Reading Challenge 2018

By the time 2017 ends, I'll have read 34 books.  I'm finishing up a book by Gene Stratton Porter right now.  I'm finding it kind of bizarre so I'm struggling to finish it.  And also I still, if you can believe it, have about 50 pages to go in City of God by St. Augustine.  I HAVE to finish reading that by the end of the year.  I just gotta.  I'll be so depressed if I don't.  I began the year doing an on line group read of that book and I stalled out in the middle of it and have been trying to finish it ever since.  This year has not been an especially good one for reading.  I spend way too much time on line.  So one of my New Year's resolutions is to curtail the time on line and spend more time reading.  Also, I think 2018 will get easier for reading because I am planning to not continue teaching at the co-op next fall.  So beginning in May this year, I'll have more free time.  And hopefully my 19 year old will finally get his driver's license this Christmas break and eventually my 16 year old will also get her license this year.  This will free me from lots and lots of driving I've been doing.  The older I get, the more draining I find driving to be.

Anyway, Simpler Pastimes alerted me to this 2018 book challenge.  I still plan to try for the 52 Books challenge as well.  I tried to do the bingo challenge hosted there and I do believe I failed in that.  The problem was an awful lot of the categories were fantasty/sci fi related and I just am not a fan of either of those.

1.  A 19th Century Classic - I still have one more book to read by Nathaniel Hawthorne and then I'll have read them all.  So The Marble Faun for this category.

2.  A 20 Century Classic (must have been published at least 50 years ago) - no clue yet.

3.  A Classic by a woman author - perhaps The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.  I think that might be the only Bronte novel I haven't read?

4.  A Classic in Translation - I think I am going to tackle Dostoyevski this year.  I am thinking of trying to listen to the Brothers Karamozov on audio this winter.

5.  A Children's Classic - my son who is recuperating from surgery mentioned that one of his friends came over and read Rootabaga Stories by Carl Sandburg out loud to him while he convalesced.  I thought that was pretty charming!!!  So maybe I'll read Rootabaga Stories for this category.

6.  A Classic Crime Story - no clue yet  (ha ha - no clue!  Get it???)

7.  A Classic Travel or Journey - no idea but I am excited about this one!

8.  A Classic with a Single Word Title - Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

9.  A Classic with a color in the title - I've never read The Red and the Black by Stendhal, so perhaps.

10.  A Classic by an author who is new to me - ????

11.  A Classic that scares you - Long poetry tends to scare me.  What if I tried to read Ovid's Metamorphoses?

12.  Reread a Classic - leaving this one open.