Looking back at the Women’s Classic Literature Event

December 20, 201614 Comments

During the last three months of 2015 and throughout 2016, I have been taking part in the Women’s Classic Literature Event hosted by the Classics Club. The idea was simply to read classics written by women, a classic being defined as any type of work (novels, essays, biographies etc) which was preferably published before 1960.

Here are the books I’ve read for this event which were already on my Classics Club list:

My Ántonia by Willa Cather
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Mary Anne by Daphne du Maurier
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
The Heir of Redclyffe by Charlotte M. Yonge
Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1966, but I think most people would agree that it’s a classic!

There are also two more books by Woolf which I read for Ali’s #Woolfalong:

Flush by Virginia Woolf
A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf

I can’t say that I loved all of these books, but I did find them all interesting, worthwhile reads. I particularly enjoyed Kristin Lavransdatter, Wives and Daughters, Flush and my re-read of Jane Eyre.

However, I have also read other books by women which may or may not be considered classics in the same way as the books above. Because they fit the Classics Club’s definition of a classic for this event, I’m going to mention some of them here.

* I’ve read books by authors who are new to me – Non-Combatants and Others by Rose Macaulay, The Nutmeg Tree and Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp and Mauprat by George Sand – and by authors I’ve read before – Amberwell by D.E. Stevenson, Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy and Poor Caroline by Winifred Holtby.

* I’ve read some historical fiction published before 1960: The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge, The Rider of the White Horse by Rosemary Sutcliff and several novels by Marjorie Bowen, Dora Greenwell McChesney and Georgette Heyer.

* I’ve read some classic crime, including A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, Death in Berlin by MM Kaye and two Agatha Christies (Hercule Poirot’s Christmas and The Labours of Hercules).

* And one non-fiction book – A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell.

So, that sums up my reading over the year-and-three-months of this event! Have you been participating too? What are the best classics written by women that you’ve read recently?

Classics Spin #14: The result

October 3, 201619 Comments

The result of the latest Classics Spin has been revealed today – and I’m very happy with the book I’ll be reading!

The idea of the Spin was to list twenty books from my Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced today (Monday) represents the book I have to read before 1st December 2016. The number that has been selected is…

And this means the book I need to read is…

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

This will be a re-read of one of my favourite books. It seems that Wuthering Heights is a book people either love or hate; I’ve always loved it and am looking forward to revisiting it for the Classics Club. It’s been a while since I last read it, so I hope I’ll still enjoy it as much as I used to!

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Classics Spin #14: My list

September 30, 201617 Comments

I’ve been wondering when there would be another Classics Club Spin – it seems a long time since the last one – so I was pleased to see that Spin #14 has just been announced!

Here are the rules, if you need a reminder:

* List any twenty books you have left to read from your Classics Club list.
* Number them from 1 to 20.
* On Monday the Classics Club will announce a number.
* This is the book you need to read by 1st December 2016

And here is my list:

As I only have 15 books left to read for the Classics Club, I’ve had to list some of them twice. I haven’t included East of Eden (because I’ve already committed to reading that one this autumn) or my re-read of The Count of Monte Cristo (because it’s one of my favourite books and I thought it would be nice to save it until last). Of the others, I really don’t mind which one is chosen for me!

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (re-read)
2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
4. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (re-read)
5. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
6. Howards End by E.M. Forster
7. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
8. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
9. Lost Horizon by James Hilton
10. The Red House Mystery by A.A. Milne
11. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
12. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
13. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
14. The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
15. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
16. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
17. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
18. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (re-read)
19. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
20. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

Which numbers do you think I should be hoping for? Are you taking part in the Spin this time?

Classics Spin – The Result

June 6, 201618 Comments

On Friday I mentioned that I was taking part in the latest Classics Spin. The idea of the Spin was to list twenty books from my Classics Club list, number them 1 to 20, and the number announced today (Monday) represents the book I have to read before 1st August 2016.

The number that has been selected by the Classics Club this time is #15, which means the book I’ll be reading is:

Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger

This is what the book is about:

Prince of Foxes, set in Renaissance Italy, is the fast-paced, suspenseful story of Andrea Orsini, a peasant boy who rises far and becomes a secret agent for the cunning and powerful Cesare Borgia, who entrusts him with the most delicate political, military and romantic missions. It is a classic of American popular fiction. When first published in the mid-twentieth century, it became an instant best-seller and was turned into a hit movie with Orson Welles cast as Borgia and Tyrone Power as Orsini.

One of the things I like about the Classics Club is that each individual member can decide how they want to define a classic. As well as conventional classics, my own list also includes modern classics, ‘forgotten’ classics, and books like this one, which are classic historical fiction. I’m very pleased that the spin has chosen Prince of Foxes for me as I’ve had a copy on my shelf for a long time and have just never managed to get round to reading it. I’ll do my best to read and review it sometime in June or July, but I want to finish Kristin Lavransdatter, my book from the previous spin, first!

Have you read this book? If you took part in the classics spin too, are you happy with your result?

Classics Spin #13: My list

June 3, 201621 Comments

The Classics Club have just announced another of their Classics Spins. It’s hard to believe this will be the thirteenth! I probably shouldn’t be taking part in this one as I haven’t even finished my book from the last Spin yet (although I think I have a good excuse, considering it was Kristin Lavransdatter) but as usual I couldn’t resist joining in.

Here is a reminder of the Spin rules:

And here is my list:

1. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (re-read)
2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
3. Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas
4. Frenchman’s Creek by Daphne du Maurier
5. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
6. Howards End by EM Forster
7. I, Claudius by Robert Graves
8. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
9. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (re-read)
10. The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
11. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
12. The Red House Mystery by AA Milne
13. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
14. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
15. Prince of Foxes by Samuel Shellabarger
16. The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
17. The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
18. Lost Horizon by James Hilton
19. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (re-read)
20. Louise de la Valliere by Alexandre Dumas

I have exactly twenty books left to read for the Classics Club, so this list was very easy to put together. However, I haven’t included The Man in the Iron Mask as it comes after Louise de la Valliere in the d’Artagnan series and I don’t want to read them out of order. I’ve listed Louise twice instead.

I don’t really mind which book I get at this stage as I’ll be reading them all soon anyway. I’m always happy with Dumas or du Maurier, though, and I would also love to get The Leopard this time.

Are you taking part in the Classics Spin? Which books from my list do you think I should be hoping for?

A resolution revisited

May 27, 201635 Comments

Sorry about the unannounced disappearance over the last week or so. I had a stressful day at work last Friday trying to deal with a difficult colleague and it left me feeling very down for a few days and not very interested in blogging. I was struggling to concentrate on any of the books I was in the middle of reading and found myself reaching instead for The Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett to re-read a favourite scene…and of course I ended up re-reading the rest of the book! As anyone who has read it will know, it finishes on such a cliffhanger that it’s almost impossible not to want to pick up the next book in the series as soon as possible, so naturally I have had to move straight on to a re-read of Pawn in Frankincense as well.

Having been reminded of how much I used to enjoy returning to my favourite books again and again, I remembered the list of reading resolutions I posted at the beginning of the year. My top resolution was to spend more time on re-reads…and until now, not a single one of my 2016 reads has been a re-read! This is something I really want to change as there are so many books I keep saying I would love to re-read and it makes me feel frustrated and sad that I just never seem to get round to doing it.

So, for the rest of the year I’m determined that I’m going to stick to my resolution and do a lot of re-reading! I’m not going to set any targets in terms of numbers, as I don’t cope very well with targets where reading is concerned…or with lists. I know that if I mentioned any specific titles here I would immediately feel under pressure and lose my enthusiasm for re-reading them, so I’m afraid you’ll have to wait and see which books I choose to re-read!

Do you enjoy re-reading too or do you prefer to discover new books?

Which are your favourite books to read over and over again?

2016 Walter Scott Prize shortlist

March 24, 2016July 22, 201616 Comments

Following the announcement last month of this year’s longlist for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction, today the shortlist of six books has been revealed. As I am currently attempting to work my way through all of the books shortlisted for the prize since it began in 2010 (see my progress here), I was particularly interested to see which titles would make the list this year. And here they are:

Sweet Caress by William Boyd

A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale

Mrs Engels by Gavin McCrea

End Games in Bordeaux by Allan Massie

Tightrope by Simon Mawer

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar

Have you read any of these? If not, are there any you’re interested in reading?

So far I have only read one of the six – A Place Called Winter, which I enjoyed, although I haven’t posted my review yet. I know very little about any of the other books on the list, but I do know that Tightrope is a sequel and End Games in Bordeaux is the fourth in a quartet, which means, with my preference for reading a series in order, I will have some catching up to do before I can start either of those two!

I’m surprised – and slightly disappointed – that there’s no place on the shortlist for A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson or Dictator by Robert Harris, both of which had been longlisted, but congratulations to the six authors above. The winner will be announced in June.