Classics Club: May Meme

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The question for the Classics Club monthly meme is:

Tell us about the classic book(s) you’re reading this month. You can post about what you’re looking forward to reading in May, or post thoughts-in-progress on your current read(s).

Right now I'm reading Stendhal's The Red and the Black, which I chose for the readalong.  It's quite interesting, although it also features yet another rich and pretty young wife who falls into adultery.  (Emma Bovary has got plenty of literary company; I imagine them all hanging out together in the Bookworld.)  The focus of the story, however, is the young and poor student Julien, who has plenty of ambition but a difficult time deciding where to focus it--the red of the military or the black of the clergy?

It's not an easy read and I've been going a bit too slowly after the Dewey readathon, but I'll focus a bit more this weekend.  I've got some other books going too and I took a mental break with a couple of Agatha Christies (my daughter is a zealous Whovian and she watched the Christie episode a few weeks ago, so I got her Death in the Clouds the other day to see if she would get hooked on the books.  Challenge complete!)

My classics pile is hugely tempting, it's just that I can't read as much or as fast as I would like.  Now that school is almost over, I want to get into one of my super-chunksters--either A Suitable Boy or In the First Circle.  So that will be next on the list, plus I'm going to be participating in Jenny's readalong of the Barrett/Browning letters, plus Adam is doing a Beat event and really I can't think of a better time to read On the Road than summertime, plus he lists a couple of women writers and that's interesting.  (Sounds like a raw deal to me, being a woman involved with those Beat guys.)

Comments

  1. BronaMay 5, 2013 at 1:32 AM

    A Suitable Boy! A Suitable Boy! I vote that you read A Suitable Boy!
    I so want to reread this before A Suitable Girl comes out. I loved it so much, it's the book I plan to be buried with!

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanMay 5, 2013 at 2:06 PM

    There's going to be A Suitable Girl?? I had not heard that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. CatMay 5, 2013 at 2:15 PM

    I have had The Suitable Boy sitting here for ages but the time never seems right to begin such a chunkster. So hard to choose what to read next!

    ReplyDelete
  4. LoniMay 6, 2013 at 8:23 AM

    I was having a hard time picking what to read next too. I don't know if I've ever read anyone's review of the Barrett/Browning letters. I read Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets of the Portuguese and just loved them. I think she was just crazy in love with her husband.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousMay 6, 2013 at 9:07 AM

    Like you I am not able to read so fast these days. I am reading one or two of my son's English literature books with him so that I would be able to help him with the analyses (he is in senior high school)

    But for this May meme I'm reading Oliver Twist which is a carry over from April

    ReplyDelete

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