Hi Clubbers! How’s the reading going? Check in with the group below!
Tell us about your project — or you! Introduce yourself. Chat.
Tell us what you’ve read, how you’re feeling about your progress, how much you love the classics or the community — any struggles, a favorite read so far. Really, whatever you feel like sharing!
Some people prefer writing an update at their own blog and linking it here in the comments. That’s fine, too.
Feel free to respond to one another in the comments below — ask questions, visit each other, tell us you are new to the club, planning to join the club — etc. This is a meet and greet.
If you’re having trouble with your list and need encouragement, say that! That’s understandable. We want new classics readers to join us, so there’s nothing wrong with arriving to this thread with all of the newness showing!
(Please also note the “check-in” feature here is entirely voluntarily, intended for those who like weighing in with others in the group, and having a periodic place to reflect upon goals for the club. For some this feature would feel like an unwanted intrusion. Silent participation in this group is of course welcome!)
Thanks for all of your enthusiasm about this project!
New? Introduce yourself to the group on Twitter using hashtag #ccintroductions @ourclassicsclub. You can also introduce yourself here at the blog. 🙂
Twitter hashtag for reading check-ins: #ccreadingupdate
Note that if you’re on Twitter, you can also tweet your latest classic book reviews to the group using hashtag #ccbookreviews.
The Classics Club 
I just went through the house and the bookshelves and discovered 19 classics in all my piles which I haven’t read. So I made a list of them in preparation for our next SPIN (when is it? Anyone?) so I’ll be all ready. I considered buying one more used classic just so I could have all the books on my list be ones I own.
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Just realized I have two books finished but not written up yet! Otherwise, I’m about a third of the way through my first Trollope novel: Can You Forgive Her? I’m liking it quite a bit; just being pulled in too many directions, which is not a state of being I enjoy. 🙂
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I really struggle with the density of Trollope’s prose; there are places where you can really tell he was being paid by the word. But what I do love, about his novels in general and Can You Forgive Her? in particular, is how convincingly his characters think. Alice Vavasour’s angst is my angst. You’re with them every step of the way.
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Currently reading The Portrait of a Lady…first Henry James novel I’ve liked. Not finished yet, but so far so good.
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Henry James is on my radar of #Classics I thought I might enjoy; of course, I haven’t had the pleasure of reading his novels yet, but I am hoping my first instincts will pan out. I might try reading his stories next year, come to think on it. This one I thought I might start with as I wanted to see the motion picture adaptation but curiously waited until I could read the book.
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Hallo, Hallo everyone!
I fell into a reading rut re: Classics ever since I joined the Club. I’ve been counter-balancing a lot in my personal life whilst I built the first 4 years of my blog to where I am today; but evenso, despite the hurdles, I thought for sure I’d have read far more Classical stories than I have now. 😦 I seem to have a repetitive start/stop going on – something I am trying to change lateron this year after I erase my backlogue as most of us can relate too having at some point in our book blogging lives. However, since I’ve changed my blog’s schedule patterns (ie: I have a more limited booking schedule), I have noticed more fluid motion moving forward. I also take more ‘downtime’ offline – curating ways to put art back into my life and by offsetting print books with audiobooks, my migraines have blessedly been reduced by more than half the rate of frequency, too! Go me! 🙂
If anyone has a #mustread this Classic suggestion for me based off my massive tCC List (which in theory wasn’t so mind boggling when I composed it as it is today)(lol) I’d love some feedback from Clubbers who have read something on my List and felt so moved by the narrative and the characters, it would be a good way to serve as a bridge back into my own Classical readings. I even want to re-borrow “I Capture The Castle” as I started reading this via #HistoricalFix (a quarterly chat for #HistFic booklovers) but I lost the hours I needed to finish before the ILL (inter-library loan) was due back. *le sigh* Up until that point, I was *loving!* it and my ruminations are only partially done but hidden from sight (of course) until I finish the book. That’s the closest I’ve come to picking up a Classic novel and honing in on what I want to read — although like the other person, this title wasn’t even on my tCC List!
Oy.
Please visit me and drop me some encouraging notes or point me towards the books which might take me out of my reading rut — all suggestions are welcome! Blessed to be part of this Club even if I’m falling behind the rest of you.
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Hi Jorie, If I understand your tCC list correctly, you haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird yet…that is my recommendation. One of the best books ever.
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Yes! You read my List correctly! I am trying to overhaul how it’s written to make it easier to tell which stories I’ve read and which ones are in abeyance. I have a personal reason for holding off on reading this one – but your other suggestions (via PM) gave me food for thought. Will be revealling which book I’ve chosen to read ASAP on my blog. Stay tuned! And, bless you for writing me such a lovely and kind suggestion of how to chose a wicked good book to re-inspire myself forward in my Classical readings! Rock on!
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Completely failing to read Thucydides right now. But getting close to done with Faerie Queene!
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I recently started a brand new list to go through this for a second time and just posted my first review – The Three Musketeers, which I loved. Also read The Haunting of Hill House, which was fantastic, and am currently finishing up The Prisoner of Zenda, but I’ve unfortunately been incredibly bored with this one.
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Hello! Started my list in January, though it took me close to 2 months to read one book (Gone with the Wind was a beast!) I’m a children’s librarian, so my adult reading often gets interrupted for various children’s novels to keep up with. I did just finish Fathers and Sons. Wasn’t as into it as I wanted to be. So that’s 5 out of 50. My parents are reading with me and we’re discussing the books afterwards because we’re all tired of the standard book club books.
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I am halfway through Gone With the Wind, and am listening to A Study in Scarlet on audio at work. Enjoying them both! Already trying to decide what my next classic read should be. Catch-22? Dumas? Dickens?
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I just finished Gone With the Wind and I enjoyed it much more than I expected. My next one happens to be Catch-22!
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I’ve slowed down on classics for this month in order to study for finals, but I’m on course to pick up Tolstoy and Undset this summer!
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I seem to have got sidetracked from my list and am reading classics I didn’t put on it. Currently reading Doctor Zhivago which will not be appearing on any of my Best Books lists. And about to read The Lodger – a crime classic by Marie Belloc Lowndes and the book that Hitchcock based his early film of the same name on. Next up on my actual list is another crime one, She Who Was No More by Boileau-Narcejac, but it’ll be July before I get to it…
Happy reading, everyone!
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I’ve been quite the slacker this year but I’m starting Don Quixote and hope to finish that before Fall settles in.
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I finished Gaskell’s Cranford earlier this week, and with it, I completed my 51st classic, which is the number I started with when I joined the Club in November 2013. Of course, since then, I have added another 40 to my list, so I doubt that I will finish it in the next year and a half. 🙂 The best part for me has been finding and reading forgotten classics, and I’m always looking for suggestions of non-American classics, so if you have any tips for me, let me know! Thanks, and Happy Reading, everyone!
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