Book review: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Posted on March 11, 2023 by WordsAndPeace

🎧 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,
by Laurence Sterne
1767
735 pages
21H58
Narrated by John Keating
Literary fiction / Humor
I~~t counts for The Classics Club~~

Alas, I had to stop, after listening to 15% of the work (that is about 3H30 out of 22 hours, and an equivalent of 110 pages out of 735 pages).
I don’t have the patience to finish (plus the narrator was a bit boring in his tone)The , though what I listened to enabled me to appreciate the originality of the book and its qualities.
The book was published in 1767, and displays amazing characteristics of modern novels, including some elements that are even found in Oulipo authors, such as Perec for instance.

Here is what struck me in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman: Click to continue reading

Friday Face Off: Coming of age

Posted on September 23, 2022 by WordsAndPeace

The Friday Face-Off was originally created by Books by Proxy:
each Friday, bloggers showcase book covers on a weekly theme.
Visit Lynn’s Books (@LynnsBooks) for a list of upcoming themes.
Please visit also Tammy at Books, Bones & Buffy (@tammy_sparks)
thanks to whom I discovered this meme.

This week, the theme is
“Coming of Age“

The last book I read that deals with coming of age characters is The Sword in the Stone, the first book in the series The Once and Future King, written in 1938 by T.H. White.
I enjoyed a lot this first volume, especially as an audiobook.
Please come this way to see why.

📚

Click on the picture below if you want to identify the various editions
You can also right click and ‘open image in new tab’ to zoom in

My favorite cover is the first one, the Collins Abridged Junior Classic – I didn’t read the abridged version, I actually listened to it, so my edition was the very last one featured here.
But I like this cover for its colors, its detailed naïf art, that for me fits really well with the genre of the book. And we see several animals, which are very important in the story. Looks like no other designer has bothered to insert animals!

Have you read this book?
WHICH COVER IS YOUR FAVORITE? WHY?
My next participation may be on Friday, October 28,
with black covers

The Classics Club September 2022-2027

Posted on September 15, 2022 by WordsAndPeace

@ourclassicsclub

#theclassicsclub

The Classics Club
My 4th list:
September 2022 – September 2027

I’m thrilled to present to you my 4th list of 150 titles for The Classics Club.
Yes, you don’t need to limit yourself to 50 titles.
I was going to have a longer list, going through all my Goodreads TBR, but then The Classics Club announced an upcoming new Spin, so I needed to have my list done, and it’s taking me a long time to put together. So 150 will do.

Here is my new table, with color codes for books on my physical shelves, nonfiction, Japanese, and mystery (though I probably missed some green cells).
At this point, I don’t have any special classics projects, so hopefully I’ll do a better job at sticking to my list, but who knows!
Actually, I do have some upcoming small projects, that will nicely fit with this list: The 1929 Club, and Novellas in November, as well as Nonfiction November.

I will obviously update the table as I go along.
You actually see I have already read 2 books from that new list, as I started making that list on September 1st.

How did I come up with these titles?
Simple: I opened my To-Be-Read Goodreads shelf, and put them in order of publication, and I picked the 150 oldest titles! Those are titles I added there along the years.

Be patient, it may take a few seconds for the file below to show up

CLICK ON THE TAB ‘SHEET 4‘
AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS GOOGLE DOC
TO ACCESS MY NEW LIST
or click on this link.

And on Saturday, I will announce my list of 20 titles for the next Spin

I’m curious:

How many of these have you read?
Which one/ones is/are your favorite?

See my 3rd list here (137 titles)
See my 2nd list here. (50 titles)
And my first list here. (50 titles)

Club hashtags on Twitter:

- #ccintroductions (Introduce yourself to the group!)
- #ccbookreviews (Share your latest club review on Twitter.)
- #cceventsched (Community events.)
- #ccreadingupdate (Group check-ins/reading updates.)
- #ccmeme (The monthly meme.)
- #ccspin (The Classics Spin.)
- #ccwomenclassics (Women’s Classic Literature Event)
- #cc12months (Twelve Months of Classics)
- #ccsyncread (Sync Reads.)
- #ccreadathon (Classics Club Readathon.)
- #ccdiscussions (Occasional group discussions.)
- #theclassicsclub (Miscellaneous club tweets.)