Classic Books Reading Challenge of 2023 || Book Club Announcement 

What are some of your favorite classic books?

Anna Karenina is my second favorite book of all time. The writing is beautiful, the psicological exploration of characters is amazing, and it's way ahead of his time.

LOVE Virginia Woolf. I think A Room of One's Own is a great place to start with her - it's an essay so not too long but very characteristic of her style. If you like it, Mrs. Dalloway is my favorite from her!

I found a way to make Anna Karenina less terrifying, one of the editions my library has says it's "a novel in eight parts" and we have eight weeks to read it... I think I know what I'm going to do! ; ) EDIT PS I love Lord of the Flies and The Double Tongue by Bill Golding, even though he died before he finished Double Tongue

My husband and I are looking forward to joining for the year! We went to a used bookstore yesterday and were able to find all but Agnes Grey. I'm pumped 😁

Ana Karenina will also be my big project for this year - excited but immensely terrified 😅

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was SO good and I’m so mad she’s the least « hype » of the Brontë sisters even though she’s the most dedicated one, I can’t wait to read more by her

George Eliot wrote women well because George Eliot was a woman. That was a pen name she used to get published because as a woman in her time she couldn’t get published.

So many of these are on my tbr and all this video did was give me anxiety lol

I may subscribe to your patreon just to read Middlemarch with you all. I have it since 1995 I think! I read all of your other choices. Mansfield Park is my least favorite Jane Austen book... it felt preachy to me. I really liked Anna Karenina... but you'll learn everything there's to know about russian agriculture! I tried Madame Bovary at 14 and hated it (at 14, you cheat, you're a b***, no nuance!) but loved it at 30! Cyrano is beautifully written. Love that story. I read A room on one's own at 13... but in French... I may read it again with you in English. I have that same edition. In modern classics, have you read Zweig? I can't remember... but I love his writing!

To the Lighthouse is my recommendation.

I’m in for Anna Karenina and Middlemarch. I have had both on my shelf for 5+ years because same…terrified 😄 I’m glad I’ll have support!

The two books Emily was least enthused about happen to be some I really enjoyed. The leading lady in Mansfield Park is underrated in my opinion. She’s strong in her own way, you just have to keep in mind her background. And regarding Anna Karenina, it can depend on the édition because Tolstoy wrote many. My friend gave me excellent advice when I picked it up : Feel free to skip his 20 page essays on farming techniques and focus on the novel :)

I read Madame Bovary 2 years ago and LOVED it! I'll reread it with you in November! 😁💛

I found Anna Karenina reads easier and faster than the Dostoevsky books I've read. Also, it's more of a moral lesson, if that makes sense. Like a cautionary tale.

definitely participating now! I was already tempted with North and South because I've wanted to read it for years now so I was already thinking of joining even if only for that book, but then you brought out Middlemarch and I was sold and then Madame Bovary???? I absolutely HAVE TO participate! I have already read Mansfield Park (I really liked but if you like strong characters I don't know if it's the right book) and Anna Karenina but I wouldn't mind rereading them (especially AK since I low-key skipped the last 100 pages and I would really like to ACTUALLY finish the book)

I've read most of your book club picks over the past few years. I liked them all, but it took me much longer than 2 months. If you're looking for more classic women authors, look into Edith Wharton, Ann Radcliffe, and Elizabeth Von Arnim.

Anna K. is sooo good but sad like lots of classics. Middlemarch is very good and North and South is amazing!!

I read Madame Bovary in high school and hated it at the time. If I re-read it now as an adult, I would probably enjoy it. I would describe the main character as the original desperate housewife!

Just read Virginia Woolf this year and was a quick read. Really enjoyed it.

Just saw this channel because I have been interested in the classic books so I'm starting late but I will follow along. Thank you for this.

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

but I heard Don Quixote is hardcore magical realism so idk u really wanna do that? it's also a monster of a book

I love North and South and Wives and Daughters by Elisabeth Gaskell. And I am very sorry that in Slovak schools there is no mention of her. We learn about Bronte sisters and Austen. But no Gaskell. I found out about her when I was adult. As for Anne Bronte, I read Tennet...this year, it was really great. I was also amazed how progresive it was. I reccomend a movie To Walk Invisible about sisters. There you can see what inspired Anne for this novel. And I am planning to read Agnes Gray too next year.

You read The Count of Monte Cristo, so you can read Anna Karenina. I'm currently reading it myself and it's really good.

I loved Anna Karenina. Don’t be afraid, it’s great.

I added several of these to the tbr, I'll try to join for a few of them!

I think "Beloved" is a great starting point for reading Toni Morrison. My favorite is "Song of Solomon" though

Lord of the flies is absolutely amazing! It’s one of my favorite books and I love it! I hope you like it too

I loved Mansfield Park. It’s kind of like a fairytale. The main character is strong in a different sense to Elisabeth.

Love Jane Austin and i haven’t read Man’s field park definitely going to read it ❤️☃️💚☃️🕎🕎🎄🎁🎁🎄📖📚📖🎄❤️🕎📙📙🕎❤️💚☃️📖🎄🎁🎁🎄🕎📙📙🕎❤️💚☃️❤️📙📖📖📖📙📙❤️☃️💚📚📚📚

If you can listen to the audiobook of Their Eyes Are Watching God. It is a wonderful listen.

I loved Agnes Grey! I’ll definitely read it again with you

Don’t know if you knew this but Cyrano had a film adaption this year with Peter Dinklage as Cyrano and music composed by The National and I absolutely loved it! It’s worth checking it after you read the book!

I’ve been reading some Edith Wharton and been loving it. Will definitely be reading Middlemarch. Lord of the Flies is awful. About man’s inhumanity to man. Read it in high school hated it. I loved reading Beloved. So good and sad.

lord of the flies is not THAT traumatising in my opinion. "Fun" Fact: it is based on a real event but it went rather differently in real life than in the book.

We have the exact same perspective on Ann Brontë! I’m so excited to read Agnes grey

Their Eyes Were Watching God is one of my favorite books. The writing is stunning.

I listened to Anna K a couple of years ago. I would never have finished it if I tried to read it physically.

Anna karennina is worth it, I loved it ❤️❤️

IOVE Elizabeth Gaskell!!! So excited to hear your thoughts.

For a big russian classic, Anna Karenina is a very fast paced novel.

I loved North and South! I read it this year and was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It’s less about the romance and more about society/ workers rights at that time. I liked it a lot. Anna Karenina is beautiful too. It’s one of my all time favorite classics. Such a great book.

Hi Emily! First of all, Happy New Year! 📚🎄☃️ My current reading is "Anna Karénina"!!! 💜😜🤓, I'm about three hundred pages, and I'm loving it 😍, it reads very fast, it's very enjoyable! 📖 Also, I want to read "Madame Bovary", which I have an amazing illustrated edition 🥰💜, and "The three Musketeers" 🧐💙🤓. Thanks for yours videos! Kisses from Spain! 📚📖😘

I tried to read Mansfield Park several times over the years and this year I was finally successful. And I was so surprised with how much I liked it!! It’s very much a story of manners and morals and sticking with your principles. I had a lot of verbal reactions to character decisions and dialogue (in a good way!). Fanny is a really interesting character and much more nuanced and strong than often portrayed. I read a chapter a day (or sometimes more) and finished it in less than 2 months

I have been dying to read North & South so I appreciate the push to read it next year haha. I LOVED the tv show

I was already planning on reading North and South, so I will make sure to acquire a copy ASAP! I read Anna Karenina in high school and I liked it but that was almost 10 years ago now so who knows if I would still recommend it.

Anna Karenina is one of my top favorites. It's easy to get into because it starts with an affair being discovered. The side story of Konstantin Levin is why I read this book - he's such a great character.

Don’t know how I would feel about it with my views now but I read Their Eyes Were Watching God last year and I really liked it. I already have my own challenge of trying to read 2 classics a month and A Room of One’s Own and Lord of the Flies are part of it but I will try to squeeze the rest of these in! 💙

North and South is just perfect. Can't wait to see your review!

Question: I think you mentioned one platform that you are hosting this reading challenge, but is there another site where you are on? I don't have an account on the site and would still like to participate if I can. I am already participating in a few reading challenges across Goodreads, LiveJournal, Tumblr, and Storygraph.

Im not really much of a classics gal but... you make me wonder if maybe i would enjoy some. I think a book club could help

Lol I saw that boys/girls experiment clip and totally thought of Lord of the Flies! I read it in 9th grade and definitely left an impression.

I cannot recommend the audio version of Their Eyes Were Watching God highly enough.

Middlemarch is definitely worth the effort but it takes a lot of effort to get through it. It's one of the best books I've ever read. The beginning is the worst part of the book. Dorothea and her cottages...Ugh! And you know she's making a terrible choice. But it gets much better.

Anna is wonderful - but there are parts that are a bit of a slog depending on your inclination - either the agriculture or the politics. The actual plot is the magic.

I've wanted to pick up Lord of the Flies for a while so maybe 2023 is finally the year

i have 200 pages left to finish anna karenina and it’s so good! it’s my first russian classic, also i don’t think it is a romance or entirely about anna neither and even though it’s chunky i did not find it hard to get through, i’m excited to hear your thoughts about it!

Mansfield Park as your revenge story? Oh Emily 😂

Oh man. I am looking forward to your reaction to madam bovary. It is quite the story.

you so kindness kind favorite kindness kind sooo favorite sooo kindness sooo amazing sooo favorite nicest friend everytime

In my opinion far from the madding crowd is the best cozy read, but yeah I guess middlemarch is fine as well

I hope you guys love north and south!!! Its one of my fav classics and in my humble opinion it is even better than pride and prejudice 😬

My favorites are Vanity Fair, Don Quixote, and for a more modern Latin American curveball, either Pedro Paramo (super short) or The Death of Artemio Cruz.

oh god i want to participate but i should really finish war and peace first 😭😭

I participated in your 2022 challenge and had a good time and plan to do the same in 2023. For others interested in this challenge, libraries will often have unlimited copies of classics. The ebooks may also be free with an Amazon Prime subscription through Kindle. And I verified that all audiobooks for this year are available for free with an Audible subscription, at least in the US. I like to read classics physically while also listening to the audio so this is perfect for me. I find this helps with focus and retention and I'll enjoy the story better.

I'm planning on reading Anna karenina next year

Hi Emily, Mansfield park is in my opinion one of the hardest to go through Austen novels and I love her a lot so be warned that it is a bit ... tedious. Love your content and have a very Merry Christmas!

Their Eyes Were Watching God is one to listen to on audiobook to get the authentic African-American vernacular. I've had North and South on my want to read list for a while (I've only read Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell). Tenant of Wildfell Hall is in my opinion much better than Agnes Grey. Two months for Anna Karenina will be necessary it is a chunker. I restrict my Jane Austen to July Mansfield Park along with Sense and Sensibility are the two I have yet to read. Good luck with your reading great choice even without the squirrel's help.

I just recently joined your patreon, so I'm excited for this challenge 😊

Omg as someone who had to study madame Bovary in school, people saying she's a great female character is hilarious 😂 If after reading the book you feel that way too, please go look up what Flaubert's opinion on his character was lmao

Have you read anything by HG Wells? I loved The Time Machine. In general I like Daphne Du Maurier, I have a hard time with many classic because they can't keep my attention. Struggled through the first pages of Mrs Dalloway, then dnfd the book.

SO EXCITED!!! 🎄❤️💚❤️🕎🕎🕎📖☃️☃️📖🎁🎁🎁☃️☃️💚❤️🎄🕎📙🕎🎄💚💚❤️🕎🎁📖☃️☃️☃️📖📖💚❤️🎄🕎📙🕎🎄💚💚💚🎄🎁📖☃️☃️📖🎁📚🎁🎁❤️🎄

North & South is good. It is also made into a miniseries.

Hi Emily! I can't afford the patreon right now, (maybe later!) but I would love to take part in the Classics Books Challenge. I have been wanting to read classics, so I think this is just the kick in the butt I need, lol. Thanks for doing this! Can't wait!

Good luck, I've got my own classics reading project that I'm starting next year that will finish up in 2024: I'm going to read all of Charles Dickens' fiction. One a month

Omg, as a primarily classics reader I'm just so excited for that challenge! On that list, I've only read and loved Lord of The Flies, and unfortunately DNFed Madame Bovary (really wasn't my cup of tea) and Mansfield Park (will try again as I also had a hard time with the writing style - felt the same about P&P but it was somehow worst in MP, those dialogues are sometimes just so cryptic to me 😅). In that list, I'm mainly interested in North and South and Agnes Grey (at least for 2023). Very excited to hear your thoughts about all of these, especially Madame Bovary as I cringe everytime I hear women victimize her in any way (I've spoiled the ending for myself, so I know the story well enough to know I made the right choice in putting it down - but that's just me, most people love it). Also, I need you to go listen to "Don Quixote" in Spanish because I've studied that language for three years and now that I know it's just very satisfying! But prepare the back of your throat to make that /x/ sound (using phonetics here because it doesn't exist in French nor English 😅). Also, I've read a good chunk of that book and I really enjoyed it. I only put it down because it became quite repetitive after a while, but it was indeed funny and clever (though I feel quite a few references probably went over my head), and I must say Cervantes wrote one of the funniest preface I've ever read, only matched by Gargantua & Pantagruel by Rabelais (that I've heard he was inspired by as both works were written around the same time). I'm glad I gave it a fair shot for sure, it's quite a unique book as he was truly making fun of chivalric romances he utterly despised (if you've watched Monty Python, there are similarities). 😂 Because humor is very much intertwined with cultural references and language, I think it would be hard to find a great translation (though the French one I found was truly amazing, and I can confirm it as I compared a passage to the original Spanish out of curiosity).

I was traumatized with Lord of the flies in school, but I loved North and South, I read it after watching the Miniseries, loved it, it is a bit like Jane Austen meets Charles Dickens. Or just like the title the *South* meets the *North*. Now i want to rewatch the Miniseries...

I have a list of classics that I'm trying to work through next year, too. I also want to read North and South, as well as The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (although I read Agnes Gray in high school and have no memory of it), The Pickwick Papers by Dickens, and I'm leaning towards Orlando by Virginia Woolf (because I sort of remember reading Mrs. Dalloway in one of my college lit classes but need to work up to rereading).

You should definitely watch Roxanne (modern Cyrano) with Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah. I never liked Steve Martin's humor but his acting and writing are awesome.

Be prepared for Beloved having very difficult subject matter (it deals with slavery and it's aftermath). But, wow what an incredible read!

I read Beloved as a teenager because my mom liked it but I don't remember much about it and I think a lot must've flown right over my head back then, as it does when you're a teen. I found an old copy of Lord of the flies in a used bookstore and thought the same: I kind of know what it is about but wanted to read it for myself. This isn't something we read in french schools 😉, but I truly enjoyed it.

Next year it could be cool to do one classic from every continent (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania)

I think Don Quixote is pronounced pretty close in English. Since it's a Spanish novel the x's are pronounced a little bit differently!

I had trouble reading and understanding The Eyes Were Watching God. My mother's advice was to read what is written since the book in written phonetic English. So happy reading. 📚❤️😍🥰🤩😘

Anna Karenina and Beloved are on my classics list for 2023 as well! And I 100% agree with what you said about the intimidating factor of Tolstoy lol I'm planning to start the novel in January so I can take it slow if need be.

That's a great selection of books there. Beloved is great and a good choice to start. My favourite Woolf to date is To The Lighthouse but her books are deceptively short and multi-layered.

I was forced to read Mme Bovary in high school soai kinda hate it. It has a lot of extremely detailed descriptions of settings, which makes it a slow book. I hope you enjoy it though.

Beloved is my favorite Toni Morrison (though the Bluest Eye is a close second). It's part of a trilogy, but they aren't really related directly. I always think the other two were Love and Paradise, but I know I'm wrong about one of them. (Those two are also very good.) I highly recommend watching the movie after. All of the actors are incredible in their roles, but Thandie Newton is a marvel as Beloved.

This sounds like a great reading challenge! I'm so bad at reading classics so I think I will try to participate and read at least one of the books. Many of the books in this video are on my tbr. I've been wanting to read Anna Karenina, for example, but it's just so huge that it really intimidates me... Also North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell would happen next year because I own it on my bookshelf.

Their eyes were watching god is one of my favorite books too! I hope this isn’t too much info abt the book, but all the dialogue is written in dialect. English isn’t my first language, so it took a few pages to get used to, but once i did, it was no problem! I just think that’s a good thing to be aware of going into it. And the prose is BEAUTIFUL💕

Looking forward to reading North and South, Manfield Park and will get the Agnes Gray one too. This year I am committed to reading more classics and nonfiction as well. I have loved reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, Howard's End by E. M. Forster, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Far from the madding crowd is a beautiful novel. It's a romance and it has some clichés but personales found it really funny

Surprised you didn't mention about the French flaps to the Mansfield Park paperback.

omg the best Toni Morrison (in my opinion) is the bluest eye, although major trigger warnings also if u start their eyes were watching god and find it difficult, id recomend the audiobook (for me the dialect of the characters was pretty hard)

Recitatif by Toni Morrison - listen to it with the intro my Zadie Smith

Four of these are re-reads for me and I've read Madame Bovary several times in French and English for school!

Thank you for helping us. May Almighty God bless you 🙏✨🥰✨🙏

I wish I hadn't read Lord of the Flies. I tend to hate children in books and this was n different. They are so annoying 😅

Oh god Lord of the Flies 💀 I’m excited to see your reaction lol Have you read Great Expectations?