July ClassicsCAT: The Classic You've Always Wanted to Read

This month's category is the classic you have always wanted to read. This means that your choice is wide open! What's the classic that whenever you run across it, you think: "Sounds like fun!" Maybe you've had a classic on your TBR forever and a day. Find that classic and read it in July.

Don't forget to add your reading to the wiki: https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/ClassicsCAT_2023#July:_A_Classic_You_Alw...

It's Jane Austen July. I've read all of Austen, but I've always wanted to read the classic 18th century gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe, which figures prominently in Austen's Northanger Abbey. It's a long one, so hope to finish it in July.

>2 kac522: It's been awhile, but I had no problem getting through The Mysteries of Udolpho. Hope you enjoy it!

I am planning to get back to Giorgio Bassani's The Novel of Ferrara which I put down in favour of froth and didn't pick up again. It will also count for the GeoCAT. Lion Feuchtwanger's The Oppermans is another possibility which would also count for the GeoCAT.

I might attempt Dune. It is on most classics lists and one of the only ones I have not read.

Oh my yes!that book started me on a long lived love of sci fi books. Hope you like it!

I am sticking with Bertie and Jeeves. I think any of Wodehouse can be considered classics.

I am planning on reading The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler.

>7 LadyoftheLodge: There's an idea... nothing was coming to mind for this, but every time someone mentions Wodehouse I think I should try them. Sounds perfect for this category.

Ive not read anything by wodehouse; any suggestion where to start?

Hmmm, I have always meant to read Anthony Trollope's Barchester books.

>11 JayneCM: The Warden, the first book in the series, is short; it's a good way to decide if Trollope is for you.

>10 cindydavid4: I would start with the Bertie and Jeeves novels first. Wodehouse has a lot of other books too, but you could always watch the Jeeves movies as a sideline to the books. I also own a collection of short stories that include Bertie and Jeeves entitled Enter Jeeves.

Fantastic Fiction suggests this reading order:
1. My Man Jeeves (1919)
2. The Inimitable Jeeves (1923)
3. Carry on, Jeeves (1925)
4. Very Good, Jeeves (1930)
5. Thank You, Jeeves (1934)
6. Right Ho, Jeeves (1934)
7. The Code of the Woosters (1938)
8. Joy in the Morning (1946)
9. The Mating Season (1949)
10. Ring for Jeeves (1953)
11. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954)
12. Jeeves in the Offing (1960)
13. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963)
14. Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971)
15. Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974)
The World of Jeeves (1967)
Introducing Jeeves (2019)

>11 JayneCM:, >12 kac522: I didn't much like The Warden the first time I tried it but gave it another go after enjoying The Way We Live Now, a stand-alone, and The Pallisers series. I think The Warden is the weakest of the Barchester books but had more patience for it the second time around.

>14 pamelad: One to consider as a first read: the first Trollope I read was the Eustace Diamonds (one of the Palliser series). At the time I had read very little Victorian literature. I loved it and I'm still reading Trollope 30 years later.

>14 pamelad:, >15 NinieB: It's so different for everyone. The Warden was the first Trollope I read, and Mr Harding and his "air" cello went straight to my heart. I'll admit it is a quiet, slow book, very unlike The Way We Live Now and The Eustace Diamonds. But it is short, so it doesn't require a lot of time investment.

I may finally get round to Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

If you are undecided whether Trollope is for you, can I suggest "The Barchester Chronicles", the TV version of The Warden and Barchester Towers?

its not what I alsays wanted to read, but since Balzack is this next months author of the month challenge, seemed a good work to include here. Now reading droll stories I had no idea what this author wrote about but his satire on life in 16th century france, with wondere slams at the hypocrisy in the church and government. Lots of fun!

I completed Dune by Frank Herbert. 860 pages 3 stars A sci-fi classic.

3 stars glad you didn't hate it! If you want to see one of the movies go with th 6 episode series that sci/fi channel did back in the 80s I think. very well done

I'm reading The Decameron. I can;t say I have always wanted to read it, but I saw a BBC documentary sometime in lockdown about artistic responses to plague and previous pandemics. She was really very good and I enjoyed the documentary and its sense of perspective a lot. This was covered, so I thought I'd give it a go.

I just finished Phillis Wheatley: Complete Writings after having been curious about her poetry for a long time.

I finished two Bertie and Jeeves novels: Jeeves in the Offing and Jeeves and the Tie that Binds.

my review of droll stories is here
https://www.librarything.com/topic/349922#n8182230

Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time (part 1) by Marcel Proust

Skilfully introspective and utterly captivating. One of those books that is difficult to put down as it seductively draws the reader in. No review, others have said it better than I ever could. I'm just glad this the classics category challenge supplied the prompt that led me to read this excellent work. Highly recommended. Mine was an audiobook with an outstanding reading by John Rowe.

>26 VivienneR: Was it the 2004 Lydia Davis translation? I'd read the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past years ago in Scott Moncrieff's translation but the humour came across far more in the Lydia Davis translation.

>26 VivienneR: Funny, my family and I were just talking about Proust yesterday! Or more specifically madeleines. I bought macarons yesterday, but after that conversation I think I should have bought madeleines as well 😂

>27 pamelad: I believe it was the Scott Moncrieff translation - although that was difficult to verify because it was an Overdrive audiobook. Narrator John Rowe was terrific.

>28 rabbitprincess: At that point in his story I really wanted to make some madeleines! And I will make them as soon as our temperature allows oven use. I won't dip mine in tea, a drink I dislike intensely.

>29 VivienneR: I love tea but wouldn’t dip a madeleine in it; I prefer to dip harder biscuits such as digestives or biscotti (especially chocolate chip biscotti, mmmm).

>30 rabbitprincess: someone mention biscotti? Amaretto?

>31 fuzzi: How about cinnamon and nut?

>32 LadyoftheLodge: cinnamon? Sure. No nuts.

I'm making progress with Giorgio Bassani's The Novel of Ferrara and have read the second book, The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles. It's set in the late thirties, as Mussolini's pact with Hitler normalises anti-Semitism. Highly recommended. August is Classics in Translation, so I'll continue with The Garden of the Finzi-Continis.

And I have finally picked up and finished Barnaby Rudge which turned out to be a very gripping read.

Although it wasn't what I originally had planned to read, I picked up Nights At the Circus by Angela Carter for this challenge. I didn't love it, but the humor and earthiness kept drawing me in.

I have also finished Un début dans la vie which is part of on ongoing project to read Balzac's Comédie Humaine.

>37 MissWatson: Thank you for mentioning your project. You reminded me that I have been curious about the Comédie Humaine for some time, so I read Eugénie Grandet for this theme. While I'm not yet sold on taking on the entire series, I will read a couple more books in the series to get a better sense of Balzac.

In preparation for re-reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, I had intended to read The Mysteries of Udolpho which Austen's characters are reading in NA. But at almost 700 pages I knew I'd never get it in, so I decided instead upon The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1765). It's considered the first truly "gothic" novel, so it helped me to get into that spooky mood.

Hello, ClassicsCAT people! I'm not usually one of your group, but I am a BingoDogger, and to fill my "read a CAT" square, I read the SF classic Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon.

welcome! I know the author, have not read that one, it looks really interesting How did you like it?

Interesting ideas, but doesn't really work as a novel. I went into more detail in my home topic.

I have also finished Les Chouans which I have also wanted to read for a long time because it is set in Brittany. It was rather heavy going, though.

And I am closing off the month with two short stories and a novella: Le message, La messe de l'athée and Le colonel Chabert.

Adding two more short stories and a novella: Le message, La messe de l'athée and Le colonel Chabert.

I read The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse, which is an early Bertie and Jeeves. Some lists call these short stories and others call it a novel... either way, definitely episodic but closely linked. I wouldn't have wanted to read them all too close together, but they were fun.

I finally finished Vanity Fair, which I'd wanted to read for a long time. At the beginning, I was intimidated by its length and the (initial) lack of appealing characters, but I eventually got hooked and ended up loving this book.

>47 mathgirl40: good for you!

>48 fuzzi: Thanks! I've been trying to read more classics, and this CAT is really helpful.