2021 Back to the Classics Challenge -- My Wrap Up Post

2021 BACK TO THE CLASSICS

My Wrap Up Post

COMPLETED

Karen at Books and Chocolate hosts one of my favorite challenges, the Back to the Classics Challenge. 
I like it because the idea is to read up to 12 "classics" (loosely defined as a book more than 50 years old), one from each of 12 categories. It's like a scavenger hunt for classic books. 

I never fully participate because I don't have time to review the books I read for this challenge. So I don't get to enter the drawing for the prize. But those who review the books they read get one entry in the prize drawing if they read and review six books, two entries for nine books, and three entries for reading a book from all 12 categories. 

THE CATEGORIES

• 19th Century Classic
• 20th Century Classic
• Classic by a Woman
• Classic in Translation
• Classic by a BIPOC Author
• Classic by a New-to-You Author
• Classic by a Favorite Author
• Classic About an Animal
• Children's Classic
• Classic Humor or Satire
• Travel or Adventure Classic
• Classic Play

BOOKS I READ

I managed to read 10 books for this challenge, many from my Classics Club list. I focused on books from my CC list so I can make progress on finishing that list by my deadline goal of December 2023.

• 19th Century Classic: Walden by Henry David Thoreau (College Board)
• 20th Century Classic: Not Now, but Now by M.F.K. Fisher 
• Classic by a Woman: Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter (Top 100 20th Century Novels by Women) 
• Classic in Translation: The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö 
• Classic by a BIPOC Author: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
• Classic by a New-to-You Author: The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald 
• Classic by a Favorite Author: Mysteries and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor
• Classic About an Animal: The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham 
• Classic Humor or Satire: Jeeves in the Offing by P.G. Wodehouse 
• Travel or Adventure Classic: Three Men on the Bummel by Jerome K. Jerome 

Even though I didn't qualify for the prize, this challenge is still a lot of fun for me! I plan to sign up again for the 2022 version. This pushes me to find classics I probably wouldn't read otherwise, or at least not pick first from my TBR shelf. 

2021 Mt. TBR Challenge -- My Wrap Up Post

 

2021 MT. TBR CHALLENGE

MY WRAP UP POST

COMPLETED

The Mt. TBR Challenge hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block is one of my favorite challenges every year! In 2021, I signed up at the Mr. Kilamanjaro level with the goal of reading 60 books off my TBR shelves.

I do the Mt. TBR Challenge each your in connection with a TBR challenge of my own that goes with the year. So this year it is the TBR 22 in '22 Challenge. I do the two together because the I pick the "yearly" challenge books ahead of time and the Mt. TBR books at whim. You can see my book picks for my TBR 22 in '22 Challenge here.   

In 2021, I ended up reading past my Mt. TBR goal. In addition to the 21 book I read for the 21 in '21 Challenge, I read 70 others for a total of 91 books off my TBR shelves. That means I made it to the Mt. Toro level and came close to reaching the Mt. Everest level. 

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

Here are the additional 70 books I read for the Mt. TBR Challenge. to see the other 21 books I read, see my wrap up post for the TBR 21 in '21 Challenge, here. 

• Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

• The Red and the Black by Stendhal 

• Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow

• Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

• Abolition of Man by C. S. Lewis

• Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan

• The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjöwall

• Reflex by Dick Francis

• Whip Hand by Dick Francis

• The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome

• Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount

• The Midnight Line by Lee Child

• Charlotte Moss: A Visual Life: Scrapbooks, Collages, and Inspirations by Charlotte Moss

• Missing Joseph by Elizabeth George

• On The Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World by P. J. O'Rourke

• Dead Cert by Dick Francis

• Obasan by Joy Kogawa

• The Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

• How They Decorated: Inspiration from Great Women of the Twentieth Century by Gaye P. Tapp

• A Faithful Place by Tana French

• Consequences by Penelope Lively

• The Kingdom of Speech by Tom Wolfe

• Jeeves in the Offing by P. G. Wodehouse

• The Private Patient by P. D. James

• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

• Skios by Michael Frayn

• The Purpose-driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren

• The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific by Maarten J. Troost

• A Place in the World by Amy Maroney

• Twice Shy by Dick Francis

• A Little Book of Japanese Contentments: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi, and More by Erin Niimi Longhurst

• Brunelleschi's Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture by Ross King

• Jolie Blon's Bounce by James Lee Burke

• Bruno: Chief of Police by Martin Walker

• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar

• Mysteries of Pittsburg by Michael Chabon

• The Shape of the Journey: New & Collected Poems by Jim Harrison

• Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

• Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie

• Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

• The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year by Sue Townsend

• The Darlings by Christina Alger

• The Choir by Joanna Trollope

• Pope Joan by Donna Cross Woolfolk

• Noah's Compass by Anne Taylor

• A Changed Man by Francine Prose

• Split Images by Elmore Leonard

• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

• We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

• May We Be Forgiven by A. M. Holmes

• The Theban Mysteries by Amanda Cross

• Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age by Sherry Turkle

• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

• BUtterfield 8 by John O'Hara

• Building Beauty: The Alchemy of Design by Michael S. Smith

• The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

• Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie

• French Lessons by Ellen Sussman

• Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie 

• House Made of Dawn by Scott N. Momaday

• Peril at End House by Agatha Christie

• Past Tense by Lee Child

• The French Chef in America: Julia Child's Second Act by Alex Prud'homme

• March Violets by Philip Kerr

• Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

• LaBrava by Elmore Leonard

• Final Curtain by Ngaio Marsh

• The Secret of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

• The Scandal of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

TBR 22 in '22 and Mt. TBR Challenges -- My Sign Up Post

 

THE TBR 22 IN '22 CHALLENGE

This is my sign up post for the TBR 22 in '22 Challenge. The simple idea is to read 22 books off your TBR shelves between January 1 and December 31, 2022. If you want to join me (and I hope you do), go to the main challenge page here to sign up. 

You do not have to pick all your TBR 22 in '22 books ahead of time. I like to, so I do. You can. Or you can pick some now and some as you go. You can pick them all at whim. Or you can pick now and then change your mind. The only real rule is that you read books that you already owned before January 1, 2022. 

MY TBR 22 IN '22 BOOKS

I like to pick my books ahead of time and keep them stacked by my bedside to motivate me through the year. Two or three are those I've only recently acquired and I want to read before they disappear on my shelves. The rest are those that have been on my shelves for so long I want to read them so I can stop looking at them! Several of these are on my Classics Club list for the same reason.

In alphabetical order by author name, not as shown in the picture above. I may read them in this order because I have no other plan, although that would mean four Roth books and three Buckley books back to back, so probably not:

• These Ruins are Inhabited by Margaret Beadle, a memoir by an American living in England in the 1950s

• Dangling Man by Saul Bellow, on my Classics Club list

• Atlantic High by William F. Buckley, Jr., the second of his four sailing memoirs. I read the first one last year and planned to read them all but didn't get to them. 2022 will be the year I finally do. 

• Racing through Paradise by William F. Buckley, Jr., the third of the four

• Windfall by William F. Buckley, Jr., the last one

• The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakow, on my Classics Club list

• The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble, on my Classics Club list

• A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award

• Rat Race by Dick Francis, on my Classics Club list

• Bunny Mellon: The Life of an American Style Legend by Meryl Gordon

• French Women Don't get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

• The Wall by John Hersey, on my Classics Club list

• The Bostonians by Henry James, on my Classics Club list

• A Time to Build: From Family and Community to Congress and the Campus, How Recommitting to Our Institutions Can Revive the American Dream by Yuval Levin

• When She was Good by Philip Roth, on my Classics Club list

• Zuckerman Unbound by Philip Roth

• The Anatomy Lesson by Philip Roth

• The Prague Orgy by Philip Roth

• The Masters by C. P. Snow is the fourth book in his Strangers and Brothers series, which I started years ago and want to finish. This one is on my Classics Club list because it won the James Tait Black Prize in 1954.

• If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler, on my Classics Club list

• God Save the Mark by Donald Westlake, which won the Edgar Award and is on my Classics Club list

• Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson, a campus novel on my Classics Club list

THE MT. TBR CHALLENGE

This TBR 22 in '22 Challenge dovetails nicely with the Mt TBR Challenge that Bev at My Reader's Block hosts every year. Like I did in 2021, I am signing up for the "Mt. Kilimanjaro" Level in 2022 to read a total of 60 books off my TBR shelves. That means 38 books in addition to those listed above. 

MY MT. TBR BOOKS

I will list my Mt. TBR books here as I read them. 

NOTES

Update as of December 14, 2022: I completed the TBR 22 in '22 Challenge in November. As of mid-December, I've read 65 books total off my TBR shelves, so climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro and completed the Mt. TBR Challenge. I'll do an official wrap up post as soon as I get time. 

Merry Christmas!

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

1 Day to Christmas!