Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion
Archived Chit Chat & All That
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Yep
Kathy wrote: "Melanti wrote: "...Most of my thoughts right now are about how to pick a better list of books for next time...."Yep"
Haha, me too!
I want a happier list for next year! I didn't intend it, but my challenge list for this year has an over-abundance of books in which the main characters die... Suicides, deaths, old age... all sorts of reasons. That's my excuse for losing steam, at least.
Of gosh, that does sound morbid, even for me and I like depressing books! Half of my challenges this year included big books that I didn't finish last year. My plan for 2017 is shorter books and maybe some more modern classics for a change, but we'll see!
I've been trying to stay flexible with my 2016 Bingo challenge, substituting some easier and/or shorter reads where I could tell the first book I had slotted in that space was going to be too much for me to bite off at this point in time, given my other reading and life commitments. Rashomon and Other Stories and Man's Search for Meaning were two of those late substitutions. I'm still on pace to finish by year end. *crossing my fingers*
You are all late! I started planning next year for my little book club here in June! Granted I just started listing ideas for monthly themes because they were in my head already and I wanted to write them down but still... And I just asked for ideas/opinions for next year, too.
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Good for you
I don't know that I start planning, but I always start a list of possible next year reads. Makes the new year so worth looking forward to happening.
Well generally I can get stuff out of my mind when I write them down, so it's easy for me.For next year we will continue a personal challenge that the Helsinki library network will make again (50 books, like Popsugar), then we have a monthly theme, often based on some current affair or a historical date, a monthly classic voted from the two lists I made, and a TBR book list on Listopia, where members can vote for a book that has been gathering dust on their book shelves. The last two are ongoing polls.
Though next year is a bit special because it is the centenary of Finland's independence, so we will read a Finnish book from every decade and maybe something more. Then there might be a round-the-world trip and/or Interrail, but I haven't figured out how to do that.
I don't really do any planning for my reading year to year. I have vague ideas of books I might like to get to but I am a mood reader so I really have to play it by ear.However if I have an idea about a book I would like to read I find that I'll either think about it all the time and get more and more excited about when I'll finally find time to start it, or my enthusiasm for it will wain and by the time I have finished the book I am currently on I might be more excited about another book instead.
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Bob I decided not to do any challenges. Only reason why I have mapped out my reading through January is so I can read classics and nonfiction. If I go by impulse only I end up reading mysteries and buddy reading with my kids.
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ wrote: "I've been trying to stay flexible with my 2016 Bingo challenge, substituting some easier and/or shorter reads where I could tell the first book I had slotted in that space was going to be too much ..."I hope you like Rashomon and other stories. I read a larger Akutagawa collection Rashomon and Seventeen other Stories and loved all of them. I loved his writing and have been wanting to find more of it.
It is hard to keep up with challenges, but it has made me read more and I have read a few books I had never heard of that were monthly reads. I have not planned out anything this year and probably won't next year.
MKay, that's why I love goodreads. I have found so many books I'd have never heard of or thought of.
I am on course to read 100-110 books this yearI set myself a challenge called "Crazy 88", so I could've achieved it, but I will probably fall short by a few by virtue of reading a significant number of books that weren't in the plan!
I have a "long list" for 2017 of over 150 :oO so that's not gonna happen!
but for my 2017 challenge I will restrict to a much smaller "core" tentatively title "The Sensible 60"...
Could any of you just give me some help with book-adding, please? I have always had some trouble when trying to switch to the right edition, but now, trying to add a second version just made me give up. :(
I thought it would be nice to update on the right version of "The Lord of the Rings", as we're doing it as a group read. I'm currently reading a Frensh translation (why ever). (And it would also be nice to add my other editions, I have four in total.)
I actually managed to add some French edition via "Home" and "add a book"; - but when I tried to get the right translated version, it switched from the English edition instead. So I tried to add my English edition - again, but couldn't get the right one (again!) ...
:(...
Has anyone tried this before?
If you're on the desk top site, go to the page for the specific edition you're wanting to add, and using the drop downs right under the cover photo, add it to a shelf or rate it. That should add a second copy.
The problem was, the book lways showed as read and rated (because I had marked the English edition). But it seems to work when I mark the book as "currently reading" instead. :)
Thank you so much, Melanti!! This has been giving me headaches ...
Bob wrote: "All this talk about next years planning has me thinking harder about something I've just mildly been pondering. Will I do any challenges next year? Frankly I'm a little burned out and have been thi..."I don't normally bother with challenges. I find them a bit too restrictive. I am a member of a group that sets a 100 book challenge and I amuse myself with trying see if the book I have just finished happens to fit one of them. The challenges are very wide ranging and since I have a better chance of walking on the moon than I do of reading 100 books in a year there are always a lot of the 100 task left to choose from ;-)
This sounds very complex. So the 100 books for the challenge all have different specific characteristics?
Hailee wrote: "Bob wrote: "All this talk about next years planning has me thinking harder about something I've just mildly been pondering. Will I do any challenges next year? Frankly I'm a little burned out and h..."It's a commitment which for me is a kind of pressure. I tend to bounce around genres too. I'm not a fast reader so I'd flunk. :D
Bob wrote: "All this talk about next years planning has me thinking harder about something I've just mildly been pondering. Will I do any challenges next year? Frankly I'm a little burned out and have been thi..."I've decided on forgoing any challenges next year for the same reason of burnout. I have ongoing personal challenges that I will still pursue, but I think the only real goal I will have for classics next year is to read some of the books on our bookshelf that I haven't gotten to. So no formal challenges. But I still look forward to everyone else's challenges because I like to encourage others who try them, and so many people's challenges have great books that I haven't read yet or even heard of to add to my TBR.
Lilly wrote: "This sounds very complex. So the 100 books for the challenge all have different specific characteristics?"
:-D Sorry, I probably made it sound more complicated than it is. Its really just a list of 100 different things. For example:
1. read a book with a flower on the cover.
2. read a book set in a cold country
3. read a book about someone who work for the government.
4. read a book with red on the cover.
5. read of book about sisters.
6. read a non fiction book.
So there are 100 of those type of things and I find, because there are so many options most of the books I have read fit at least one of the things listed without me planning to fit the book to the challenge before I start to read it.
Hope I explained it better this time :-)
Mod
When it comes to my chances of reading 100 books in a year or walking on the moon, neither are likely to happen, but I will keep working on reading 100 books. You never know I may retire some day, buy a years supply of microwave food, lock the doors, disconnect the phone and just read and sleep. I've already got a two year supply of books to choose from.
Bob wrote: "Hailee, I have always admired the people who can read 100+ books in a year. Like superior athletes they have enhanced a gift given at birth. For me it just takes longer for the words to travel from..."I'm with you Bob and Hailee. 100 books in a year is not happening unless they are a majority of short stories and children books!
I do hope to get to 52 a year as a new habit. A book a week seems like something I should have been always doing, since I do like to read. The problem is, I like to do lots of other things too. ; )
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Bob and Sue - Yes I think the only way I could reach 100 in a year is to do absolutely nothing but read - maybe 2 hours sleep a night, just to treat myself.But like you Sue I do like to do other things as well and I need to go to work to earn money for food and more importantly, books!
Kathy wrote: "Just to let you all know & to help with your reading plans for next week: September 25 - October 1, 2016 is Banned Books Week. You can read more about it here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooks..."Yes! I am going to take part. Apparently Lord of the Rings has been banned for promoting satanic witchcraft so I will start the 4th quarters long read a week early and kill two birds with one stone.
Kathy wrote: "Just to let you all know & to help with your reading plans for next week: September 25 - October 1, 2016 is Banned Books Week. You can read more about it here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/bannedbooks..."I'm in as well. Unbelievably to me, Invisible Man was banned as recently as 2013 by a county school board in North Carolina. So I will get a jump on one of our October reads.
Good timing, since I started Invisible Man yesterday.I'm sure I have a couple more frequently banned/challenged books in my TBR pile too.
@Hailee: that made it perfectly clear now ;) Sounds generally like a cool challenge ...
I think the last time I managed to read almost 100 a year, was whilwe I was still in school and had a lot of free time :D
I can't always manage a book per week now, depending on how much I need to work and how many theoretical texts I have to read for university ...
I always wanted to ask about banned books. (Sounds kind of embarrassing, but I never figured it out.) What exactly are they and who banns them? Your churches?
We don't have banned books over here (at least I never heard of it), even though Bavaria is quite Catholic (which also means conservative; it's the other way round than in America, and here the Protestants are much more liberal).
Mod
Here is a list from Wikipedia List of books banned by governments
The Catholic Church had the Index Librium Prohibitory, which was a list of publications deemed heretical, anti-clerical or lascivious, and therefore banned by the Catholic Church. Index Librorum Prohibitorum
Many more books have been banned than just those in the lists I've provided as examples. Books can be banned by governments, churches, schools, communities, or basically any type of organization.
Bavaria actually has banned the printing of Mein Kampf if this article is accurate: http://www.spiegel.de/international/g...
Lilly wrote: "I always wanted to ask about banned books. (Sounds kind of embarrassing, but I never figured it out.)"We don't really have any banned books in Finland, either, or at least it's difficult to say have they been banned or not, don't really know any titles, either. The only time I know it happened for sure was after WWII when the Allied Control Commission "banned" all kinds of books deemed to be anti-Soviet.
Lilly wrote: "I always wanted to ask about banned books. (Sounds kind of embarrassing, but I never figured it out.) What exactly are they and who banns them? Your churches?
We don't have banned books over he..."
I think it's worth noting that for the last 50 years or so, most books banned in the US were removed from school libraries or class curriculum at the request of parents in the community. Occasionally, they'd be removed from the public library, but that's rarer. Even if kids couldn't get them from the schools, they could still get them from alternate libraries or (usually) purchase them from the bookstore.
I find that to be quite different than bans put forth by governments where you can't get a particular book at all.
I'm not sure I'd say Churches ban things... They generally ask their parishioners to voluntarily refrain from reading a particular work. They have no authority, unless those parishioners raise a fuss at the libraries on their own. (My sister actually had to hide her copies of Harry Potter and read them while her husband was at work, because their pastor had said they were Satanic.)
Thanks, Kathy, for all that detailed information! It always puzzled me how books could get "banned" - who does it and how binding is it ...
Are those lists of banned books more like a kind of advice, or can't you get the books at all (in your town) if the council banned them?
Is there any historical reason for this practique?
"Mein Kampf" is a special case, I would say. There could be only two reasons for anyone to read it: a) they have neo-nazi opinions b) they are interested in history. Reason a) would be the cause for anyone wanting to prevent a re-print. Neo-nazi organisations might use it or distribute it.
If reason b) is the case, no problem. There are still some old copies about, which can be used by historicans. And reading the book per se isn't banned, it's just not reprinted.
The project you linked, again, is a different case. Being an annotated version, its intension is of course to be used for history studies. But I still believe it is due to reason a) that the government does not want a reprint: if they allow this version, they cannot prevent radical groups from reprinting (at least it might get tricky).
This is, of course, a problem linked to Germany's history. Now and then they get rid of some political party forwarding neo-nazi opinions (or sometimes they don't, because there's not enough proof).
Also, people working for the Bavarian government have to sign they are not participating in any radical organizations (left and right), scientology etc. - So there's kind of a list of "banned" organizations (though it doesn't concern everyone).
I think Tytti's post is another example of how history might be influential for what is being banned in a country.
Lilly wrote: "I think Tytti's post is another example of how history might be influential for what is being banned in a country."I'm not sure how effective it actually was, some of them were clearly (bad) propaganda books written during the war when the Soviets weren't exactly liked, and we also had to give all our maps concerning the ceded area, Karelia and Petsamo. In schools they had to cut or glue together pages in geography and history books. Kids had to do it themselves so I would think at least the smartest ones would have figured out that there is something wrong about this... And of course nothing stopped teachers from teaching it like before.
Tytti wrote: "We don't really have any banned books in Finland, either, or at least it's diff..."We don't in the UK either... now at least. The banning of Lady Chatterley's Lover is probably one of the most famous instances in our history but as society became more open and people became more tolerant there were less reasons to look down or certain topics.
Yeah, that's probably the most famous banned book in the world, I've even seen a movie about the trial, fictional, though, I believe.There are a couple of books that might be counted as banned at one time or at least cencored for other reasons, but most were probably for political reasons because of our big neighbour, like the memoir of one communist minister of interior.
Lilly wrote: "Are those lists of banned books more like a kind of advice, or can't you get the books at all (in your town) if the council banned them? Is there any historical reason for this practique? .."
In the US, the Supreme Court that ruled banning books due to obscene content was unconstitutional back in the '60s. So, legally speaking, no book has been banned in about 50 years.
When people talk about banning books in the US now, they're generally talking about people within a community campaigning to get a particular book removed from a library's shelves (usually a school library) or removed from a school curriculum. It doesn't involve laws prohibiting a book - it just involves social pressure, harassment, publicity, etc., to make the book less accessible.
You can still buy the books, and often you can even go to other nearby libraries and get them. They've just been removed from that specific school or library.
A related term is "challenged" - which means libraries have received a request to remove a book - though they haven't necessarily complied.
I think about a decade ago, there were a couple of states that tried to restrict libraries from using public funds to purchase books that portrayed homosexuality positively, but luckily those laws never passed.
No wonder really that so many books get challenged because I couldn't believe the question I came across here. Some mother wrote that her 12-year-old son would be interested about the book but she wanted to know if there were any sexual content or strong language in it. The book was non-fiction about WWII! I don't remember coming across much "sexual content" in non-fiction about any war (and generally there is no swearing, either) but I guess you can never be too sure. I wonder if that would include any mention of mass rapes, maybe not...
Melanti wrote: "I think it's worth noting that for the last 50 years or so, most books banned in the US were removed from school libraries or class curriculum at the request of parents in the community. Occasionally, they'd be removed from the public library, but that's rarer. ... "Thanks Melanti!
I didn't get your post when I last commented. This deffinitely gives some insights - I always wondered how it works ...
Melanti wrote: "When people talk about banning books in the US now, they're generally talking about people within a community campaigning to get a particular book removed from a library's shelves (usually a school library) or removed from a school curriculum. It doesn't involve laws prohibiting a book - it just involves social pressure, harassment, publicity, etc., to make the book less accessible.."Wow ... for something that isn't law and only semi-official(?) this has a lot of efficiency ... O.O - Kind of scary ...
I can well understand why people are protesting against bans!
Melanti - you did a wonderful job explaining the situation in the US. Thanks.
Yes, thank you all so much! :) I'm glad I finally asked - that "banned books" thing has been bothering me for years ...
I saved these quotes about censorship last year during Banned Books Week. Who better than a bunch of authors to speak out on this issue that still continues, at least in some places. http://bookriot.com/2015/09/29/suppor...
I'm going to do it if I have time. I read The Bluest Eye recently, but not this week, so that kinda counts, doesn't it? I am still hard at work reading books that represent all of the fifty states. Right in the middle of reading A Spool of Blue Thread by Tyler.
So nice that after being offline for 2 days that I come back on to see 26 different topics to catch up on. I was busy with holiday prep but I did manage to read A Streetcar Named Desire.
Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)
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I would not classify The Trial by Franz Kafka as a "scare the pants off a duck tales". I wouldn't classify it as much of anything but a two star read, in my opinion. But hey, thank you for the visual I have in my head now of Donald Duck! :)