle of Women
Footwear – Chain-Gang All Stars

(The hyperlinks above will click over to the host pages for the categories.)

Follow my GoodReads tracking here.

Happy New Reading Challenge Year! Eat some pie.

Books to Movie Edition 2023-A

August 13, 2023Book to Movie, Classicsboring post, I do choose some books to read because I want to see its movie, I had a bunch of tags written when I accidentally deleted!, it was boring to write so I can only imagine how uninteresting it is to readCare

Welcome to a new year’s edition of an on-again-off-again blog idea I’ve executed over the years: Ramblings on movies based on books. This is a place marker post, feel free to skim or skip.

Movies based on books I read in last few years (>=2021) I want to see:

Swann – hard to find and not highly regarded
The Day the World Came to Town – stage play
Anne Frank – The Diary of a Young Girl – movie 1959 and stageplays
Patron Saint of Liars
The Mermaid Chair
The Leisure Seeker
A Gathering of Old Men
All Quiet on the Western Front

Movies I’ve seen ✅ and later read the book:

The Green Mile – have seen the movie many times, first time to read the book. Both recommended
The Three Muskateers – we watched the 1973 version, still have MANY more to see them all!

More movies seen and not seen but read — but from 2020 and prior:

One True Thing! so good ✅
Tender is the Night 1962 __
Call Me By My Name 2017 ✅
The Sisters Brothers ✅
The Haunting of Hill House – I think I’ve seen this. Should see it again anyway!

Then there’s the mini-series based on books that I’ve read: The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave

Mini-series in the works based on books I’ve loved: Lessons in Chemistry…

and the mini-series I’ve seen and now want to read the book! The Man in the High Castle.

I’m sure I’m missing quite a bit.

Plan is to write a singular post on The Family Fang – eBook from Libby finished yesterday morning and watch the movie last night. Maybe today I’ll get that done.

(I saw an unfinished post from 2021 and just added to it… These posts are really just my own attempt to keep track LOL)

A Gathering of Old Men

April 5, 2023Book to Movie, Challenge, Classics, Classics Club, Library, Pieapple pie, classics club spin, Library, plarines same as pralines, possibly the 29th book of the year, race relations, set in Louisiana, tradeback, Trying to get back in the blogging swingCare

Thoughts by Ernest J. Gaines, Vintage Books Random House 1983, 214 pages

Challenge: Classics Club SPIN due April 19, 2023

Genre/Theme: Adult Literature / Race Relations

Type/Source: Tradeback / Library

What It’s About: Set in the 70s in rural Louisiana, this tale looks at friendship and loyalty, race relations, changing times that rail against ingrained attitudes, and dreams versus regrets. What a fabulous telling! Tautly paced, calm before coming dreaded storm, we get quick glimpses of real people and all treated relatively respectfully. Well done Author Gaines, a master of story craft.

A man is shot dead and friends rally around the man assumed to have done the deed because he has always been a rock to his beliefs, standing up for my himself. So all the old men grab similar shotguns, shoot and bring the spent shells so that “proof” of who done it is not so easily conclusive. The dead man is white, the group confessing to the killing are all black, except for the white woman who also wants to protect and rally for her own rules of justice (which is not in agreement with the sheriff.

All are more in fear of the family, the father and friends of the dead man coming to claim their own brand of justice. The sheriff is also hoping that won’t happen, but can he stop it?

“I ran out on the front garry and seen it was Miss Merle, and looked like a heavy load just fell off my shoulders.”

Thoughts: This was tense and well plotted. I loved seeing all the perspectives and outlaying of viewpoints black and white, the hopes and dreams over the decades that brought all these people to this point. I am looking forward to watching the movie. It’s got a great cast.

To be honest, I had no prep and it was challenging to figure out with certainty who was white and what was their role and relation to the community and who was black; when it came to the side players and how Gaines introduces everyone, I was challenged and I appreciate that. I really admired the subtleties.

Rating: I think I might raise my rating at a 5 slice of pie. Apple pie is mentioned rather frequently. Could pie be a metaphor? That we assume pie can heal the worlds ills and yes, why can’t it? Sadly, this situation is not easily fixed by apple pie but the ending was more positive than I ever expected.

I had Lucy bake me an apple pie, because I knew how much Jack just liked his apple pie. I told Lucy when she came to work that morning if she baked me the best apple pie she ever baked in her life, I would give her half the day off.

Classics Club Spin March 2023 #ccspin #MyCCSPINList

March 15, 20231001 Books To Read Before Dying, Book Blogging Community, Book Picked Me, Classics, Classics Club, ListsClassics Club SPIN!, Lists, Spin #26Care

Time for another Spin! #33 – Number reveal 3.19 – Read by 4/30/2023

UPDATE! The number 18 was selected so I will be reading Gaines’ A Gathering of Old Men.

Click the image above to go to the announcement post.

Will update later with the selected spin number which will identify the book I need to read…

My Spin List:

1	Villette
2	Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northrup
3	Confederacy of Dunces – JKToole
4	the Counterfeiters
5	Eileen Chang’s Love in a Fallen City
6	A Few Green Leaves – B. Pym
7	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep – PK Dick
8	Under the Greenwood Tree – Hardy
9	The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler
10	At the Mountains of Madness – Lovecraft
11	Pale Fire – Nabokov
12	The Once and Future King – TH White #OaFKingalong on Litsy
13	Revolutionary Road – Richard Yates
14	The Good Soldier – Ford M Ford
15	Death Comes for the Archbishop – W.Cather
16	Rabbit, Run – Updike
17	All Passion Spent – Vita Sackville West
18	A Gathering of Old Men – Ernest Gaines
19	The King Must Die – Mary Renault
20	The Way We Live Now – Trollope

Here’s hoping 12 hits – GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!

Copyright © 2007-2023. Care’s Online Book Club aka Care’s Books and Pie. All rights reserved. This post was originally posted by Care from Care’s Online Book Club aka BkClubCare. It should not be reproduced without express written permission.

All Quiet on the Western Front

February 1, 2023Author Recommendation, Book to Movie, Challenge, Classics, Wian2023book #9 of 2023, Book to Movie, had discovered then forgotten that a new movie had been made based on this book then discovered it again and then am now scared my memory is wonky, library book, on average 55 German soldiers died in every hour of the fifty-month long conflict, tradeback, unfathomable, Wian2023, Wian_qxz, WW1Care

Thoughts by Erich Maria Remarque, Random House Trade 2013 (orig 1928), 227 pages, translated from the German by A.W. Wheen

Challenge: for Classics Club 50 list #2, #WiaN2023 – Category QXZ in title

Genre/Theme: War – WW1

Type/Source: Trade Paperback / Library

“We are little flames poorly sheltered by frail walls against the storm of dissolution and madness, in which we flicker and sometimes almost go out…we creep in upon ourselves and with big eyes stare into the night…and thus we wait for morning.”

What It’s About: Paul is 20 years and realizing his time on the front will permanently impact any hopes of his having any “normal” life, assuming he survives the horror, the filth, the lice, and the inhumanity.

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

Thoughts: This was beautifully written and struck me hard.

Rating: Five slices of pie. No pie mentioned.

“We are not youth any longer. We don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces.”

2023 Wichita Library #ReadICT Challenge

January 2, 2023Celebration, Challenge, Classics, Wian2023the WIAN image will go to the host blog signupCare

My town library has a yearly challenge of 12 months, 12 books, 12 categories. They don’t get hung up on the once a month thing…. Let’s go!

This year’s categories are:

A book with a non-human narrator
A book with a long title (7+ words)
A book about friendship
A guilty pleasure read
A book told from a villain’s point of view
A book about time
A book with a color in the title
A book featuring a LGBTQIA+ protagonist
A book about death or grief
A book set in the Great Plains
A book about a secret or closed society
A book by an author visiting Wichita (in-person or remote)

Follow my GoodReads tracking here.

Happy New Reading Challenge Year! Eat some pie.

2023 What’s in a Name Challenge

January 1, 2023Celebration, Classics, Wian2023the WIAN image will go to the host blog signupCare

The What’s in a Name Challenge Categories for 2023 are:

Punctuation – easy
7 Deadly Sins – Damnation Spring?
You or Me – so many options!! LOL
Chess Piece – The Once and Future King? or The King Must Die by Mary Renault
Celebration – Anna Quindlen’s Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
Q, X, Z

(The hyperlinks above will click over to the host pages for the categories. SWEEET)

Follow my GoodReads tracking here.

Happy New Reading Challenge Year! Eat some pie.

2022 Challenge Status Updates

December 23, 2022Celebration, Classics, Classics Club, What's in a Name 2022CC50_2, Challenge Status Update, Stats Post Ups SOON, the WIAN image will go to the host blog signup, WiaN2022Care

and what nots….

Btw, I deleted all my Twitter accounts. End of an era? I do miss it, but it was no longer the Twitter I knew and loved.

Let’s talk CHALLENGES. I’m looking at the few challenges I worked at in 2022 and picking books from what I read that satisfy as a last ditch effort – I was picky and in doubt about a few but at this stage in the game, WHO CARES!

The What’s in a Name Challenge is COMPLETE:

I’m not bothering to figure out if I posted to the host site (SORRY!) and just enjoying the accomplishment over here in my personal glory/reflection.

Moving on to the question of will I continue in 2023! YES! Yes, of course, and I have a stack of books picked out that will satisfy the new categories but will list more in a dedicated post here in the next few days or weeks.

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Classics Club 50 Part 2 – I read a few classics from my lists and some I realized after that the publish date qualifies for this challenge so I will commit, once again, to a dedicated post in the future with what I’ve read so far and how many I have yet to read. Quick glance says I have to read between 20 – 25 by the end of year 2024. I’ll make it. Looking good.

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Buddy Reads! Who is in for 2023? The Stephen King Fairy Tales is sure showing up in the publicity marketing machine! Anyone want to commit a date for that in 2023?

or is TOB going to suck up all the reading time and force me to say, “How About April?!”