Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Happy Monday!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I had an unexpected early finish today at school which was nice and I have a quiet day work wise tomorrow so I am hoping to go on a nice walk and catch up on some jobs.
This week I have chosen another book off my Classics Club list. I sadly didn’t read as many classics off my list as I had planned last year so this year I am really going to try and catch up and get a good load of books ticked off the list.
Candide is the story of a gentle man who, though pummelled and slapped in every direction by fate, clings desperately to the belief that he lives in “the best of all possible worlds.” On the surface a witty, bantering tale, this eighteenth-century classic is actually a savage, satiric thrust at the philosophical optimism that proclaims that all disaster and human suffering is part of a benevolent cosmic plan. Fast, funny, often outrageous, the French philosopher’s immortal narrative takes Candide around the world to discover that — contrary to the teachings of his distinguished tutor Dr. Pangloss — all is not always for the best. Alive with wit, brilliance, and graceful storytelling, Candide has become Voltaire’s most celebrated work.
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Welcome to my first Top 5 Tuesday of 2023. The Top 5 Tuesday is exploring my bookish resolutions for 2023.
Read more Ancient Greek and Roman texts.
I find that I am really missing my Masters and all the reading of Ancient texts that I did, so this year I am hoping to try and read one Ancient text a month. Most Ancient texts are divided into Books (what we would call chapters) so if I plan to read a book a day I should get at least one full ancient text read a month. Here are some of the texts I plan to read:
Read at least one non-fiction book a month.
I love history and classics so this year I have decided to read more about the subjects that I love. I bought quite a few non-fiction books last year so I am hoping to read them this year.
Read my height in books.
I tried to read my height in books in 2021 and sadly I failed because I was a few inches short. The tower was made up of 74 books and to be honest some of these books were quite thin so didn’t give much height to the tower. This year I am determined to succeed and I plan on reading some big books, like the ones below, to make the tower higher.
Read 80 books
This year I am planning on reading more books than I have ever read before. I have never managed to read more than 74 books in a year before so reading an extra 6 might be a push but I am determined to give it ago.
I really want to make a dent in my Classics Club list this year because I didn’t do very well last year and I really don’t want to fall behind on my target of reading 50 books in 5 years.
So there are my 5 Bookish Resolutions.
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Top 5 Tuesday this week and I will head over for look.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
Welcome to my first Goodreads Monday of 2023! I have been back at school today and teaching at home in the evening and I will be honest it has been a bit of a shock to the system. I can’t read and drink endless tea all day. Although I did have to text my husband for an emergency mug of tea between lessons this evening so I have managed a reasonable amount of tea.
I am still featuring books that are on my Classics Club list on my Goodreads Monday’s because all the books are also on my Goodreads TBR.
My chosen book for today is…
Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Marcus Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.
I did Philosophy for A Level many years ago and a couple of years ago I did a Masters in Classics so this book really interests me. Also this year I am determined to read more from Ancient Greek and Roman times so this book ticks a lot of boxes. Fingers crossed I manage to read it soon as I have a beautiful cloth bound edition that I am just itching to read.
Have you read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius? What were your thoughts?
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
The results are in and the number was 2. This means my next read off my Classics Club challenge will be The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy.
In this classically simple tale of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, now in a new edition, Hardy narrates the rivalry for the hand of Grace Melbury between a simple and loyal woodlander and an exotic and sophisticated outsider. Betrayal, adultery, disillusion, and moral compromise are all worked out in a setting evoked as both beautiful and treacherous. The Woodlanders, with its thematic portrayal of the role of social class, gender, and evolutionary survival, as well as its insights into the capacities and limitations of language, exhibits Hardy’s acute awareness of his era’s most troubling dilemmas.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
Hopefully, I will be able to finish and review The Woodlanders before the deadline of 30th October.
Please drop me a comment if you are doing the Classics Club challenge or if you have taken part in the Spin Challenge.
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week so far. I have gone for another book off my Classics Club list because they are all on my vast Goodreads TBR.
Alongside Edgar Allan Poe in America, Britain’s Wilkie Collins stands as the inventor of the modern detective story. The Moonstone introduces all the ingredients: a homey, English country setting, and a colorfully exotic background in colonial India; the theft of a fabulous diamond from the lovely heroine; a bloody murder and a tragic suicide; a poor hero in love with the heroine but suspected of the crime, who can’t remember anything about the night the jewel was stolen; assorted friends, relatives, servants, a lawyer, a doctor, a sea captain—suspects, all; and, most essentially, a bumbling local policeman and a brilliant if eccentric London detective. Adding spice to the recipe are unexpected twists, a bit of dark satire, a dash of social comment, and an unusual but effective narrative structure—eleven different voices relate parts of the tale, each revealing as much about himself (and, in one case, herself) as about the mystery of the missing Moonstone.
Filled with suspense, action, and romance, The Moonstone is as riveting and intoxicating today as it was when it first appeared more than a century ago.
I read The New Magdalen by Wilkie Collins recently and I could not put it down, so I am quite excited to read this soon, as I just love Wilkie Collins.
Have you got a favourite Wilkie Collins book?
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
It is time for another spin event from The Classics Club. I really enjoyed the last one I did, because it chose me an absolutely brilliant book that I think I would have left to the end of the challenge. So here are my 20 books, whichever number gets picked on the 18th September I will read and review the book before the set date of 30th October.
Silas Marner by George Eliot
The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Cecilia by Frances Burney
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome. K. Jerome
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Evelina by Frances Burney
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Candide by Voltaire
I’m really looking forward to what the random selection will be and I hope I will be able to read the book within the time frame.
Wish me luck!
Please drop me a comment if you are taking part in the Spin event or if you have read any of the books on my list.
Dombey and Son, Charles Dickens’s story of a powerful man whose callous neglect of his family triggers his professional and personal downfall, showcases the author’s gift for vivid characterization and unfailingly realistic description. As Jonathan Lethem contends in his Introduction, Dickens’s “genius . . . is at one with the genius of the form of the novel itself: Dickens willed into existence the most capacious and elastic and versatile kind of novel that could be, one big enough for his vast sentimental yearnings and for every impulse and fear and hesitation in him that countervailed those yearnings too. Never parsimonious and frequently contradictory, he always gives us everything he can, everything he’s planned to give, and then more.”
Review
This was my next classic for my Classics Club challenge and I was so happy that I had decided to include it on my list. This isn’t my favourite Dickens novel as that is A Tale of Two Cities but it is definitely a very close second. I could not put the book down.
There is so much going on within this book which is all linked with Dombey, so many lives all touch even if just briefly. Though the real reason all these lives connect is because of Dombey’s children, Paul and Florence. Paul Dombey is the wanted son whose father has so many big plans for and Florence is the daughter who is not wanted and ignored. But Florence still loves and worships her father and tries to do everything in her power to make him love her. In a way this book is Florence’s story rather than her father’s story.
This book focuses on the Dombey household mainly which after the death of the mother becomes a very sad household which starts to become dysfunctional. This is put into stark contrast with the other two households we encounter in the book which are so full of love and happiness although they are poorer financially than the Dombey household but they are richer in so many other ways.
There are so many interesting characters within this novel. The forever smiling James Carker who is always compared to a grinning cat. The adorable Captain Cuttle who is terrified of his landlady but will do anything and give anything to those he loves. The wonderfully strong Susan Nipper who protects Florence and loves Florence with every fibre of her being. The faithful Walter whose faith never wavers. The loving Uncle Sol who will do anything for his nephew. Then there is one of my favourite characters the devoted Mr Toots, who is funny without meaning to be and gets into some interesting scrapes and friendships. Then there is Edith, who I felt sorry for but who I also disliked greatly because of the pain she caused.
Dickens addresses so many things in this novel; pride, deceit, the value of love, child and parent relationships, unrequited love, revenge and much more. Dickens is such an expert in exploring and writing about the human condition and even though he was writing in the Victorian times so many of his themes are as relevant today as they were today. I laughed out loud whilst reading this book, I cried, I got angry, I went through so many emotions whilst reading this book. I loved this book so much and easily give it 5 out of 5 Dragons and it is definitely one of my favourite books this year.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
About the author
Charles John Huffam Dickens (1812-1870) was a writer and social critic who created some of the world’s best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime, and by the twentieth century critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories enjoy lasting popularity.
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
Happy Monday! It is heatwave here so I will be spending the day trying to keep cool and reading a good book.
My chosen book today is another new author for me and one on my Classics Club list.
This 1872 novel by a mid-Victorian poet and novelist is about a girl named Clarice, living with her widowed father and her governess ‘in a charming home at a convenient (railway) distance from the city.’ One day she finds a girl of her own age hiding in the shrubbery. She is Olga and ‘there is no question that she is the liveliest child character in English fiction’ said the Observer in 1936.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone is having a good Monday so far. My chosen book today is by the author Jules Verne. I have only ever read one book by Jules Verne so I included some more of his books on my Classics Club challenge as I wanted to read more of his books.
One night in the reform club, Phileas Fogg bets his companions that he can travel across the globe in just eighty days. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, he immediately sets off for Dover with his astonished valet Passepartout. Passing through exotic lands and dangerous locations, they seize whatever transportation is at hand—whether train or elephant—overcoming set-backs and always racing against the clock.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Goodreads Monday is now hosted by Budget Tales Book Club. All you have to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re looking forward to reading.
Hello!
I hope everyone has had a good start to the week. I have had a busy day of teaching music and running choir club. I have an unexpected day off tomorrow so I am hoping to enjoy a bit of reading time.
My chosen book this week is by an author who I haven’t read a lot of, so I am hoping to read more of their work.
A collection of three stories. The Stories take place in and around the fictional town of Milby in the English Midlands. Each of the Scenes concerns a different Anglican clergyman, but is not necessarily centred upon him. Eliot examines, among other things, the effects of religious reform and the tension between the Established and the Dissenting Churches on the clergymen and their congregations, and draws attention to various social issues, such as poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence.
This is also my next read on my The Classics Club challenge so hopefully I will read it soon.
(All purchases made using one of the above affiliate links gives a small percentage of money to myself with no extra cost to yourself. All proceeds go towards the upkeep of this blog. Thank you ever so much, your support is gratefully received.)
Please drop me a comment if you have taken part in Goodreads Monday and I will head over for a visit.
Happy Reading
If you enjoy reading my blog and would like to make a donation I would be very grateful. Thank you
Lady Book Dragon 