Victorian Reading Challenge 2018
Becky at Becky’s Book Reviews is hosting the 2018 Victorian Reading Challenge, a challenge I have not tried before. Since I have so many Victorian books on my Classics Club list, I’m going to give it a go. Becky has a checklist of different types of Victorian books and several options to choose from, with the only requirement being to read a minimum of four Victorian books:
Option A. Read alphabetically A-Z with authors OR titles OR a blend of authors/titles. I’ve decided that from now on X in reading challenges stands for multiple authors. I’m flipping my “x” to a “+”.
Option B. Choose one author to read exclusively for this challenge; perhaps challenge yourself to read chronologically OR to read through an entire series in one year.
Option C. Do as many books from the checklist as you can. Feel free to copy/paste this. You can replace the _ with an X or a ✔ (copy/paste it) when you finish reading a book.
Option D. Make the challenge completely your own and read as YOUR whimsy dictates.
I am choosing Option C, to read as many books from the checklist as I can. I’ve got eight Victorian books in store for 2018 in the following categories:
- A book that was originally published serially: She by H. Rider Haggard
- A book published between 1837-1840: Oliver Twist (1838) by Charles Dickens
- A book published between 1841-1850: Twenty Years After (1845) by Alexandre Dumas
- A book published between 1861-1870: Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- A book published between 1881-1890: The Black Arrow (1888) by Robert Louis Stevenson
- A book published between 1891-1900: Lilith (1895) by George MacDonald
- A book published between 1902-1999 with a Victorian setting: The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Burnett
- A book with a place name in the title: The Well at the World’s End by William Morris
I’ll be recording my progress on the 2018 Reading Challenge page, and you can find Becky’s Victorian Reading Checklist below.
- _ A book that was originally published serially
- _ book published between 1837-1840
- _ book published between 1841-1850
- _ book published between 1851-1860
- _ book published between 1861-1870
- _ book published between 1871-1880
- _ book published between 1881-1890
- _ book published between 1891-1901
- _ nonfiction published between 1837-1860
- _ nonfiction published between 1861-1901
- _ A book published between 1902-1999 with a Victorian setting
- _ A book published between 2000-2018 with a Victorian setting
- _ A fiction or nonfiction book about Queen Victoria
- _ Biography of a Victorian
- _ Nonfiction book about the Victorian era
- _ free choice
- _ place name in the title
- _ character name in the title
- _ book in a series
- _ drama or melodrama
- _ gothic, suspense, mystery
- _ romance or historical
- _ comedy
- _ science fiction or fantasy
- _ adventure, crime, western
- _ poetry collection OR story collection
- _ happily ever after
- _ unhappily ever after
- _ children’s book
- _ translated into English from another language
- _ a book under 250 pages
- _ book over 500 pages
- _ a book over 800 pages
- _ A book that has been filmed as movie, miniseries, or television show
- _ memorable heroine
- _ memorable hero
- _ British author
- _ Irish author OR Irish setting
- _ Scottish author OR Scottish setting
- _ American author
- _ reread
- _ book with a subtitle (the longer the better!)
© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky’s Book Reviews