Saturday, July 11, 2009

Some challenges finished and one not so much...

I'm proud to say that I'm already done with the Classics Challenge hosted by Trish! It actually runs until 31 October and required us to read 6 classics plus one book that is thought to become a classic. Classics are a weakness of mine so I enjoyed catching up a bit - even though what I read barely resembles my original plans... which had more serious/difficult/challenging classics than the ones I ended up with!

Here's what I read:
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
A Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Plus The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

My least favorite of the bunch was definitely Riders of the Purple Sage - I wanted to try a western but this genre is clearly not for me as I couldn't even finish this book! I enjoyed both the Agatha Christie and the first Sherlock Holmes story and loved The Little Prince as always. But the prize has to go to The Handmaid's Tale, which was original and beautifully written. I love Margaret Atwood!

Thanks Trish for hosting, looking forward to the next edition! :-)

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I also completed the Centuries Challenge hosted by Becky. I had higher hopes for myself here too and here's what I ended up reading in the end:

Aesop's Fables by Aesop (c. 550 B.C.E. - Greece)
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (16th century)
Sleeping Beauty and Other Stories (17th century)
Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery (20th century)

Obviously Anne wins here, but then there isn't much out there that would beat Anne with an 'e'!

Thanks Becky - this was fun!

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And I'm afraid that however much I wanted to finish the Spiritually Speaking Challenge hosted by Lilly from Reading Extravaganza, I got nowhere near the finish line - see my meager progress here and note that I do really, really want to read all those books at some point. Soon. :-)

Thanks anyway Lilly, I might have made it if it went on all year... or if I hadn't signed for every challenge known to man! ;-)

4 comments:

Lezlie said...

You're cruising right along! Nice job!

Lezlie

Mari said...

Wow. I have only read one book for the Classics Challenge.

Nice!

joanna said...

Thanks Girls! :-)

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Yay for being done with the classics challenge already! I've only read two, so I guess I better get in gear. Is it bad for the hostess to not finish her own challenge? :) So glad Handmaid's Tale was a winner for you--isn't it fantastic?