Alana’s Comments (group member since Apr 19, 2013)

Alana’s comments from the Classics Without All the Class group.

Lol, then it would be more like an "extroduction."

You're doing AK and Atlas Shrugged at the same time? Wow, and I thought my doing it back to back was too much!

Library bag, except that I rarely get rid of classics, since somehow it feels like they are supposed to be part of that "showing off" collection on the shelves at home.

I read this several months ago, but I'll just copy and paste my review here:

Anna Karenina is a study of religion, culture, aristocracy and morality, among other things. The central storyline is that of a woman and her adultery, but the novel encompasses much more than that. It's not so much a study in the morality of fidelity but rather of once a wrong has been done, what is to be done about it? How is society to react? What are the consequences to family, children, friends? What role should faith and religion play when defining love and loyalty? All of these questions play out over the course of the novel.

It is certainly lengthy and seems slow in parts so is not for the light reader, but the story is very worthwhile, if you're up to all those pages.

I never touch the introduction until I'm done with the book. It ALWAYS gives away all the major plot points!

I read this one a few months ago and I enjoy reading what other people think of it. I'll look forward to everyone's comments as you go along. :)

Nothing at all wrong with that (although you do have to be careful, because some of the sparknotes authors don't have a concept of a "spoiler alert")

Working on The Blind Assassin at the moment. Was nervous about it at first, but I should have known it would suck me right in. It's an Atwood, after all!

Atlas Shrugged is certainly a monster, but it's worth reading. Same with Les Mis. Anna Karenina was good but Brothers Karamazov was one of the hardest things I've ever plugged my way through. I'm daunted by the idea of War and Peace, though, and I can't WAIT to be done with a Song of Fire and Ice. Normally long fantasy books are good, but these are just slogging through. The first one was the only decent one.

My goal is set at 50 because I'm working this year so I don't have as much time. But I've been reading more since my husband and I separated, so they've taken up all my spare time, in a good way. I will probably still get through 100 this year, with a goal of at least 1/4 of them being classics, if not more. It's really time I read a bunch of those classics.

Anne de Bourgh is kind of that way.

I would love to read one of Dostoevsky, I had SUCH a hard time with Brothers K. Getting into his brain might help me a little.

I've got The Blind Assassin and The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales going on at the same time, but I'm not sure how weird that is.

I tend to give a book about 10% of its length to see if I like it. I feel it's unfair to quit on a 900 page book after only thirty pages...the setup sometimes takes a little longer than that. If it's a 300 page book, though 30 pages is plenty too decide if I'm going to be drawn in or not. I struggled to get to that 30th page of Atonement.... one day I'll try again, because the movie was decent, but oy, the book killed me.

It's nice to know at least SOME of these classics I want to read aren't 700 pages long :)

The Woman in White is an excellent classic mystery.

There are some good books on this list, thanks for mentioning them! I've been more drawn back into mysteries lately, so I'm glad to see a nice collection to dive into :)

HI everyone!

Name: Alana
Where you are from: just moved to Colorado Springs but used to live in Las Vegas, went to high school and college in Kentucky and was born and lived in Washington state til I was 15.
Favorite books/author/genre: Anything that's not YA, romance or too much family drama.
Why you're here: It's so much easier to read classics when you have others to discuss them with!
What is your favorite sound? joyful laughter when a group of friends gets together and does something simple, like playing a board game and talking.

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Travis of NNY wrote: "I have also found there is group called reading the chunksters that only reads the long ones"

Thanks for letting me know about that! I didn't know there were others that actually like picking up those massive ones that more often get used as book-ends than actually read. :)

Alex wrote: "I don't know how many (if any) of these are still being manufactured, but this list popped up on my Twitter feed and thought I'd share it:

10 Literary Board Games for Book Nerds"

Sadly enough, I discovered through that list yet another book I want to read...

I'm glad this group keeps old discussion threads open. Most of my groups do and it's nice, because I may not have time to get to a particular month but once I DO get around to it, I love reviving a discussion and knowing there are others who have read it too.