The Classics Challenge 2014 – Epilogue

I’ve gone on at great length over the last few posts about a series of classic books I read this past year. The selections were made as part of a challenge my wife asked me to join her in. I gamely said sure.

I thought the challenge would be fun as I often read classic books. My shelves are filled with them. So are several boxes in my basement. I pick them up from tables with signs that say “free books” and from friends giving them away and at used book sales where, on Brown Bag Day, I cram as many as I can into a paper bag and happily leave with dozens of books I plan on sneaking into the house and onto my shelves so my wife doesn’t notice. It’s not like she’s against my reading, as I’ve said, she was the one who urged me to join her on this challenge. But, as a dedicated tosser, she doesn’t see the value in my having boxes of books I’ve never gotten to in the basement while I go out and acquire more. I get the argument in theory. Still, I always believe I’ll read them one day. That’s why I grab them.

The Classics Challenge 2014, Part 3

We’re in the homestretch of the Classics Challenge 2014. Only five categories to go, so let’s get right to it.

In the spirit of Esquire magazine, who put John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” on its list of 80 Books Every Man Should Read because, I kid you not, “It’s all about the titty,” (and without a spoiler alert!) I’m going to shorten my reviews so I can get through it and so can you.

The Classics Challenge 2014, Part 2

So here I am, with more about the Classics Challenge my wife and I participated in this year. She read book after book she enjoyed, if not completely, at least enough to say she took something positive away from the experience. Me? I was like Charlie Brown at Halloween: “I got a rock.”

The Classics Challenge 2014, Part 1

Thanks to this woman and her challenge, I spent a good deal of 2014 reading crap.

Karen, who is probably a perfectly nice person and who I really don’t blame for my Year of Semi-Crappy Reading, writes a blog my wife reads to get book suggestions. Karen threw down a challenge to her followers to read a series of classic books of their choice in 10 separate categories. What’s a classic? She made the completely arbitrary, but perfectly acceptable, ruling that a classic is anything that’s at least 50 years old. (And that makes me a classic, thank you very much.)