Slammin’ the Classics (A 2019 Wrap-up Post)

Time to report in on my 2019 classics challenge! As you may know, I started 2018 with grand intentions, but ended up reading about 6 of 12 classics.

And I guess I’m going for incremental improvement because in 2019, I completed seven of Karen’s 12 categories (visit her initial post for a breakdown.)

Oh what a long, strange trip it’s been…

Here are the books I completed for each category of the challenge with links to my reviews.

2. 20th Century Classic: Theater by W. Somerset Maugham

3. Classic by a Woman Author: The King’s General by Daphne du Maurier 

4. Classic in Translation: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

5. Classic Comic Novel: Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

6. Classic Tragic Novel: Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

11. Classic From a Place You’ve Lived: A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter

12. Classic Play: A Doll’s House (and the other plays in Four Major Plays) by Henrik Ibsen

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Parting Thoughts

I like to make plans. But I don’t like to follow them. I will spend hours concocting all sorts of plans that sound great (heyyy every diet I’ve ever started), but inevitably, the execution is where I falter. I lack follow-through. So for me to say “I want to read more classics,” then sign up for a classics challenge is normal, something I would do in a heartbeat. Actually reading those classics then becomes a struggle against my own rebellious heart.

For this reason, I’m calling seven out of 12 a win. Up until 2018, I probably read about three classics a year, so anything more than that is broadening my reading horizons.

This year, I conquered two big ones on my TBR list: Anna Karenine and Madame Bovary. Also, I read authors I wouldn’t otherwise have read. That’s where the real sense of pleasure is found—in discovery. I most enjoyed new-to-me authors Barbara Pym, Henrik Ibsen, and W. Somerset Maugham.

So, seven classics and an overall feeling of victory going into 2020. I don’t see an announcement from Karen about whether she’ll be hosting a 2020 classics challenge, but if she does, I’m in!