Back to the Classics 2021 - Wrap Up Post

Well, another year is reaching its end and along with it comes the end of another Back to the Classics Challenge. This is my seventh (!) year completing this challenge, and as usual, it was a worthwhile experience. My selections this time around were challenging, to say the least. I had some very long novels to get through, including the 1,200 page Les Misérables, but I ended up finishing everything in the end. Here are links to all my reviews:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Many of these classics were books that I had been meaning to get to for years, so I am glad to have read them in that sense. Most of them, however, were not particularly memorable or enjoyable for me this time around. The exceptions to that were Les Misérables and Our Mutual Friend, which I did enjoy, but most of the rest were just okay. I didn't find many new favorites this year. That's alright though, I'm bound to have unlucky picks every once in a while. I'm still quite happy to have finished, because most of these were part of my Classics Club list too, so reading them helped push me closer to the end of that challenge.

Overall, I finished all twelve prompts, meaning I get three entries in the prize drawing. If I should win, I can be contacted at quiet.kristina [at] gmail [dot] com.

Of course, if Karen K. decides to host this challenge again in 2022, I will definitely be participating. It would be a different kind of year for me because I will be done with my Classics Club Challenge by that time, so I wouldn't be trying to double dip with books from another challenge list. The whole world of classics would be open to me! I'm looking forward to it already.