Sunday, January 27, 2013

#NaNoReMo Megapost

National Novel Reading Month begins February 1st. The rules are simple:

1. Find a classic novel you've never read, preferably one you've been meaning to read for a long time.

2. "Classic" is up to your definition. If you feel Beloved is a Modern Classic, you read it.

3. Between February 1st and 28th, read the book.

4. Join in on Twitter, blogs and Facebook to discuss your journey through the classic. You're even welcome to come back discuss the books in comments threads on this post.

I've chosen Middlemarch, a social commentary on 1800's England by Mary Anne Evans, under the pen name George Eliot. I've wanted to read it ever since missing registration for a class on it in college. Les Miserables came close, but my copy is 1,400 pages, and that's simply too long for me to be sure I'll finish in a month with beta reading, more medical tests, and at least two big road trips. Middlemarch's 1,000 pages as far as I'm willing to push it. It's technically eight books in one - a collected serial. Fortunately, Catherine Russel is picking up my slack, having chosen Les Mis for her own #NaNoReMo!

If you've picked your book, please mention it in the comments here and I'll add you to the post. I'm going to link any blog or Twitter accounts so people can check out reading progress. Feel free to blog across the month as you get insights into your book, or tear through it and move on to still more classics.

#NaNoReMo Readers List
1. Catherine Russell: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
2. Danielle la Paglia: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby
3. Tony Noland: Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow
4. John Wiswell: George Eliot's Middlemarch
5. Andy Hollandbeck: T.H. White's Once and Future King
6. John Gray: John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath
7. T.S. Bazelli: Toni Morrison's Beloved8. Eric Krause: Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars
9. Beverly Fox: Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby 
10. Paul Philips: BOTH Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives and H.G. Wells's The Invisible Man
11. Janet Lingel Aldrich: Victor Hugo's Les Miserables
12. Katherine Nabity: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
13.  Ross Dillon: Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
14. Maria Kelly: Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles 
15. Katherine Hajer: Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon
16. Helen Howell: Bram Stroker's Dracula
17. Icy Sedgwick: Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto
18. Susan Cross: Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice
19. Cindy Vaskova: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
20.Rachel Frink: Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

21. April L. Hamilton: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

26 comments:

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    1. Added you to the list! Have you read much of Steinbeck before? One of my favorite American authors.

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  2. BELOVED - now that you mention it. I've had it on my bookshelf for years now but haven't read it yet.

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    1. Perfect! Maybe you'll coax me into finally picking it up. I feel like I owe Morrison a hearing.

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  3. I'll join, John. Put me down for A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs. If I'm feeling ambitious (maybe, maybe not), I might also tackle The Phantom of the Opera and/or The Picture of Dorian Gray. I've always wanted to read both. Or maybe I'll save 'em for next year.

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    1. If you can nail three classics you've been intending to read in 28 days, you're doing pretty well!

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    2. I'll see how A Princess of Mars goes first. If I finish it up quickly, I'll tackle one of the other two. We'll see how it goes from there...

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  4. John, I will be daring. I don't generally like the "classics" but I am willing to try 2 short books (lots going on in Feb so reading time will be at a minimum.

    The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin
    The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells

    I think I read Wells in high school but have forgotten it completely.


    Paul

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    1. I've only read The Invisible Man. The opening is a little tiresome given that every modern reader knows exactly who the tenant upstairs is, but the second half gets really heady. I look forward to your impressions.

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  5. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

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  6. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. Long on my shelf, long overdue.

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  7. Still planning to finish Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon.

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    1. So we'll have two Pynchon closers this February?

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  8. Okay this will make me get my finger out and read Bram Stokers Dracula ^_^

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  9. I'm reading The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole.

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    1. Wow, I haven't even heard of him before. This description hurts me, Icy. There's a strong craving to buy a copy...

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  10. By the by - I've gotten the English Department here on board, and am co-running NaNoReMo with them. So there's going to be a bunch of kids in a therapeutic boarding school in Connecticut, whose names I obviously can't add to the list, doing it as well.

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    1. I love that you're extending this, Ross. Will you blog about how it goes?

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    2. Yeah, I can do a write-up at the end of February.

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  11. Joining with Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

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    1. This has held up all four times I've read it. I sure hope it treats you well.

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  12. Doris Lessing, THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK

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    1. Good pick, Leigh! Do you have a full name you'd like me to add you under, or do you only go by the one?

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  13. Hey John,
    Found out a little late in the day what Nanoremo is. So, am quite unoriginally going to pick The Great Gatsby as a) it's short, so i might actually get it finished and b) there's a film coming out soon (already out?!) and I'd like to have read the book first. How are you getting on with Middlemarch?!
    Laura

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