Greetings, internet! The date of my last entry tells me I have neglected this space for two years. It feels like a garden I have not tended where the grass and clover has overtaken the flower beds, and the whole thing looks a little sad and shabby. So it’s time to clear out some of the weeds, till the soil, and begin again.

In the summer of 2018 I discovered The Classics Club community, which encourages members (membership is quite loose) to read more classics by imposing the structure–a challenge–of reading 50 classics in 5 years. I wanted to include more classics in my reading life, and thought this sounded like a great idea. In August of 2018, I set out to read many classics (to accomplish this in 5 years requires completing 0.833% of a book every month, so a pretty steady pace).

All was going well. And then it was 2020 and all was not going well.

I think it is worthwhile to set goals and read classics. Having a challenge and a list is helpful, especially when a book is finished and it is time to pick up another one. Having a list narrows the choices, which I appreciate.

In reflecting back over my previous challenge, I identified a few things that I might change:

First, I tried to “one up” myself and increase the difficulty by choosing too many long books, and by choosing several sets of multiple books and counting them as one. I modified my list over time and took out some of these books (for example, Kristin Lavransdatter is actually a trilogy. Just because I own an omnibus edition does not mean I have to count it as one!). I am not being graded, nor will I get extra credit for doing more. There’s no need to make this challenge more difficult than it is.

Second, I started this challenge in 2018 and had no idea what the next few years would bring. I did not have the same attention span in 2020 and the couple years after that or the mental space for more challenging reading during the pandemic years.

My first plan to mitigate this was to give myself an extension to 2024, but I was already far behind and 2023 has been difficult for my reading life.

Instead, it is time to close the book on the first 50 Classics Challenge (pun absolutely intended), and start afresh. I hope that the next five years will be a bit better for my reading life, though who knows what lies in store.

This time, I want to be a little kinder to myself and choose some shorter books alongside the classic doorstop novels. I will, of course, choose some unread books from my previous challenge, but include some new titles and not keep everything from my last effort. I will also count books in a series or trilogy as one book each, instead of counting three books as one, etc.

I’m going to go from October 2023 to October 2028, instead of choosing the calendar year, because there are enough things that follow the calendar year, and I want to start while I’m excited for a new project and have a little momentum to start me out on this next adventure.

My list for Round 2 of the challenge is here: https://austinfey.com/50-classics-2/

Of course, I will not be reading only classics. Newer books will make their way onto my list, and I’ll have to decide if I want to review books read in a month or review books as I read them. We shall see. Books read for this challenge will get their own review posts, as usual.

I hope that your reading life is going well and I look forward to rehabilitating my own.

Image from Sergiu Valenas via Unsplash.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a review of Jane Austen’s work is superfluous. Yet here I am anyway.

This is one of my all-time favorite books. From my first reading as a teenager, taking extended “bathroom breaks” to read the small hardback with tiny print which I hid under the sink for such occasions (sorry, Mom!), I fell in love with Austen’s wit and style, her characters, and her well-paced story.

Published in 1813 and popular from the beginning, there is plenty of scholarship out there if you are interested in that. And it’s so well known that I don’t know that I can add much here but if for some reason you’d like a refresher, here’s a summary:

Mr. & Mrs. Bennet live in a village in Hertfordshire with their five daughters. They are not poor, but having no male heir and not being frugal, the daughters will have to rely on marrying well for future economic stability.

The novel opens with the arrival of two handsome and eligible bachelors to the neighborhood: Mr. Bingley (sweet and outgoing) and Mr. Darcy (introverted and has some…pride). The story follows the shenanigans of Mrs. Bennet’s attempts to marry off her daughters and how that works out for them all.

The Bennets’ second daughter, Elizabeth, is the protagonist of the novel, and she is active, energetic, outgoing, smart, and witty—and also opinionated and believes strongly in first impressions (so she can be…prejudiced). She is a fun character to follow, and she goes through a lot of growth by the novel’s end.

The characters are so well-drawn and the comic characters are both pretty great and ridiculous (but also can be dangerous and/or disappointing to their families). The book balances getting to know the many characters with a good bit of plot–we don’t sit around too long before the next event, and I appreciate that she keeps everything moving.

This book is rightly considered a classic, but I think it’s pretty approachable as well. While there are details like the entail of the Bennet property and other manners that can be confusing to the modern reader, the plot moves along and the characters are interesting that parts of it feel fairly modern. While the 19th century was a while ago and manners have changed, people are still people–that has not changed.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★