Maarit's 12+2 Classics Challenge 2015

[Maarit]

Well The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a quick read and I already finished it. I think I would have enjoyed the book more if I'd read it in a different mood than I did now as it wasn't a bad read by any means. I just couldn't grasp into all of the humorous stuff in the book and found it trying a bit too hard in that sense, so I ended up giving the book 3 stars (or 3½, but Goodreads doesn't allow half stars). I'm not sure what to read next, any recommendations?

[Desertorum]

Tuulen viemää starts with group read (next month?) and I was going to start that next (after I finish Lolita). Maybe that one?

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I had a hard time with Hitchhiker, I think if I had read it 30 years ago, the humor might have made more sense.

My thoughts: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

As for a recommendation on your nest read, try Grapes of Wrath.

[Maarit]

Thanks for the recommendations Desertorum and Bob, I think I lean towards Gone With the Wind this time, since it's been recommended me elsewhere, too :). Just need to borrow it from the library, but I think it can wait after Easter, as I hope to finish either War & Peace book 2 or One Flew Over Cuccoo's Nest before starting new book. And I will definately read Grapes of Wrath later this year, too.

And Bob, I liked your review of Hitchhiker's, it almost felt like my thoughts of the book, too.

[Maarit]

I finished One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest today and I must say I didn't like it that much at all, mostly because I felt it was boring and at parts annoyingly so. Here's my more detailed review of it (in English).

I've started to read Gone With the Wind and still making slow but steady progress through War and Peace (I will finish it this year!).

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I enjoyed your review. I agree that some of story was slow paced and less than riveting. However I found the book scary and a warning about uncontrolled institutionalization and excessive state control. Murphy was a petty criminal and a minor troublemaker. A bureaucrat in this case nurse Ratched who did not like Murphy manipulated the system and had his brain scrambled. I found that chilling, scary, and believable. So much for the old saying ‘they can take away my freedom but they can’t take away who I am’. This book bluntly say’s yes they can.

[Maarit]

Thanks for your comment Bob. I know that those sort of things were possible at the time when Kesey wrote his book. The Finnish edition had an introduction, which told about the background of the author, his career and how he got the idea to write One Flew Over Cuckoo's Nest. I'm just not sure why the book was a bit miss for me, maybe it was because I had high hopes about it and those kinda failed to happen.

[Maarit]

I took a little break from War and Peace & Gone With the Wind and finished The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I liked the book and also the illustrations by Inga Moore, which I had in my edition. Here's my review which tells more about my thoughts of the book.

[Maarit]

I've made a little progress with this challenge :) I finished book 2 of 4 of War and Peace so I'm officially in the halfway point, yeay!

I've also decided to put Gone With the Wind aside for a while and try it again later. I came to the conclusion that I can't read two long books at the same time, because other will get negleted, as has happened. Gone With the Wind will get it's chance later in the year as soon as I finish War and Peace.

And I've started to read the Finnish (YA)-classic Häräntappoase (literally translated as Ox or Bull Killing Weapon or something like that). It's a book that is an obligatory read on some schools, but I have never read it, so I thought it would be time for me to give it a try. So far I'm not quite sure if I like it or not, but I have to read it more to make an opinion.

[Laurie]

Congratulations on reading to the halfway point in W&P. I can't imagine trying to read it at the same time as another really long book. I read both W&P and GWTW this year and enjoyed both tremendously, but they definitely take time.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I have War and Peace on my challenge. I've decided to save it till last. I read GWTW a few years ago and enjoyed it, hope you will also.

[Maarit]

Bob wrote: "I have War and Peace on my challenge. I've decided to save it till last. I read GWTW a few years ago and enjoyed it, hope you will also."

I think I will enjoy GWTW, the first four or so chapters I read were very promising. And I hope you'll enjoy W&P, it's an interesting read, though at times a bit "heavy", mostly because it descripes things very thorougly even when it's not needed to be so. There is a shortened version, about 1100 pages long (marketed as "more peace, less war" and "half times shorter, five times more interesting"), but I think it would kinda be cheating for me to read it instead of the original and more thorough version, which is interesting in it's own way.

[Pink]

I have War and Peace on my challenge list too, but like Bob will probably leave it until last.

[Maarit]

I only have five more books left for this challenge + the two alternate ones as I finished Häräntappoase by Anna-Leena Härkönen today. It's one of those books that is a mandatory reading in some schools, but I've never read it before. I think it was an OK read, nothing special, but also nothing that makes one annoyed. It's also classified as YA, which I think is correctly done. So a 3 star book for me. It's also not translated in any language and I doubt it will ever be (it's written in early 1980's).

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

Of the five you have left, I just recently read Around the World in Eighty Days, it was entertaining, a fun read.

[Desertorum]

I read Häräntappoase as a teenager and liked it then. Not sure if I would like it anymore that much.

[Maarit]

I started to read Rakkautta koleran aikaan (Love in the Time of Cholera) few days ago. I'm only about 70 or so pages in and the story has been OK so far.

I also have Around the World in 80 Days waiting in my bookpile to be read. The Invisible Man has proved to be a bit hard to get, I need to order it from other library in my local library system. The new edition of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas hasn't still come out, so it's a waiting game with that one. Gone With the Wind is on hold as I still read War and Peace and don't want to mix those two together.

That's about it with my official challenge books waiting to be read, not so many left anymore. I'm still thinking about reading the alternate ones, but that comes down to the fact if I have time for them.

[Teanka]

Maarit wrote: "The Invisible Man has proved to be a bit hard to get, I need to order it from other library in my local library system. "
If you read e-books, that's the one that's easiest to find for free, at Gutenberg (that's how I obtained my copy of The War of the Worlds and it was OK).
Here you have a link, just in case you want to try it out :)

I hope you enjoy Love in the Time of Cholera, I liked it a lot when I read it, even though I preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude.

[Maarit]

Thanks for the link Teanka, I'll see if I dwell back into the world of e-books :). I have used iPad 2 for e-book reading from time to time, but it now works a bit wobbly due to it's age and I'm not sure if I can get Kindle app in my Nokia Lumia phone. Won't use computer screen for reading, got enough of it in the university and just get headaches from it.

Edit: It seems they have a Kindle app for Lumia, just need to download it and see if it works well.

[Andrea AKA Catsos Person]

Maarit, the kindle app is wonderful! I highly recco that app.

I use it all the time.

[Pink]

Maarit, I think the kindle app will work well for The Invisible Man, as it isn't a very long story anyway. Perhaps longer books would be more problematic to read on a smaller device, but there's certainly lots available to choose from.

[Maarit]

In the past few weeks and days, I've finished in total of two books for this challenge and made a lot of progress in War and Peace.

I finished The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells almost two weeks ago. The story itself was OK, but I found the ending of it very annoying mostly because (view spoiler)[the story just ends when the Invisible Man is beated up and the epilogue doesn't explain what happened to him after that, like did he die or something? (hide spoiler)]. Here's my review of it. I read the book from Kindle app and it worked fine.

I also finished Maailman ympäri 80 päivässä (Around the World in 80 Days) by Jules Verne today. I knew most of the story already, because I watched the cartoon of it as a child and there were some similarities and also differences between the book and the cartoon. Because the story was familiar to me, I didn't find the book itself that interesting, mostly because I knew what was going to happen in the end and during the trip. Here's my review of it.

For War and Peace I finished book 3 out of 4 today and it's starting to look like that I may actually finish the whole book at the end of this month, because the fourth book is as short as the first book was (a bit over 400 pages) and I just need to read it instead of leaving it waiting while I read other books.

[Laurie]

Congratulations on finishing two of your books. I read The Invisible Man last year and didn't like it much either. He was not a likeable character. You are making great progress on WP. I read it this year and it feels great when you are close to the end as you are. I admit that the two epilogues at the end were tough for me.

[Desertorum]

I have also watched the cartoon Maailman ympäri 80 päivässä as a kid and loved it! I read the book last year and felt kind of disappointed. Maybe the childhood feelings didn´t come back. I must say I liked the cartoon better (but also my taste might have changed!).

[Maarit]

Desertorum: I also liked the cartoon version better, I still remember some parts of the theme song, too :D. The live-action movie with Jackie Chan (from 2004? or something) isn't that great either, I think it went bit too overboard and took a bit too many artistic freedoms in story.

[Maarit]

I've now read all of my Old School choices after finishing Sota ja rauha 1-4 (War and Peace) by Leo Tolstoy. I almost gave it four stars, because the story was good, but I ended up giving it three stars instead. This was mostly because Tolstoy is very repeatitive and tells the same things over and over again in different words and it kinda hits your nerve when you have to read 1800+ pages of the text. Also the second part of the epilogue was completely useless, full of chitchat and philosophical wondering of words and stuff. Unfortunately I wrote my review only in Finnish (easiest way for me to tell about my thoughts) so I won't link it here.

I also finished Rakkautta koleran aikaan (Love in the Time of Cholera) by Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez. I found the book a bit odd one and I'm not sure if I liked it or not that much. That's why I gave it three stars. Here's my (slightly rushed) review of it.

Now I have only Gone With the Wind and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas left from my New School and Wild card choices (+the two alternates). I think I will take a break from the large books for a while and read Gone With the Wind last, but we'll see what happens.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

I still hope to read War and Peace this year. It's a daunting book. I probably shouldn't save it till the end.

[Maarit]

Bob: War and Peace ain't that bad, you just have to get used to Tolstoy's way of writing and his constant way of making things seem to be more complicated than they actually are. And also his fondness of war tactics and the mood of troops, they seem to be close to his heart, too.

[Pink]

Maarit wrote: "I've now read all of my Old School choices after finishing Sota ja rauha 1-4 (War and Peace) by Leo Tolstoy. I almost gave it four stars, because the story was good, but I ended up ..."

Your list is looking great. Like Bob, I'm saving War and Peace for the winter.

I've never had any real interest in Marquez. I picked up one of his books a few months ago, read a few pages, then returned it to the library unread. I'm unsure if he's an author for me.

[Laurie]

Good job finishing the old school books. I agree about the epilogues in W&P. Completely useless and boring. I sped through Gone With the Wind this year, so even though it is long I'll bet it won't take long for you whenever you tackle it. And I hope you like Fear and Loathing better than I did. I abandoned it about a third of the way through.

[Maarit]

I've now finished Pelkoa ja inhoa Las Vegasissa (Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas) and officially read all my Wild Card choices. I found Fear and Loathing a weird book to read, but I didn't hate it. And also I'm not sure if I completely liked it either. So if I could I would give it 3½ stars, but since it's not possible, I just gave it 3 stars. I wrote a short review of it to reflect my thoughts, it can be found in my profile.

After this I only have my alternate books and Gone With the Wind left and I only need one more book to finish this challenge. GWTW just feels so long of a book and I'm not sure if I have the will to tackle it this year, as I've already finished some long books already. But I will certainly try, I'm already in chapter 6 (:D), so only many more chapters to go.

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

Thanks for the review, I've been thinking about reading Fear and Loathing for some time now, while you haven't deterred me, it seems safe to say it can stay on the back burner for awhile.

I hope you make it through GWTW, I enjoyed it very much, but then I live near Atlanta and many of the places named are still here.

[Maarit]

Well, I've now officially conquered this challenge, since I finished my alternate Munro short story collection yesterday making my total count 12/12 books finished. The Munro book was a well balanced collection of short stories, of which some I liked a lot and some not that much. But I think I will give it 3½ stars rounded down to 3 stars, since for me most of the short stories were worth three stars (but nothing less) and only a few were either four or even a five star read for me.

I'm also slightly dissappointed that I didn't finish GWTW on my New School choices this year, but I think it was a right choice for me to do this time around. I will definately give it a go some time else, but not in this year anymore. Also Grapes of Wrath need to wait a bit more, but eventually I think I will read it, too. So overall I'm happy that I finished my challenge, even if by using my alternate choice and I will challenge myself again next year as well, though I've planned that challenge so that I will not have that many troubles to finish it.

[Teanka]

Congratulations, Maarit on finishing your challenge!
And I had similar feelings for a different Munro short story collection which I read this year, Too Much Happiness. There were 1-2 stories that I liked a lot but the majority was around 3 stars for me.

[Sarah]

Congratulations!

[[deleted user]]

War and Peace is big book

[Pink]

Well done!

[Christine]

Congratulations on finishing your challenge, Maarit, and kudos for tackling War and Peace! That book intimidates me. GWTW and Grapes of Wrath are two of my very favorite books, so if you do get around to reading them I hope you enjoy them. :-)

[Bob, Short Story Classics]

Outstanding some terrific books, Congratulations!

[Laurie]

Congratulations on finishing your challenge. You read some great books.

[Maarit]

Thanks everybody :). I really liked my challenge even if a few books were a bit hit and miss for me, but still. War and Peace was definately the biggest and maybe also the hardest book to tackle, but I'm very happy that I managed to finish it and also enjoy it a bit, too.

[[deleted user]]

me too i finish my challenge .i have read 29 of 25 books(french , english , arabic) in 2015.1984, jane eyre and emma are the best novels i read this year , https://www.goodreads.com/user_challe....