For my September classic, I'm just starting Boleslaw Prus' The Doll (which I learned about via this forum). I'm kind of shocked at how big it is (over 600 pages), considering the sweet little title, but I love a challenge!

What are the rest of you reading?

                                                                                                                  Rose

I'm currently reading the Indian epic, the   Ramayana and Cather's My Antonia. I am loving Cather's writing and keep finding myself tempted to give up on the challenge and just read everything I can find of hers!  I don't know if it's her writing or the fact that lately I've been reading nothing but articles from psychology journals. Maybe it's that everything that's not a journal article is wonderfully and beautifully written.

Caralen,  your comment that you're now tempted to read all you can by Willa Cather brings a thought to mind. I've been thinking about next year's challenge, and how it might be altered a bit. I wonder about making the reading of a particular author's books a good part of it. (If an author has 12 books available, that's the whole challenge; 9 books--then fill in with another author.) What do you think?

And what do the rest of you think?

                                                                                                      Rose

Obsessed R.:  It's an interesting idea.  The thing is, I've already gotten so OLD, and have guided my reading (sorta) by trying to read at least ONE book by most of the "classy' writers in English!    And often I've bogged down on that plan, because I'd come to one whose work I enjoyed so much, the way Caralen is "wallowing" in Willa Cather now.  But I could dump that "one by each" scheme and go to the " read extensively of the body of work by a single author" arrangement.  Maybe at my age, I should adopt the "Life Is Short,, Eat Dessert FIRST" motto?

I like the idea of reading multiple books by a single author.  If I get interested in someone I often try to get through a bunch of their books.

On an unrelated note, I finally finished A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway...which I originally acquired for last years' challenge.  I did not think it was his best writing, personally.  The prose felt choppy and I never connected with the main character.

I have mixed feelings about the single author-multiple books vs the themed-list challenge. I could go either way - right now I'm doing the themed list challenge and also reading all of Shakespeare's plays. I'm loving both. I'm just concerned that if it's a single author challenge, I'll miss out on the wide range of books that I'm reading on this current challenge. If not for having this themed challenge, I probably wouldn't have ever read Willa Cather because, left to my own devices, I wouldn't have chosen to read something that had a pioneer/western/frontier theme. I think I could say that about a lot of the books that I have read and am planning to read for the challenge.

Finished 30 Great Short Stories by W. Somerset Maugham and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  I've read several books by Marquez in the past 12 months.  Make reading several by one author an option as sometimes it's easier to read many different authors.  Oh, my Solitude is a difficult read - kept having to return to the family chart to keep the characters straight.  Very good read though.  Now reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and One of Ours by Willa Cather, my choice for the classic challege category of Frontier/Pioneer/Western.  

The thing with Cather is that only one or two of her books are any good. My Antonia and O' Pioneers. 

Then again, that's just my .02

As for reading 12 books by the same author. On the one hand, that does simplify things a bit and I do love simplicity.

On the other hand, I can't think of an author who I could tolerate for 12 books. Dickens? Egads! 

Well, we could incorporate what R.E.K. suggested--making the reading of one author an option. I like the idea.

                                                                                                                 Rose

Hey, I am not gonna arm wrestle anyone over it. I'd just do a lite version of it such as 6 of one author.

Or

4 authors, three books each.

Edited to add:

Don't get me wrong. I like changing things up. Just gotta figure a way to make it work for moi.

It's late in September, but I am now taking up my "Author you've always thought you should read" category............with one small modification---"author I've thought I should read more of".  I read Nikolai Gogol's The Overcoat, in the past, but it is a short story.  So I'm going to have a go at Dead Souls, his great, unfinished novel.   The thought that the attempt to write the novel he had in mind drove him into madness and suicide is kinda scary, don't you think?

I finished my personal Shakespeare challenge (yay!) and now can focus on this one. I have finished up Cather's My Antonia, and I'm still working on the Ramayana (classic adventure category). I was hoping to have at least started Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm (non-European author category) by this time, but it looks like that won't happen.

Bonnie, I have read a few of Gogol's short stories - Dead Souls is on my To Read list. I wonder if, after you are finished with it, you can post your impressions of it. Personally, I'm a huge fan of the classical Russian authors (Dostoevksy, Tolstoy, in particular) so I'm always looking for new ones to try. I've just been concerned about this one because it was unfinished.