Lorri’s Comments (group member since Sep 23, 2020)

Lorri’s comments from the #ClassicsCommunity 2021 Reading Challenge group.

Hi, I am Lorri and I am a Minnesota American woman, wife, mom, and grandma. I have loved reading since I learned how and was really into classics by age 12. Recently I earned an MA in English Literature Education.

I joined this group late in 2020 and committed to reading 12 classics but read 16, including the tomes Dombey and Son and Moby Dick; or The White Whale. I also participated in Jane Austen July and Victober and intend to do so again in 2021.

I just finished creating my 2021 TBR with monthly themes and hope to read about 60 classics (some are very short stories) and 60 other books. However, I will only commit to reading 32 classics in 2021, after all, I might get a job that will seriously impinge on my personal reading time.

Favorite classic authors include Shakespeare, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Leo Tolstoy, and Oscar Wilde. Favorite individual works by other authors include Jane Eyre, Middlemarch, Carmilla, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Hound of the Baskervilles, Frankenstein, Little Women, Lady Audley’s Secret, and Evelina: Or the History of a Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.

Iza wrote: "Congratulations Lorri, it's a great list - I read 4 of them. I'd love to see your list for next year, sometime ^^"

I look forward to the link to your 2020 classics list.

Next year I am planning to participate in Jane Austen July and Victober again, so, at least some Austen, Wilde, Anne Brontë, Charles Dickens, and Gaskell.

I also plan to read more American Classics like Stephen Crane, Arthur Miller, Steinbeck, and Hemingway.

I am planning a month of Black Classics including WEB Dubois' The Souls of Black Folk (his writing is exquisite) and pairing Ellison's Invisible Man with Larsen's Passing and MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail with Nic Stone's recent work Dear Martin.

I am also planning some Middle School and Mystery reading all TBRs are still TBD.

I joined this group sometime after Jane Austen July, so my goal was to read 12 classics this year. I just finished my 15th classic. I am planning on romance and Christmas novels throughout December. Although I may not read any more literary classics this year, my classics TBR for next year is huge!

Classics Read in 2020:
-Sanditon and The Watsons– Jane Austen unfinished works
-Lover’s Vows – Mrs. Inchbald
-Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (reread)
-The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
-The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
-Three Ghost Stories – Charles Dickens
-Aurora Floyd – Mary Elizabeth Braddon
-A Woman of No Importance – Oscar Wilde
-De Profundis abridged and unabridged versions– Oscar Wilde
-The Cricket on the Hearth: A Tale of Home – Charles Dickens
-Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
-Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens
-Rip Van Winkle – Washington Irving
-The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving
-Moby Dick; or, the White Whale – Herman Melville

Here is my Victorian Literature Victober TBR:

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë
Three Ghost Stories – Charles Dickens
Aurora Floyd – Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A Woman of No Importance – Oscar Wilde
De Profundis unabridged – Oscar Wilde
The Cricket on the Hearth: A Tale of Home – Charles Dickens
Shirley – Charlotte Brontë
Dombey and Son – Charles Dickens

Just have the last three to finish.

My goal this year is to read at least 12 classics that are new to me. I am excited at the opportunity to choose my own classics to read and explore after seven years of undergraduate and graduate school. I joined the group late in September, but I participated in Jane Austen July by reading Mansfield Park, and two unfinished pieces Sanditon and The Watsons, as well as Mrs. Inchbald's play Lover’s Vows that is so pivotal in Mansfield Park.

This year I read the modern classics The Drums of Autumn: Outlander book 4 and The Fiery Cross: Outlander book 5 by Diana Gabaldon.

Currently, I am participating in Vicober and have read Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, M E (Mary Elizabeth) Braddon's Aurora Floyd, Charles Dickens' Three Ghost Stories, and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, A Woman of No Importance, and the unabridged De Profundis.

I am also reading Charlotte Brontë's Shirley with the group. Before the month ends, I plan to read Charles Dickens' The Cricket on the Hearth: A Tale of Home and, at least, start Dombey and Sons.

That brings the total to 13, but I will add more before the end of the year.

Hi, my name is Lorri and I am an American from Minnesota. I recently earned my MA in English with concentrations in Literature and Education. I love literature, reading, and writing. I like many types of books but especially love layered books (as most classics are). Some favorite classics: War and Peace, The Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Middlemarch, Carmilla, Frankenstein, The Importance of Being Earnest, Little Women, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and many of Shakespeare's plays and sonnets as well as many poems.