The Sunday Salon: A Classics Club Spin as We Recover from the Hurricane

    

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

My dad finally got power back, and he's actually hired someone to cut up the ten trees Hurricane Beryl knocked to the ground on his property (originally, he planned to have us four kids do this...we who range in age from 75 to 60!) The debris trucks are hauling off and mulching all the downed limbs and leaves around town. The town's museum took a hit with a leaky roof and it's indefinitely closed, but the library's damage was quickly repaired. We are slowly coming back from the hurricane, though the heat and the mosquitoes are horrific right now.

What I Read Last Week:

Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens (1000 Books You Must Read; Classics Club)

Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge (Paris in July)

Joie: A Parisian's Guide to Celebrating the Good Life by Ajiri Aki (Paris in July)

Paris and Her Cathedrals by R. Howard Bloch (Paris in July)

What I'm Reading Now:

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (in French for Paris in July)

Germinal by Émile Zola (Paris in July; Classics Club)

A Taste of Paris: A History of the Parisian Love Affair with Food by David Downie (Paris in July)

Captain Fricasse by Théophile Gautier (Paris in July; 1001 Children's Books)

"Read the best books first, 

or you may not have a chance to read them at all."

                ---Thoreau

The Classics Club has issued the announcement of the 38th Classics Club Spin.

What is the spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday, July 21st, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

Try to challenge yourself. For example, you could list five Classics Club books you have been putting off, five you can’t WAIT to read, five you are neutral about, and five free choice (favourite author, re-reads, ancients, non-fiction, books in translation — whatever you choose.)

On Sunday July 21st, The Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by Sunday, September 22nd. 

Let's see who can make it the whole way and finished their spin book!

So here is my list.

1, 11 Lost Horizon by James Hilton

2, 12 The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

3, 13 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

4, 14 Pigeon Post by Arthur Ransome

5, 15 The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

6, 16 Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

7, 17 Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens

8, 18 Village School by Miss Read

9, 19 The Thurber Carnival by James Thurber

10, 20 The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

I've just finished 848 pages of Nicholas Nickleby and I'm reading Zola's Germinal and Madame Bovary in French, so I've chosen ten titles to throw into the spin machine that are (1) titles that are fairly short and (2) titles that are somewhat frothy. 

Followup:  Okay, the spin stopped today on the least short and the least frothy book in this stack...The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens. It looks like there are 560 pages but only 302 poems. We have until September 22nd to finish this spin book. That is roughly 60 days, so it works out to five poems a day. I think I can...I think I can...

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

Why I Love Paris: My Favorite Photos from Paris: An Alley in Paris

Ten Things I Love About The Little Prince

The Sunday Salon: We Face Off with Hurricane Beryl

Clara Reads Proust by Stéphane Cartier

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. 

Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

A new list to add to my perpetual challenges:

The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.

Good Thing #2:

We had a Paris in July Zoom get-together

this week.

How wonderful it was to talk books

with other bloggers!

Thank you, Emma,

for organizing this.

Good Thing #3:

We celebrated 

our 46th wedding anniversary

this week!

(Note: This is an old photo...we were not actually in Paris this week.)

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.