October DeweyCat: 800's: Literature

Welcome everyone to the October DeweyCat thread. It feels like I got the easiest assignment for the Dewey Challenge as this should be the one requiring the least amount of explanation. Plus I feel pretty confident that all of you have quite a number of books that will fit.

Literature is the theme for the 800's. The breakdown of the category is as follows:

800: Literature, rhetoric, and criticism
810: American literature in English
820: English & Old literature
830: German & related literature
840: French & related literature
850: Italian, Romanian, and related literature
860: Spanish, Portugese, and Galician literature
870: Latin and italic literature
880: Classical and modern Greek literature
890: Other literature

Happy reading and don't forget to update the wiki.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/2016CC_DeweyCAT#October:

The 800s is the easiest category for most of us. Hopefully I'll remember to add books.

Yay - my favorite part of the Dewey Decimal system! I will be focusing on plays & poetry but am unsure right now from what country :) I think maybe some Giorgos Seferis poetry...

I have two sitting here, On Writing by Stephen King (813) that I highly recommend and How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster that I hope to read next month.

I'm going to read The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano (853.92). I've had this in my TBR for a while now so a great excuse to finally read it.

To make it a bit of a challenge, I may see about reading some nonfiction, rather than just counting any of the fiction I read!

>7 LibraryCin: That would be an interesting twist!

Also thought that if people really wanted a stretch goal they could try for one from each category. Notice I said people and not me. :)

>8 LittleTaiko: LOL! Well, we'll see about me with the nonfiction, as well. I'll have to see if there is anything on my tbr...

I'll be reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. It's a non-fiction from my tbr planet.

I'd also like to read How to Read Literature Like a Professor but I don't have a copy and I am sooooooo trying to read books off my shelves. We'll see if I hold out.

I'm going the fiction route and will probably count The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill for this challenge.

I have both How to Read Literature Like a Professor and How to Read Novels Like a Professor in my TBR stash. I'll read one or both of those.

Hmm...since it's October I may pick up Danse Macabre by Stephen King from the library.

Earlier in the year I read a Shakespeare play for this month: Henry IV Part 1. Maybe I will re-watch the appropriate Hollow Crown episode this month. :)

I have a bunch of nonfiction that works for this month! I might read P.D. James's Talking About Detective Fiction, Susannah Fullerton's Celebrating Pride and Prejudice: 200 Years of Jane Austen's Masterpiece, or Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch.

Hmmm, nonfiction might be tricky. If I can't come up with nonfiction, I'll probably go with a play and read
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child / Jack Thorne.

It's one I'd like to read, anyway, for an annual challenge, so even if I do find some nonfiction, I'd like to get to this, as well.

I did find a nonfiction one, so hopefully I'll do this one, as well:
The Big Book of Irony / Jon Winokur

I'm planning to read The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West.

I read the play Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez. Very good! Followed it by watching a production of the play on Youtube.

I read a very early incomplete feminist novel Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman (823.6) which Mary Wollstonecraft was writing at the time of her death. It emphasizes the place of women in late 18th century England: how they were "owned" by their husbands and did not have any rights of their own. The main character is Maria, a middle class woman. Much of her story is told through a journal she wrote for her daughter. Jemima, a poor woman, is a secondary character. The plight of poor women is described through her story which she tells to Maria and a male character in a private madhouse where Jemima is employed and Maria is a prisoner.

So, I am reading How to read literature like a Professor and that has led me to read/explore some poetry and is adding to my TBR (those I want to get to sooner than later).
So far I've read these poems;
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus William Carlos Williams
Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H Auden and
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot.

>21 Kristelh: I picked up a book of poetry from our new book shelf earlier this year and discovered how much I'd missed reading poetry so I've begun to incorporate a little more lately too.

I finished The White Tiger on Saturday, 823, and just started I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, 818.

I have been browsing the library shelves for this challenge, but I've just moved and will be without a library card for one more week. Oh the horror! I've been listening to Middlemarch, 823.8, so perhaps I will just go with that for now.

>24 nittnut: It's rough to be without a library card.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child / J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
4 stars

Harry, Ron, Hermione and the rest are all grown up and have families of their own. When Harry and Ginny's youngest son, Albus, heads to Hogwarts, he becomes best friends with Draco's son, Scorpius. This (in addition to other things) leads to some conflict between Albus and Harry. Also, Harry's scar is beginning to hurt again...

I really enjoyed this. The fact that it's a play didn't factor in at all for me. It was so much fun to revisit their world and the characters. I also enjoyed the boys' storyline much more than I expected to.

Voting on the official 2017 CATs is going on now and will continue through Monday morning at least on this thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/234010#

We can extend voting time if needed. Post a comment on the voting thread if you feel you need more time.

I've finished The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano (853.92) (Italian Literature). This won Italy's prestigious literary award, The Premio Strega and is quite good.

I read Waiting for Godot a play written by Samuel Beckett.

I finished The moviegoer by Walker Percy, Dewey 813.54.

I'm just coming to the end of Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope and I have loved it. I thought it would be more like The Warden, which I enjoyed, but there are so many more laugh-out-loud moments in Barchester Towers that I've enjoyed it so much more.

>31 VivienneR: I agree that Barchester Towers is much funnier than The Warden. Really, in my opinion, the first book is the weakest of the series and the final book is almost better than Barchester Towers so I hope you continue on.

I have been in a bit of a reading slump recently but did manage to read the French drama Art by Yasmina Reza (842.914).

I finished Code Name Verity, Dewey 823. While it didn't grab in the beginning, it got better as I started to figure things out. It's about two young English women involved in the war effort - one a pilot and one a spy.

Completed The Waste Land by t. S.. Eliot, 821.912. Long poem, modernism.

>31 VivienneR: Have you seen "The Barchester Chronicles", a BBC dramatisation of The Warden and Barchester Towers? I remember watching it with friends who would never dream of opening a classic novel and they thought it was wonderful, one of the funniest things they'd ever seen.

Robert, I watched The Warden and loved it but never got enthused about the rest of the series and dropped out after The Warden. Now I wish I had watched it.

>35 Robertgreaves: >36 VivienneR: Alan Rickman as Obadiah Slope is a sight not be missed. Unbelievabably smarmy.

>35 Robertgreaves:, >37 MissWatson: Ooh - I missed that. I will have to see if I can find it (maybe my library system will have it).

>37 MissWatson: Mmmmm Alan Rickman :)

According to this Guardian article it aired in 1992 and is on Youtube: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/31/baddies-in-books-obadiah-slope-ant.... Smarmy is right, but Rickman pulled it off.

I finished The Inhuman Condition, Dewey 823.

>40 VivienneR: The videos in the Guardian article were uploaded by an Alan Rickman fan and only show his episodes. The BBC has put the whole thing on YouTube.

Starting The Comedy of Errors (822.3)

COMPLETED The Comedy of Errors

I finished Women and Marriage in Victorian Fiction by Jenni Calder, DDC 823.03.

I have read No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre (842.9)

I have finished The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill (813.5) for this month's DeweyCat.

Finished The Venetian's Wife by Nick Bantock

I guess most of my reads in October fell into the 800s, so they must all fit here:

Thankful's Inheritance, Joseph C. Lincoln (810)
Gentlemen of the Road (Jews with Swords), Michael Chabon (813.54)
Someone Knows My Name, Lawrence Hill (813.54)
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson (813.54)
Lady of Ashes, Christine Trent (813.6)
A Separate Country, Robert Hicks (813.6)
Any Other Name, Craig Johnson (813.6)
Dry Bones, Craig Johnson (813.6)
Grave Goods, Ariana Franklin (823.914)
Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (823.914)
Slash and Burn, Colin Cotterill (823.914)
The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng (823.92)
The Assault, Harry Mulisch (839.3)
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (869.342)

>47 DeltaQueen50: What did you think?

COMPLETED Classical Literary Criticism (801.95)

>42 Robertgreaves: Thanks for that link, Robert. I must watch them, probably after I've finished reading the books.

Finished How to Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas C. Foster (808).

I finished The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Dewey 813, on Saturday. I've got less than 100 pages left of Shift left, so that should cap off the month.

>50 LibraryCin: A five star read for me, I totally fell under the spell of the strong willed, independantly minded Aminata and her story.

>55 DeltaQueen50: Good to hear! :-)

I finished The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (823.914), Anne's House of Dreams (813) and The Dark is Rising (823) for this challenge.

I finished one! Doctor Thorne 823.8
I am still listening to Middlemarch. I like it fine, but there are a lot of words. I suspect I won't finish it this year.