2020 Challenge HQ

I've decided to do an omnibus post for challenges in 2020. I was originally thinking this would be a mini-omnibus, but it's gotten a bit larger as I think about it. Oh, well...

For full descriptions of each challenge, follow the link to the original post. I include brief descriptions here.

Erica's Reading Classic Books Challenge

Erica has devised a new challenge to get us to read some classics. Half the fun of these is thinking of a list of classics in advance to match the prompts, so I've included tentative choices. She invites us (and I intend to!) double up with Classics Club books. Her prompts are as follows:

A Classic Over 500 Pages
 -Charles Dickens' David Copperfield
A Classic By a POC Author and/or with a POC main character
 -James Baldwin's Go Tell It On The Mountain
A Classic That Takes Place in a Country Other Than Where You Live
 -Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country
A Classic In Translation
 -Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt
A Classic By A New To You Author
 -John Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga
A Classic Book of Poetry
 -Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene
A Classic Written Between 1800 and 1860
 -Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
A Classic By An LGBT Author or With an LGBT Main Character
 -Willa Cather's One of Ours
A Classic Written By A Woman
 -Anna Seghers' Transit
A Classic Novella
 -James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room
Classic Non-fiction
 -Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own
A Banned or Censored Classic
 -Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

I'm sure I'll be switching them around. In particular I've put Goethe and Bocaccio on similar lists in the past, and yet they're still here...

Erica allows us to use one book for up to two prompts, but I'm going to try to avoid that. The Virginia Woolf is my winter spin book, so it should get read first.

Karen's Back To The Classics Challenge for 2020

Well, I'd assembled a list for Erica's challenge and then I saw Karen was doing hers again, so now I'm doing them both! Though there will be some overlap in books. Here's Karen's list of prompts, together with the books I've tentatively matched against them:

Nineteenth Century Classic

 -Henry James' The American

Twentieth Century Classic

 -Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

Classic by a Woman Author

 -Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

Classic in Translation

 -Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt

Classic by a Person of Color

 -James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room

A Genre Classic

 -Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Classic With A Person's Name In The Title

 -Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

Classic With A Place in the Title

 -Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra

Classic With Nature in the Title

 -Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country

Classic About A Family

 -John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga

Abandoned Classic

 -Thomas Carlyle's On Heroes and Hero-Worship

Classic With an Adaptation

 -Charles Dickens' David Copperfield

Which of these look good to you?

Gilion's European Reading Challenge

The goal is five different European countries, but let's think about the maximum, which is fifty! Unless the Scots get independence before the end of the year, then I can aim for fifty-one.

1.) Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own. UK.

2.) Henry James' The American. France.

3.) Joan B. Flood's Left Unsaid. Ireland.

4.) Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra. Spain.

5.) Arthur Schnitzler's Late Fame. Austria.

6.) Nino Haratischvili's The Eighth Life (For Brilka). Georgia.

7.) Karel Čapek's R.U.R. Czech Republic.

8.) Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. Norway.

9.) Isaac Bashevis Singer's In My Father's Court. Poland

10.) Henrik Pontoppidan's Lucky Per. Denmark

11.) Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Russia

12.) Anna Seghers' Transit. Germany

13.) Amélie Nothomb's Life Form. Belgium.

14.) Matei Calinescu's The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter. Romania.

15.) Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover. Italy.

Bev's Mount TBR Challenge

Bev challenges us to read books we already own. I've done this challenge a few times now, increasing the number each year until I flopped on it last year. (I believe this is called Test To Failure.) So this year I'm dialling it back, and going for Mt. Vancouver (36 books) which is what I would have successfully done this year. (Meaning it's not really a challenge, right? Oh, well...)

1.) Henry James' The American
2.) Brian Dillon's In The Dark Room
3.) Kate Briggs' This Little Art
4.) Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra
5.) Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own & Three Guineas
6.) David Jones' In Parenthesis
7.) Arthur Schnitzler's Late Fame
8.) Claudia Rankine's Citizen: An American Lyric
9.) Arthur Schnitzler's Fräulein Else
10.) Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country
11.) James Huneker's Painted Veils
12.) James Huneker's Egoists: A Book of Supermen
13.) Karel Čapek's Four Plays
14.) John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga
15.) Isaac Bashevis Singer's In My Father's Court
16.) Josephine Tey's To Love And Be Wise
17.) Carol Shields' Coming To Canada
18.) J. F. Powers' Wheat That Springeth Green
19.) John Dos Passos' Manhattan Transfer
20.) Henrik Pontoppidan's Lucky Per

21.) Patricia Moyes' Falling Star
22.) Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

23.) Anna Seghers' Transit

24.) Patricia Moyes' Murder Fantastical

25.) Gabriel Garcia Marquez' Love In A Time Of Cholera

26.) Amélie Nothomb's Life Form

27.) Jules Verne's 20000 Leagues Under The Sea

28.) Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women

29.) Ed McBain's Cop Hater

30.) James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room

31.) Stevie Smith's Selected Poems

32.) Susan Sontag's At The Same Time

33.) Graham Greene's Collected Essays

34.) Susan Sontag's The Volcano Lover

35.) Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar
36.) John Galsworthy's The White Monkey

Bonus

37.) John Galsworthy's The Silver Spoon

38.) Thomas Carlyle's On Heroes and Hero-Worship

Russian Literature Challenge 2020

Keely at A Common Reader is hosting a Russian literature challenge for the year. No particular number of books, just a chance to share thoughts about Russian literature. I'm likely to try to read The Master and Margarita at the very least and hopefully a couple more.

1.) Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
2.)

The Classics Club

Here's a list of the books I've read this year from my multi-year Classics Club list.

1.) Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own

2.) Henry James' The American

3.) Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country

4.) John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga

5.) Jules Verne's 20000 Leagues Under The Sea

6.) Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women

7.) James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room

8.) Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar

Canadian Book Challenge

The 13th Canadian Book Challenge now hosted by Shonna at Canadian Bookworm runs from Canada Day to Canada Day, but here's a list of the books I've read for this challenge in 2020:

1.) Phillip Ernest/The Far Himalaya

2.) Jim Nason's Spirit of a Hundred Thousand Dead Animals

3.) Joan B. Flood's Left Unsaid

4.) Phillip Ernest/The Vetala

5.) Carol Shields/Coming To Canada

6.) 

Am I overdoing it again? Probably I am!

A link to last year's challenge omnibus post.