When 2020 began who could have predicted what we were in for? You might think that in the midst of stay-at-home orders and quarantines I would have had a banner year in reading. The reality is that I had to spend a lot of time working from home and planning for how to reopen our school, so my brain was often too tired to read. However, I still did manage to have a fairly robust year of reading, and I met most of my reading goals. Here are...
Congratulations on reading War and Peace, one of the great works of world literature! Whether you finished it early, on time, or not yet, thank you for participating. I hope the read-along was as enriching for you as it was for me. (If you liked the experience of reading classic literature in one chapter a day, please consider joining the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along.) I guess the read-along is technically not over, since the schedule calls for reading one final Tolstoy short story tomorrow, “How Much Land Does a...
In just a few days the Aubrey/Maturin Chapter-a-Week 4 Year Read-along Odyssey begins. This post is an introduction mostly for those who are unfamiliar with the series or with books set in the Age of Sail. Now, I am about as far from an expert on this series as you can find, but I have read it a few times, so I’ll share a few things that I think might be helpful for a new reader. If you have prior experience with the books I invite you to...
The 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along begins in a few days and it’s time to get ready for our first book! If you’ve been part of our read-alongs the last few years, you know that we’ve already read some of the greatest novels of all time — works like War and Peace, Don Quixote, and The Count of Monte Cristo. But our first book of 2021 has been called “The Greatest Single Work of Western Literature.” I speak, of course, of The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. Dante’s masterpiece has had...
This is the official sign-up post for the Aubrey/Maturin Chapter-a-Week 4 Year Read-along Odyssey. Yes, you read that right. This is a four year challenge to read what some call the greatest historical fiction series ever written, the Jack Aubrey/Stephen Maturin nautical series by Patrick O’Brian. Join me in a long, slow read of this masterful account of life at sea (and on land) during the Napoleonic era. This reading odyssey will require a heart of oak but the journey will be well worth the effort. Why These...
This is the official sign-up post for the 2021 Chapter-a-Day Read-along. This marks the fourth year of the read-along, and we are once again back to reading several books instead of just one. As you might remember, there aren’t too many books that have exactly 365 chapters, and we’ve already read the most well known: Les Misérables and War and Peace. So, like we did in 2019, for 2021 we will be reading several different books whose chapters add up to 365. By joining along in reading one...
As we get ready to say goodbye to November, we flip the pages closer and closer to the end of the War and Peace Chapter-a-day Read-along. I hope you have enjoyed the book as much as I have in this very challenging year. Although I haven’t been able to blog during these last months, I’ve been keeping up with reading a chapter each day and posting quotes on Twitter and Facebook. And now the story is reaching its end. In fact, if you’ve looked at the schedule lately,...
Every year the Tolkien Society sponsors Tolkien Reading Day on March 25, the anniversary of the fall of Sauron: It has been organised by the Tolkien Society since 2003 to encourage fans to celebrate and promote the life and works of J.R.R. Tolkien by reading favourite passages. We particularly encourage schools, museums and libraries to host their own Tolkien Reading Day events. With the world in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, reading a bit of Tolkien can give us hope. Far from being an escape from reality,...
Was it really the hag I killed? It was myself I killed, not her! I murdered myself in one fell blow, for all time! It has taken me many false starts to try and read Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but I finally managed to do the deed. I’m not sure why it has taken so much effort for me to read this Russian classic. The characters are well developed and believable. The plot is suspenseful and compelling. The issues it explores are timeless and significant. And...
We’ve just finished week 2 of the War and Peace Chapter-a-Day Read-along. If you’re reading according to the schedule then you read chapters 6 through 12 this week. How do you feel about Tolstoy’s writing style so far? Does War and Peace read the way you expected it would? Leave comments on those questions or on any other War and Peace topics you choose.
Welcome to week 1 of the War and Peace Chapter-a-Day Read-along. Each Monday morning during the read-along I am going to try and publish a short post to give everyone a chance to comment on the previous chapters. These posts will be very brief, because their main purpose is to provide a forum for us to talk about the book. Please be sure to talk only about the chapters that have been scheduled up to this point, so as not to spoil anything for other readers. And if...
When 2019 began I knew that my reading time would be limited, so I set a modest reading goal of 25 books for the year. I’m happy to say that just this morning I finished book number 30, exceeding my goal by five. I’m also happy that I was able to complete the three other reading challenges I set for the year, the Charity Reading Challenge, the European Reading Challenge, and the Deal Me In Short Story Challenge. For the Charity challenge, since I read 30 books I...
Aubrey/Maturin Read-along 2021-2024
Classics Club #32: Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevesky
January 20, 2020
Classics Club #21: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
December 28, 2018
Classics Club #20: She by H. Rider Haggard
May 17, 2018
Notes from the Upside Down by Guy Adams
April 4, 2018
Cries from the Earth by Terry C. Johnston
March 20, 2018
Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
A New Home for the Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
November 28, 2024
Books and Reading / Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
Announcing the 2019 Chapter-a-Day Read-Along
December 26, 2018
