Pam’s Comments (group member since Jul 12, 2018)

Pam’s comments from the Never too Late to Read Classics group.

I decided to start reading it today on the Serial Reader app, where you get 10-12 minutes of reading per day. I started War and Peace a few days ago but just can’t get into it so I will drop it and stick with Anna K! I thought I had the print book but can’t find it so I will have to download the ebook. It’s on Overdrive, Hoopla, and SimplyE so availability shouldn’t be a problem. Looking forward to it!

Thanks Trisha for the recommendation! My husband likes Hardy and we have several of his books but not that one. It’s not on Overdrive but I found it on the SimplyE App so I will give it a try.

I just finished the book. I wound up ditching the audiobook and reading the eBook. I was a little bored in the beginning with all of the sappy romance build up. But, I stuck with it for 2 reasons:
1) I can finally cross off Thomas Hardy on my 100 Authors to Read Challenge (my own personal challenge)
2) I can check off the Maximillian Hell prompt for the ATY52 challenge. (Hell was a 1700s astronomer who documented the transit of Venus.) This book fit perfectly! It even mentioned the Transit of Venus several times.

I'm glad I stuck with it because the story did take some interesting turns although some of the those events did seem a bit convenient. I didn't see them coming though so that was the upside! I found the astronomy angle interesting and unique. I don't think I've read any other books with an astronomer as a character.(view spoiler)[I kept thinking that there would be some tragic event relating to the tower, like one of them jumping to their death! I didn't see this ending coming and was a little disappointed. After all of their travails, it was over just like that. Really?! I don't like romance novels but I would've preferred a happy ending. (hide spoiler)] I did enjoy the book but I think I might enjoy some of his other works better! I plan to read Tess of the d'Urbervilles even though I've seen the movie. It was so long ago that I've forgotten the story.

I suggest the Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. I’m on the App so I can’t access the group’s bookshelf to see if it’s been read.

I started listening to the audiobook today and am enjoying it! I love the description of a typical day in the Land of Doldrums! Sounds a bit like some of my days. Recognizing the similarities, I've decided to be more productive and positive today! I plan to flip through the physical book, which I have, since I tend to miss details while listening.

I would like to read this book with the group but probably won’t be able to until December. I’m pretty sure that I read it decades ago.

I’m a month late but just saw the post. It fits in perfectly for a challenge prompt in another group. I checked out both the ebook and audiobook. After I read it, I’ll read all the comments and put in my 2 cents. I think this is my first Thomas Hardy book so I don’t have any expectations other than my husband’s praise! This is one Hardy book, though, that he hasn’t read.

I heard about this book on a podcast but never before! A friend of mine, a former school teacher, gave me a bunch of mid-grade books a few weeks ago. This was one of them so I will TRY to remember to read it and come back to this thread to discuss!

I haven’t been reading many classics this year but just started H. G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. We have an old box set of 5 of his works.

I knew that I had a bunch of science fiction short story collections because they are all displayed together. I was surprised at how many other collections I had. They were scattered in different places. Now they are all together.

Leslie- Non-SF means everything that is not science fiction! For some odd reason, I have a whole shelf full of SF short story collections which I never read. I like the occasional short story but a whole collection is usually too much for me, with one exception, one of my favorite books The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu.

I am always drawn to organizing by color. I like the way it looks. I have very few repeat authors so there’s no point in keeping series or author collections, for example, together since I don’t have them!

I finished downsizing my books (donated ~100, many large hardbacks!) and finished reorganizing my bookshelves. I’m very happy with the results! I still have too many books but I’m making a dent in reading them. I have much more space and am better organized now. I didn’t realize how many non-SF short story collections I have! I rarely read short stories so I’m not sure why I have any. They will be the next ones to go most likely. I kept my one shelf of black cover books and changed the other color shelves to order by author, just for something different.

The last time I counted, I had ~400 books. I’m in a downsizing mode & just donated over 60 recently. I have separate areas for non-fiction, sci-fi, & classics. Everything else is random. One of my bookshelves is a microwave cart, turned into a book case/storage unit. I keep on display the books I plan to read this year for reading challenges. When I’m looking for what to read next, I go to that shelf first. I just finished reading Marie Kondo’s Spark Joy & have been thinking about her idea of the words you see & how they reflect who you are. I will rearrange my 2 major bookshelves with this idea in mind. I do like to organize my downstairs bookshelf by color but will probably change that.

Thomas Mann- Germany
George Eliot - England
Kingsley Amis - England
Alexandre Dumas - France
Anatole France - France

Per Petterson
Sigrid Undset
Knut Hamsun
Par Lagerkvist
Halldor Laxness

Ralph Ellison
John Steinbeck
Wallace Stegner
Upton Sinclair
Edna Ferber

I read all of S. E. Hinton’s books in the 1970s when I was a teenager. I loved all of them but The Outsiders was my favorite! I saw the movie when it came out but it didn’t move me the way the book did. Amazing that the author was a teen herself!

I read this book last year and loved it! If my library reopens in April, I will try to find it. I’ve seen so many people in another GR group say they hate Westerns. This book is a wonderful Western set on the Venezuelan llano (grassy plain). It’s definitely a book with a strong “sense of place”. It’s the rare book on my list to re-read!

I had planned to start the year reading Middlemarch BUT I’ve gotten distracted by library books, even though I’ve pushed out all my holds! I hope to read it during the first quarter of the year.

Jazzy- with regards to starting Pietr early, I received an email notification that the group was reading it in February so looking for it now seemed like a good idea. We are only 5 days out. This one is very short but I’m reading 2 other books so it may be February before I finish it! For me, the beauty of an online book club is that you don’t have to read the book by a certain date. I gave up on one of those groups.

Rosemarie- This is my first Inspector Maigret book. I only heard of it recently when I was looking for translated mysteries. I see there is a tv series, an older one and a newer one w Rowan Atkinson. I can’t watch it on TV (don’t have channel MHz) but I found it on Hoopla! After I read a few, I’ll try watching it. The only place I could find the book Pietr the Latvian is on cloudLibrary, which has the first 3 books in the series as an Omnibus. I just learned about cloudLibrary yesterday. I’m amazed at all of the different ways there are now to access books via the public library!