Back To The Classics 2020 Challenge Wrapup

 

Time for a wrapup post for the 2020 edition of Karen's Back To The Classics Challenge. This is the first year I managed to read a book for all twelve categories; I only managed to write blog posts for ten of them, though. Here are this year's categories and what I matched up against them: (Matched up in the end. Not in the beginning...)

19th Century Classic

--Henry James' The American

20th 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 Tile

--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, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History

Classic With An Adaptation

--Charles Dickens' David Copperfield

I thought they were all really very good--no lemons in the bunch--well, they're classics, ya know? David Copperfield and Peer Gynt were rereads for me. I was a little surprised how much I enjoyed Tales of the Alhambra.

Reading a book for all twelve categories is the best I've ever done at this challenge, so, even though I didn't write about two of them--I'm still counting that very much as a success. I finished Carlyle only a couple of days ago; I'm likely to write about it soon and have half a post finished. I finished Giovanni's Room a couple of months ago now; I'll probably need to reread it before I do write about it. That only counts as ten books though for the draw. Should it be necessary I can be reached at reese (chiocciola) reesewarner (punto) com.

Thanks to Karen for hosting! Looking forward to the new version (for which I need to write a signup post...)

This is the third year I've done the challenge and I find I piled up all the books on the dining room table and took a picture with the Christmas tree in the background the first two times. Since one must keep up traditions...