Back to the Classics 2021 - Sign Up Post

 

The Back to the Classics Challenge is back for another year! I adore this challenge and I'm so happy to be able to participate again. This will be my seventh year taking part, which sounds crazy to me. How is that even possible? I must be getting old.

Anyway, the categories are really fun this year and most of them match up with books I already planned to read for my Classics Club list anyway. Here's my plan:

1. A 19th century classic: Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy (1872)

I went through a phase many years ago where I bought up all the Thomas Hardy books they sold at Borders (that's how long ago it was). I read some of his work before my blogging days, and I read Jude the Obscure for this challenge in 2019. I generally enjoy his writing, so I'm interested to give another of his novels a try.

2. A 20th century classic: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)

I have never read a novel by Virginia Woolf, and I know nothing at all about her writing. I feel like I need to change this!

3. A classic by a woman author: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot (1876)

I read George Eliot's Silas Marner in high school and The Mill on the Floss in college. I read Middlemarch before I started blogging. I've liked everything I've read from her so far, so I am excited to try another of her novels.

4. A classic in translation: Les Misérables by Victor Hugo (1862)

I've wanted to read this book ever since I listened to the soundtrack of the musical version in high school. I'm excited to finally get to it this year, but I'm worried about the length. My version has 1,232 pages!

5. A classic by BIPOC author: Iola Leroy: Shadows Uplifted by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1892)

I almost made a big mistake in this category - I originally picked Love in the Time of Cholera, completely overlooking that fact that it wasn't old enough to quality for this challenge. Luckily, Jennifer, another blogger, caught my mistake and was kind enough to let me know. I am so grateful for her help! Anyway, after that, I realized that I didn't have any books left on my Classics Club list that suited this category, so I did a little research and ended up with this novel, which I hadn't heard of before now. It's one of the first novels published by an African American woman, which immediately caught my interest.

6. A classic by a new-to-you author: Main Street by Sinclair Lewis (1920)

This is another book that I don't know much about, but I remember reading a very positive review for it on the Books and Chocolate blog. Hopefully I will enjoy it as much as Karen did.

7. New-to-you classic by a favorite author:  Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens (1894)

I've read a handful of books from Charles Dickens and consider him to be one of my favorite authors. I have no idea what this novel is about, but I do remember that my 19th Century British literature professor considered this to be his best work. I wonder if I will agree.

8. A classic about an animal, or with an animal in the title: The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather (1915)

I read O Pioneers! for this challenge earlier this year and I mostly enjoyed it. Since the title of this second book in Cather's Great Plains Trilogy matches the prompt so well, I figured I'd continue on with the series in 2021.

9. A children's classic: The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (1946)

I love reading classic children's literature, but I'm starting to run out of books I haven't read in this genre. I'm trying to read from my own shelves for the most part next year, so I decided to try this book that I found at a used bookstore last year.

10. A humorous or satirical classic: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray (1847-1848)

This is another classic that I've had on my radar forever but never got around to actually reading. Its length, much like Les Misérables, is intimidating, so I'm hoping it won't feel too monotonous.

11. A travel or adventure classic (fiction or non-fiction): From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne (1865)

For the past several years, I have started out my reading in January with a Jules Verne novel. This will be my pick to kick off 2021.

12. A classic play: Hamlet by William Shakespeare (c. 1600)

I have three plays by Shakespeare left on my Classics Club list that would have worked for this prompt. I decided to go with Hamlet because its probably his most famous work and I've never read it. It's finally time to give it a try.

This is probably my most ambitious lineup ever, because so many of these books are long. I don't really have a choice though, because I'm heading into my last year of the Classics Club Challenge, and most of these books are part of that list too. I'm hoping that I don't struggle too much with the longer ones - I'm confident that I can finish them - it's the boredom I'm worried about! Reading the classics is great, but there's always a certain amount of monotony that comes along with it (at least for me). I hope that I find them entertaining enough so that the reading process doesn't take too long.