Here Are My Choices - Better Late Than Never

I came in late for this challenge so I did some scrambling to catch up. I copied down all the authors and spent several hours on Amazon to see what might interest me. The long list of books I compiled was narrowed down quite a bit when I took it to B & N this morning. They were not kidding when they said outmoded! With careful searching I managed to get a few from my list. They are:

"The Well of Loneliness" Radclyffe Hall
"The Country of Pointed Firs" Sarah Orne Jewett
"Of Human Bondage" W. Somerset Maugham
"A High Wind in Jamaica" Richard Hughes
I already have a book of essays by G.K. Chesterton called "What's Wrong With the World" with a picture of your typical curmudgeon (presumably Chesterton) on the cover.

The biggest disappointment was in not finding "Ice" by Anna Kavan. I had the nice man at the customer service desk look it up but when he told me the paperback was 23.95 I hesitated to order it. He suggested the library but I will wait to finish the others first.

For the most part, I know only what I researched on Amazon about these books. The Well of Loneliness will be my first gay/lesbian book so I am really looking forward to that. I saw Of Human Bondage on TCM and it was very disturbing. Bette Davis knows how to do evil, that is for sure! The other two, not much.

I think this challenge will move me out of my comfort zones and stretch me as a reader. I am enjoying reading what others have to say as well.

Proposed Reading List

A Charmed Circle - Anna Kavan (completed, 9/15-9/20/07)
The Death of the Heart - Elizabeth Bowen (9/20- )
The Small Room - May Sarton (9/27- )
A Perfect Hoax - Italo Svevo
The Well of Loneliness - Radclyffe Hall

I wish to thank Imani for organizing this unique reading challenge, which allows me to read authors that otherwise I would have never encountered. Bowen’s crisp, emotionally charged style is very similar to Anna Kavan. It’s interesting how they cross path via this reading challenge and I happen to pick both of them.

Bonnie's list

There are at least four authors on the list that I'd like to read: Sarah Orne Jewett, D. H. Lawrence, Malcolm Lowry, and May Sarton.

My choices:
Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs, 1896
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, 1928
Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano, 1947
May Sarton, The Fur Person, 1957

Bookeywookey's List

I've been remiss about showing up here so thanks, Imani, for persistently sending me invitations until I got my ass in gear. I won't post yet, having not gotten to even crack open any of my selections, but here is my list:

John Galsworthy - Fraternity
May Sarton - Faithful are the Wounds
Ivy Compton-Burnett - Manservant and Maidservant
Olivia Manning - The Balkan Trilogy

I hope six books during the fall semester isn't pushing it.

obooki's reading list

This is just my sort of thing. I seem to spend half my life tracking down obscure writers to read (mostly foreign). Just today I bought Ramon del Valle-Inclan's Autumn and Winter Sonatas and Harry Mulisch's The Assault - but no, however much I want to I can't read them now, I have to do this challenge instead.

My reading list:

• Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano (1947). I was actually in the middle of his short story collection Hear Us O Lord From Heaven Thy DwellingPlace (he had a way with titles), so I'll post on the ones I haven't read yet. - I read Ultramarine a long time ago, which I remember being only OK.
• Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno (1923). I've read As A Man Grows Older and A Life already (in fact, I read A Life this year), so Svevo isn't exactly unknown to me. I recommend A Life, though it may not be easy to come by.
  
• Djuna Barnes' Nightwood (1936). I've had it on my shelf for a while.
• Anna Kavan's Sleep has his House (1948). I've never read any of her books. People have recommended Ice before.

(Now those were the ones already on my shelf, but due to a tube strike this week, I wandered a different way home from work and - as usual with such things - discovered a charming ramshackle secondhand bookshop full of outmoded authors - all weathered orange penguins and virago modern classics).

• Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819). I tried reading what I think is his first novel, Old Mortality, once and swore never to read any Scott again; but I'll give him one last chance.
• Dawn Powell's The Golden Spur (1962). I'd never heard of her, but this sounds fascinating. A Virago book with an introduction by that arch-feminist Gore Vidal: "Powell was always just on the verge of ceasing to be a cult and becoming a major religion ... in her lifetime she should have been as widely read as, say, Hemingway or the early Fitzgerald or the mid O'Hara ... that unthinkable monster, a witty woman who felt no obligation to make a single, much less a final, down payment on Love or the Family; she saw life with a bright Petronian neutrality".
• Christina Stead's The Salzburg Tales (1934). I keep buying her books, leaving them on my shelves and then giving them away without reading them. This is her first book, and seems to be a long Decameron-style festival of tales.
• May Sarton's Kinds of Love (1970). This looks like the kind of book I would never buy and never read. A truly awful cover. The blurb: "Now in her seventies - with a disabled husband to care for - Christina has decided to spend her first winter in their summer holiday home". So it should be interesting.
• Violette Leduc's La Batarde (1964). "You will be shocked and thrilled by her candour as she reveals the anguish of her illegitimate, poverty-stricken childhood", says the blurb.

I used to read books to the end whether I liked them or not, but as I've grown older (and a bit more frightened at the ever-increasing number of unread books on my bookshelves) I now tend to give up on anything that doesn't interest me within about the first 70 pages.

I think I'll start with Dawn Powell.

(p.s. I haven't read The Obscene Bird of Night, but I've been reading other books by Jose Donoso recently and he's quickly become one of my favourite writers).

Addendum: I do have one of the most extraordinary local library services in my borough and, from my investigations on their website, I reckon I should be able to track down Andrew Salkey, C L R James, E R Eddison, Freya Stark and maybe Orlando Patterson. (C L R James' book on Toussaint Louverture sounds really fascinating). So I may replace a few of the above with them. (They had Merce Rodoreda too, but only in Spanish).

My Picks For The Challenge (Bybee)

This is a challenge near and dear to my heart. It's like a treasure hunt, finding authors who are undeservedly underread or out of fashion or favor. Plus, there's something ornery in me that doesn't like to read what is popular at the moment.

For this challenge, I plan to read:
Letty Fox: Her Luck by Christina Stead (I read The Man Who Loved Children, and enjoyed it, but surely there is not a more irritating character in fiction than Sam.)

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. (I've had a copy of this for a while, and this gives me a good excuse to get it off the shelf. I got a kick out of the 1934 movie based on this novel. Leslie Howard was just right as Philip, and Bette Davis was a perfect Mildred -- what a bitch!)

I also hope to find and read a novel or short story collection by Elizabeth Taylor.

Anna Kavan is on the list! I'm so pleased. I read Let Me Alone a few years ago, and loved it. I hope I can squeeze in a read by her, maybe Julia And The Bazooka.

Thanks, Imani, for starting this challenge. You've put a lot of time and thought into this!

Beepy's Reading List

Sorry Imani. Here is my reading list.

Somerset Maugham:

Of Human Bondage
The Razor's Edge
Cakes and Ale
The Painted Veil

D.H. Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover
Sons and Lovers
Possibly some of his short novels or stories


Christina Stead

The Man Who Loved Children



My problem with reading is that I always bite off more than I can chew, so we'll see how far I get. I also saw tons more on the list of possiblities that sparked my interest. Books, eh?

Ex Libris' Reading List

I have participated in, and failed, several reading challenges. In fact, I nearly swore off them for the remainder of the year. But when I saw this challenge, I just knew I had to participate. I love the idea of reading outmoded authors. It was interesting to see a list of authors who fall into this category. It includes many I've never heard of, but there are also several whose books reside on my shelves - often with more than one title. And I was rather surprised to see D. H. Lawrence on this list.

I have selected five books for this challenge:

• Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
• A World of Love by Elizabeth Bowen
• Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
• The Merry-Go-Round by W. Somerset Maugham
• Adam's Breed by Radclyffe Hall

Realistically I'm not sure how many I will complete. If I find I have the time, I may also include some short stories by Djuna Barnes and D. H. Lawrence.

Thank you, Imani, for bringing these authors back to the forefront for all of us to discover and enjoy.

Emily's List

All right, I have to admit that I did the old high-school thing of choosing books by page count. However, based on my failings when it comes to other challenges (thank you, all those of you who have made me feel I am not alone in this "failing challenges arena"), I’m not thinking of this as a lazy way to approach a challenge, but rather as a realistic way to approach a challenge. Then again, since I’m being completely candid here, I also have to admit that I didn’t approach this challenge realistically at all. You should see the long, marked-up list of titles I plan to take to the library with me next time I go, because, you see, I’m going to whiz through these five titles in no time (you know, while reading Faust, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Grapes of Wrath, and A Tale of Two Cities) and tackle at least 20 more before the challenge ends (yeah, right). Anyway, here are my choices:

Titles already in my hands:
Friends and Relations by Elizabeth Bowen -- the title that was discovered on my company’s library shelves, thus being a sign that I was meant to take on this challenge.
The Moon and Sixpence by W.S. Maugham -- haven’t read Maugham since I was a teenager, remember next to nothing except that I ate up everything I could get my hands on, and have wanted to re-read him for years. I don’t even actually know if I’ve read this one or not (I think I have), so it may be a re-read or it may be completely fresh.
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton -- my sister recommended this about a hundred years ago, even read quotes to me from a copy on Bob’s and my shelves. High time I got around to reading it, no?

Titles to be retrieved from the library:
The Father Brown Omnibus by G.K. Chesterton -- recommended by a friend who takes great pride in the fact he never agrees with me on anything, but who, for some reason, has never led me astray when it comes to books (needless to say, he also recommended The Man Who Was Thursday).
The Lady in the Lake by Walter Scott – thought I should have a little poetry, and I’d like to be able to say I’ve read something by Scott, especially since Dorr's gotten me interested in the idea of reading him. I’ll probably read some May Sarton, too, to add a little more poetry (can’t see myself resisting Letters from Maine: New Poems for too long), but I’m only committing myself to Scott for now.

The second cut:
If I do manage to read all of the above fairly quickly, these five will be explored next:
Dawn Powell – read about her years ago, more recently read excerpts from her diaries in a collection of New York writings we have, and have wanted to read more.
Janet Frame – absolutely loved (and was devastated by) the movie An Angel at My Table, which I saw when it came out, but I’ve never gotten around to actually reading any of the books
More Ivy Compton-Burnett – she’s the kind of writer I can’t sit down and read too much in one go (too depressing), but I’d like to read more
Sybille Bedford – Never heard of her till now, but Jigsaw: An Unsentimental Education sounds like it’s right up my alley
Italo Svevo – in my never-ending quest to quit being so Anglo-author-centered

Geranium Cat's reading list

My first reading challenge too! I’m very excited about it. I’m envious of people who have found authors in their local libraries – ours is officially useless, though they’ve managed to come up with a Fr Brown collection. So I shall read some books off my shelves and I’ve spent next month’s book allowance on additions. There’s a rather English bias, as a result, but I’ll try to find some others.

Christina Stead, The Man Who Loved Children: this was on my shelves, I started it before and got stuck. I’ll finish it this time.

Freya Stark: my mother should be useful here, she’s a great admirer. I shall raid her collection.

G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Napoleon of Notting Hill and Father Brown stories. I read and liked TMWWT and Fr Brown before, in my distant youth and I look forward to re-acquainting myself with them (incidentally, I found The Napoleon of Notting Hill as a text file and am making a reader-friendly PDF file, if anyone wants a copy).

G.B. Shaw: knew these well in my drama student days, might have another go at Saint Joan.

Ivy Compton-Burnett: another old favourite, I’ll find as many as I can and do some re-reading. A Heritage and Its History is on my shelves and will make a good place to start.

Malcolm Lowry: Dark as the Grave Wherein My Friend is Laid. One of my “must get round to” authors and I found this one cheap, so will start with it.

Marian Engel, The Bear and Lunatic Villas. Both off my shelves (if I can find them!) I was just a smidge shocked by The Bear first time round. Also The Glassy Sea and The Honeyman Festival, which are completely new to me, and I’ve had to order from Canada.

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage. I read this more than once when I was young, so it will be very interesting to go back see how it fares. I’d like to re-read Cakes and Ale, too, which I remember liking very much.

Anything else depends on what I can get hold of: I’d like to finally read all of The Forsyte Saga. If I have time I might try to a bit of Scott, but it won’t be Ivanhoe, which we had to read at school (I managed up to Chapter 3, which meant that the subsequent exam was a bit of a disaster!)

I foresee lots of late nights and a serious dent in the whisky supply - must remember I have to more than just read everything!

Eloise's reading list

This is my first reading challenge too, usually I just mooch around the bookshelves seeing what takes my fancy, so I'm really looking forward to this. At the moment this list is just from books I own so I know I can get my hands on them - if I can track down which shelf or pile they are in! I am intrigued by the many authors on the list that I've never heard of, though, and may well increase this list as I look out for books by them.

G K Chesterton: The Napoleon of Notting Hill
I tried to read this when I was about twelve (as I was a fan of the Father Brown stories) and remember being completely baffled by it. I'm hoping that the many years since will make it more comprehensible but I'm still a bit nervous of it.

W Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale
I'd forgotten I even owned this book, just found it hiding in a corner.

J K Huysmans: A Rebours (or Against Nature as I'll be reading it in translation)

D H Lawrence: Lady Chatterley's Lover
Oh dear, this really will be a challenge - I have never wanted to read this book, as I'm very prudish, but it's about time to brave it. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

George Bernard Shaw: Pygmalion

Radclyffe Hall: I can't remember what it's called or find it at the moment, but I know it's here somewhere and it's not The Well of Loneliness.

And something by Scott, he's one of my favourite authors so it could be anything.

BooksPlease Reading List

This is the first challenge I've joined and I've really enjoyed looking up these authors. This is my preliminary list:

G K Chesterton, The Complete Father Brown
I've read some of Chesterton's books before, but none of the Father Brown books. There's a copy in my local library - in the Reserve Stock.

Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
I've never read any Scott and as I have a copy of Ivanhoe, I'll start with this. My copy is an old hardback book, one of a set of classic books published by Odhams Press that belonged to my father-in-law. I also fancy reading Scott's Waverley.

Somerset Maugham, Books and You & The Moon and Sixpence
I used to love watching Maugham's plays, when they used to show them on TV, but have never read anything by him. The library has copies of both of these. Books and You sounds intriguing from its title.

John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga
I'm surprised to find that I've never read any Galsworthy either, but as The Forsyte Saga was recently serialised on TV I know the story. I'll be interested to see how faithful the series was to the book. Sometimes, I don't like a film or TV dramatisation if I've read the book first, but it's usually ok the other way round.

Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy
I know nothing about Manning's books. The on-line catalogue of my local library lists this one volume book comprising The Great Fortune ; The Spoilt City ; Friends and Heroes.

Italo Svevo, As a Man Grows Older
I know absolutely nothing about this author and have never heard of him before, so this may or may not be a good choice. The library has a copy of this.

D H Lawrence, Sons and Lovers
I have read Women in Love and The Virgin and the Gypsy, but not Sons and Lovers. I've had a battered secondhand copy of Sons and Lovers sitting in a bookcase for years, so now is the time to read it.

I don't know whether I'll manage all these but I'm looking forward to alternating them with other books I'd like to read.

Becky's reading list

I'm very excited at this challenge, since I've found myself exploring a few forgotten authors already this year - Dunsany, Mirrlees, A E W Mason, Thesiger, Galsworthy. Also, I was at a stage where I needed some direction for my reading, so this couldn't be more timely. Below is my preliminary list, a mixture of authors who are new to me (Manning, Eddison) and those I've been meaning to pursue further. I'll add more if I have more time. The Eddison has recently been recommended to me by the same person who put me on the track of Dunsany and all I could remember was that the title had a worm in it.

Olivia Manning, The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy
Freya Stark, A Winter in Arabia
Elizabeth Bowen, The House in Paris
E R Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros
W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale

Sarah's (loose baggy monster) List of Authors

I have decided to select authors that I would like to read more of, but I’m not going to select specific works just yet (or ever, I might just read whatever seems appealing at any given moment). Here are the authors I think look particularly intriguing:

1. Dawn Powell
   
2. G.K. Chesterton (Father Brown mysteries, The Man Who Was Thursday)
3. John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga–I have long been tempted by this)
4. W. Somerset Maugham (I have a collection of 5 of his novels, so I’ll start there)
5. Olivia Manning (my library has both The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy so I requested them both)

My goal is to read as many as possible, but I'm not going to put a limit (min or max) either way. I figure if I keep my expectations rather low for myself, I can't help but be pleasantly surprised when I manage to complete something!

Dark Orpheus's Reading List

I have drawn up the reading list for the challenge. My goal will be to read as many titles on the list as possible. If I do find anything interesting along the way, I might just throw it into the mix:

1. Janet Frame, Owls Do Cry
2. Italo Svevo, Zeno's Conscience; As a Man Grows Older
3. Freya Stark, The Southern Gates of Arabia
4. G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday; Any of the Father Brown mysteries
5. May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude
6. Malcolm Lowry, Under the Volcano
7. Djuna Barnes, Nightwood
8. Radclyffe Hall, Well of Loneliness
9. W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor's Edge; Of Human Bondage; The Magician; The Moon and Sixpence

Reach for the skies, I say.

Eva's Preliminary List

So, after looking at all the authors and realising that way too many sounded interesting, I decided on a new criteria: there must be a copy available in the US on bookmooch. This quickly narrowed the field (after all, these books are unpopular ;)) and I ended up with...

The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
The Wisdom of Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton
The Small Room by May Sarton
A Book or Two by Walter Scott

I feel quite proud of the list, since it manages to achieve several of my general reading goals: read more women, read more short stories, read more classics. Yay! Plus, they all sound great. I am facing a huge dilemma re: which Walter Scott to choose. So many sound so good to me; I can't believe I've never read any Scott before! Of course, someone (can't remember who just now) is planning a one-author challenge for early next year, so Scott could play nicely into this.

Can't wait to see everyone else's lists up! Imani has requested that we use tags to keep everything organised, so I went ahead and made a 'reading lists' tag.

Cross posted (with some changes) at A Striped Armchair.

Challenge possibilities

I have tried to stay away from reading challenges because, although I like the idea in principle, in practice I find myself not doing all the reading, pushing myself to do the reading, and then getting annoyed with myself when I don’t. And reading should be fun, right?

But … you know how it goes. Someone comes along with a new challenge and it seems intriguing, and next thing I know I’m signed up. I should not get so caught up in trying to finish these things and should just think about what they are good for: getting me to read things I might not otherwise.

So thank you, Imani, for putting together this list and the blog! The challenge should be fun.

The list is quite long, and there are tons of authors I’d happily read from it. I think, though, to increase my chances of actually completing this thing, I won’t decide for sure which ones until the last moment, with one exception: I’d really like to read Walter Scott. I’ll probably read Waverley, as it’s the one I have on my shelves. Other than that, I’d like to read maybe two or three other authors from the list. Here are some possibilities:

• Christina Stead. I own a copy of her novel The Man Who Loved Children, and I don’t know anything about it whatsoever, except that it’s on Jane Smiley’s list from her book 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. Perhaps it’s time to find out.
• Djuna Barnes. I’ve wanted to read Nightwood for quite a while, although I’m a bit nervous about not getting it; as I understand it, it’s an experimental novel and sometimes those work for me and other times they don’t.
• Elizabeth Bowen. I think she’s someone I’ll like when I finally read her. I own a copy of The Last September, which would do nicely.
• John Dryden. He’s someone I suggested, not so much because I’m excited about reading him, but because he someone I don’t think non-academic readers read very often. If people are going to read something from his time period, it’s more likely to be Aphra Behn or maybe one of the comic plays, or more likely it’ll be something from a bit later like Daniel Defoe. But maybe I should read more of his work (beyond what I’ve read for various classes).
• Radclyffe Hall. I own a copy of her book Adam’s Breed, and Imani has written so intriguingly about The Well of Loneliness, I may just give it a try.
• Sybille Bedford. Litlove mentioned A Favourite of the Gods as one of her favorite books from 2006, so surely that would be a good choice.
• Other possibilities: Merce Rodoreda, Ivy Compton-Burnett, Malcom Lowry.