R.I.P.

I haven’t ever participated in R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril before, but I saw a post about it on Helen’s She Reads Novels page, so I took a look at my future posts. The object of the challenge is for people to read books in the following genres during September and October:

• Mystery
• Suspense
• Thriller
• Dark Fantasy
• Gothic
• Horror
• Supernatural

It looks like I have plenty of mysteries on my schedule, and I may be able to come up with something in the other genres as well, so I think it will be fun to participate. You can look at the pages of the hosts, Estella’s Revenge and My Capricious Life for more information if you are planning to participate.

I think I’ll be participating at the Peril the First level, which means I must read four books from these genres in the next two months. If you’re familiar with my blog, you know that will not be a problem for me. I will be reading at least four of the following novels:

• The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart (suspense)
• The Unquiet Grave by Sharyn McCrumb (mystery)
• Consider the Lilies and Death Among Friends by Elizabeth Cadell (suspense)
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (mystery)
• The Victorian Chaise Lounge by Marghanita Laski (gothic and supernatural)
• My Darling Detective by Howard Norman (mystery)

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Six in Six

I wasn’t aware of the Six in Six meme until this year, but it sounded like something fun to participate in for July. I read about it on She Reads Novels, but it is hosted by The Book Jotter. The idea is to pick six categories under which you list six books you have read during the first six months of the year and post these lists any time in July. If you would like to participate, too, you can see a fuller description with suggestions of categories on The Book Jotter’s post. Here are my categories and books. I don’t have all of my reviews posted, but I’ll try to remember to add the links to this page as I post them.

Six Tales of Peril

• The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry
• The Girls by Emma Cline
• Room by Emma Donaghue
• The Second Life of Nick Mason by Steve Hamilton
• Strangers in Company by Jane Aiken Hodge
• Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson

Six Delightful Classics

• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Greengates by R. C. Sheriff
• The Baker’s Daughter by D. E. Stevenson
• Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
• Northbridge Rectory by Angela Thirkell
• Pomfret Towers by Angela Thirkell

Six Classic Murder Mysteries

• The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham
• The Lake District Murder by John Bude
• The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude
• The Sussex Downs Murder by John Bude
• The Moving Toyshop by Edmund Crispin
• They Found Him Dead by Georgette Heyer

Six That Disappointed

• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Bachman
• The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
• The Stranger’s Child by Alan Hollinghurst
• Once in a Blue Moon Lodge by Lorna Landvik
• Fludd by Hilary Mantel
• Look at the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov

Six Historical Novels

• On Canaan’s Side by Sebastian Barry
• His Bloody Project by Graem Macrae Burnet
• Conclave by Robert Harris
• Stormbird by Conn Igguldson
• The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland
• The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry

Six Different Countries

• The Trespasser by Tana French (Ireland)
• The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova (Bulgaria)
• Pure by Andrew Miller (France)
• Number9Dream by David Mitchell (Japan)
• A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Russia)
• The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain (Switzerland)

First Classics Club List Complete!

I have not posted all of the reviews yet, but with Henry VI, Part III, I just finished all of the books on my first Classics Club list. I completed my list almost two years ahead of my posted deadline of February 12, 2019!

That means that I am ready to post my second Classics Club list! I will continue to show my first list in my Classics Club page until all my reviews are posted, and then I will copy it off to a subsidiary page and post my new list.

My first list was an experiment, as I had never belonged to a blogging club before, so many of my selections were old favorites that I hadn’t read in a long time. I think a brief summary of my reading for this first list is called for.

Top Five Books from My First List

• The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson
• Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley
• La Reine Margot by Alexander Dumas
• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• Miss Marjoribanks by Margaret Oliphant

Least Favorite Books from My First List

• Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
• Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• Look at the Harlequins! by Vladimir Nabokov

My New List!

I can’t seem to bring myself to make a list of 100 books at a time for the Classics Club. I think it is more satisfying for me to finish shorter lists faster than to finish a long list more slowly. This list is different from my previous one in that I have only previously read about half a dozen of the books on this list. I am posting this list on June 30, 2017, and I plan to finish it by June 29, 2021.

I made this list some time ago, so I see that I have already finished one of the books, The Lark, by E. Nesbitt.

15th Century

• Le Morte D’arthur by Thomas Malory (1485)

16th Century

• The Prince by Machievelli (1532)
• Edward II by Christopher Marlowe (1592)
• Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare (1588-1593)

17th Century

• Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688)
• The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster (1612-13)

18^th Century

• Evelina by Frances Burney (1778)
• The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett (1771)

19^th Century

• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (1814)
• Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1863)
• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)
• The Haunted Hotel by Wilkie Collins (1879)
• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
• The Viscounte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas (1848)
• Letters from Egypt by Lucie Duff-Gordon (1865)
• The Mystery of Mrs. Blencarrow by Mrs. Oliphant (1890)
• Kenilworth by Sir Walter Scott (1821)
• The Heir of Redclyff by Charlotte M. Yonge (1853)

20^th Century

• The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1907)
• My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather (1926)
• The Old Man’s Birthday by Richmal Crompton (1934)
• Consequences by E. M. Delafield (1930)
• Vanishing Cornwall by Daphne du Maurier (1967)
• This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
• The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford (1915)
• Owls Do Cry by Janet Frame (1957)
• The Winged Horse by Pamela Frankau (1953)
• My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (1901)
• Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn (1907)
• The Lady and the Unicorn by Rumer Godden (1937)
• Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins (1934)
• Joanna Godden by Sheila Kay-Smith (1921)
• The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski (1953)
• Greenery Street by Denis MacKail (1925)
• West with the Night by Beryl Markham (1942)
• Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery (1909)
• The Lark by E. Nesbit (1902)
• Mary Lavelle by Kate O’Brien (1936)
• The Last of the Wine by Mary Renault (1956)
• The Sea Hawk by Rafael Sabatini (1915)
• Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea by Teffi (2016, but written around 1920)
• Challenge by Vita Sackville-West (1923)
• Miss Buncle’s Book by D. E. Stevenson (1934)
• August Folly by Angela Thirkell (1936)
• I Go by Land, I Go by Sea by P. L. Travers (1941)
• Madame de Treymes by Edith Wharton (1907)
• Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple (1949)
• The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (1939)
• The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf (1913)
• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)