It's a silly thing, but I would recommend getting the Everyman's Library edition of David Copperfield! I've noticed that it simply increases enjoyment of the book. I think the Penguin version's lousy cover and bland layout might be to blame.
I really enjoyed Eve's Ransom! I find his look at marriage and relationships really interesting. It was also one of the less depressing of the ones ive read by him so far!
My favourite book of this period is "The Romany Rye" by George Borrow 1856. It's absolutely fabulous , I strongly recommend this work to anyone. It covers so many aspects of history , culture , traditions and linguistics in part of England and Wales of the period as the protagonist encounters many fascinating and diverse characters on his travels.
I'm so glad you threw in all your possibilities as they are interesting to hear about especially as so many are quite unfamiliar. I promise Charley's Aunt will be light relief.
LibriVox, which does volunteer-read audio recordings of open source literature has Phantastes by George MacDonald, Miss Meredith by Amy Levy and My Flirtations by Ella Hepworth Dixon amongst others. The recordings can be failrly hit and miss in terms of quality and different narrators will have different characterisations but overall LibriVox is an extremely good thing. My favourite facts about Edward Bulwer-Lytton are. 1. His book "The Coming Race" (or "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race") inspired the beef spread Bovril 2. His 1829 book "Paul Clifford" has the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals". This is reputed to be the worst opening line in literature. Since 1983 San José State University has run the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels"
Thank you for making my own pile of possibilities seem not quite so ridiculous Katie! 😉 (Although I have great faith that you will scale much of this mountain 👍). I found the same thing with my TBR, that so many were ebooks and I can’t read those all the time so have purchased a few second hand copies of physical books for some variety. You may not read them all but thank you highlighting some great titles.
There are so many good possibilities! My tbr is getting so big. Basically, I can never die. 😅 But seriously, I've been "eyeing" Eye for and Eye and Ouida for a while, so I look forward to your thoughts on those and everything else.
Very excited for Victober, but I will set myself only one challenge because I have been over ambitious before... I am very busy at the moment but my hope is to keep up with our group read 😊 it will be the first Trollope novel I will have read too so I am excited to start after hearing good things about him 👍🏻
Katie, I am currently reading Dombey and Son, and I just wanted to tell someone who would understand that I love Captain Cuttle - he combines humour and emotion so beautifully :) "The Captain, therefore, renewed his solitary life next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings, noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby’s sentiments concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle’s hopes; and he humoured them and himself by watching for the Instrument-maker at the door, and setting his chair in its place, and arranging the little parlour as it used to be, in case he should come home unexpectedly. He likewise, in his thoughtfulness, took down a certain little miniature of Walter as a schoolboy, from its accustomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on his return. The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would come on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did not; and still the neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening, looking up and down the street."
So excited for this years Victober, finally reading my first Trollope and Wilkie Collins! So many interesting books and plays I've never heard of before.
I downloaded the free kindle version of Wylder’s Hand when Lord Peter Wimsey mentioned it in a Dorothy L. Sayers mystery but I haven’t read it. Nice to know it’s good!
First time I’m joining Victober. I already have David Copperfield on my list, per the mega Dickens readalong, and I’ve just downloaded the free excerpt for An Unsocial Socialist, but you’ve given me so many ideas for future reading… someday… ❤
Great list! I was just considering Wylder's Hand and The Rose and the Key by Le Fanu. I am presently reading East Lynne by Mrs. Henry (Ellen) Wood, which I am enjoying quite a lot. It is quite long so it is going to take me a while, probably into Victober.
I feel better watching your video because I thought I was the only one with a ridiculously long TBR! 😊 But I narrowed mine down to 4-5 books. It’s so hard when you want to read all the books!
I still have fond memories of playing Lord Fancourt Babberley in Charley’s Aunt in 1979. It is extremely funny and, although somewhat male-dominated (surprise!) the only sensible ‘adult in the room’ turns out to be Donna Lucia, the title character. You could certainly read it in a morning if you’re looking for some light relief…
Yay for the long pile of possibilities! Charley's Aunt is a great read. (I made the mistake of reading it along with high school students fairly unaware of the historical gender attitudes. Don't do that...)
I've got a reread of Wuthering Heights queued up for October. For shorty September I did a reread of Northanger Abbey (which I enjoyed much more than the first time when I was unable to grasp its subtlety), and yesterday I finished The Joy Luck Club. It was 332 pages so possibility a little too big but the type was large and the pages small. It was about 4 pairs of Chinese mothers and daughters living in San Francisco in the 1980s. All of them possess an unquenchable thirst to drink in authentic Chinese culture, and some of them succeed. However, I very much doubt any of them qualify as a New Woman.
The Unsocial Socialist has a character Agatha that (according to the Intro of the Virago edition) "is a herald of the New Woman." So I think that means a foreshadowing(??) of the new woman. She's unconventional, for sure.
The funny thing is that I already digitally slow my videos down to .85x when editing, so you're actually listening to me at like .60x speed. I talk ridiculously fast, I know.
This may be the most ambitious Victober tbr in history. I love it!
LibriVox is wonderful! I’ve listened to hundreds of novels that way while driving, including Pride and Prejudice at least ten times❤
Any Victorian literature is better than none! I love your ambitious list!
What a great list. You've added some authors to my future TBR and you made me laugh.
It's a silly thing, but I would recommend getting the Everyman's Library edition of David Copperfield! I've noticed that it simply increases enjoyment of the book. I think the Penguin version's lousy cover and bland layout might be to blame.
Hooray for Victober! I can't wait to hear about the books you end up reading. I'll leave you a Voxer message with more thoughts about your TBR.
I really enjoyed Eve's Ransom! I find his look at marriage and relationships really interesting. It was also one of the less depressing of the ones ive read by him so far!
I loved this book. It was my intro to Geo Gissing
Great, good to know! I'm looking forward to it.
MAN AND WIFE!!! I think this would be a Collins you would enjoy. I can't wait to hear about all the reading you get up to in October!
I'm so excited for it :)
I love the pile of possibilities, my October tbr is also ridiculous but we can try 😅
I’m rereading David Copperfield too! I’ll be listening to the audiobook from Richard Armitage.
My favourite book of this period is "The Romany Rye" by George Borrow 1856. It's absolutely fabulous , I strongly recommend this work to anyone. It covers so many aspects of history , culture , traditions and linguistics in part of England and Wales of the period as the protagonist encounters many fascinating and diverse characters on his travels.
I'm so glad you threw in all your possibilities as they are interesting to hear about especially as so many are quite unfamiliar. I promise Charley's Aunt will be light relief.
LibriVox, which does volunteer-read audio recordings of open source literature has Phantastes by George MacDonald, Miss Meredith by Amy Levy and My Flirtations by Ella Hepworth Dixon amongst others. The recordings can be failrly hit and miss in terms of quality and different narrators will have different characterisations but overall LibriVox is an extremely good thing.
My favourite facts about Edward Bulwer-Lytton are.
1. His book "The Coming Race" (or "Vril: The Power of the Coming Race") inspired the beef spread Bovril
2. His 1829 book "Paul Clifford" has the opening line "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals". This is reputed to be the worst opening line in literature. Since 1983 San José State University has run the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest where entrants are invited "to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels"
Thank you for making my own pile of possibilities seem not quite so ridiculous Katie! 😉 (Although I have great faith that you will scale much of this mountain 👍). I found the same thing with my TBR, that so many were ebooks and I can’t read those all the time so have purchased a few second hand copies of physical books for some variety. You may not read them all but thank you highlighting some great titles.
I’m sooo excited 🎉🎉
I'm going to read Sybil by Disraeli😊
Thank you!
There are so many good possibilities! My tbr is getting so big. Basically, I can never die. 😅 But seriously, I've been "eyeing" Eye for and Eye and Ouida for a while, so I look forward to your thoughts on those and everything else.
Very excited for Victober, but I will set myself only one challenge because I have been over ambitious before... I am very busy at the moment but my hope is to keep up with our group read 😊 it will be the first Trollope novel I will have read too so I am excited to start after hearing good things about him 👍🏻
A pile of possibilities is always essential with Victober 😉I hope you enjoy everything you get to.
Your tbrs are always trouble for me! So many I’ve never heard of and that sound amazing. I hope you love what you get to!
There are just so many great Victorian books out there :)
Katie, I am currently reading Dombey and Son, and I just wanted to tell someone who would understand that I love Captain Cuttle - he combines humour and emotion so beautifully :)
"The Captain, therefore, renewed his solitary life next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings, noons, and nights, of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby’s sentiments concerning him, and the hopes there were of his return. Much of such thinking strengthened Captain Cuttle’s hopes; and he humoured them and himself by watching for the Instrument-maker at the door, and setting his chair in its place, and arranging the little parlour as it used to be, in case he should come home unexpectedly. He likewise, in his thoughtfulness, took down a certain little miniature of Walter as a schoolboy, from its accustomed nail, lest it should shock the old man on his return. The Captain had his presentiments, too, sometimes, that he would come on such a day; and one particular Sunday, even ordered a double allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine. But come, old Solomon did not; and still the neighbours noticed how the seafaring man in the glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening, looking up and down the street."
I just love Captain Cuttle so much.
Plan to read my first Trolop. There is lot about him talk on the book tube
Anthony Trollope is really great!
So excited for this years Victober, finally reading my first Trollope and Wilkie Collins! So many interesting books and plays I've never heard of before.
In point in aiming low with your TBR! So xcited to start putting mine together 📚📚📚
Phantastes is for adults, and it's phantastic! I hope to re-read it this Victober.
Wylder’s Hand was the novel that made me realise how fantastic Victorian novels can be about 15 years ago and the rest is history .
I downloaded the free kindle version of Wylder’s Hand when Lord Peter Wimsey mentioned it in a Dorothy L. Sayers mystery but I haven’t read it. Nice to know it’s good!
So glad to hear this as I am going to be ordering it this week! Also looking at The Rose and the Key by Le Fanu.
Great! This is so good to know. I LOVE Sheridan Le Fanu, so can't wait to read this one.
First time I’m joining Victober. I already have David Copperfield on my list, per the mega Dickens readalong, and I’ve just downloaded the free excerpt for An Unsocial Socialist, but you’ve given me so many ideas for future reading… someday… ❤
I have a copy of Phantastes- it's full of symbolism. To understand the flow, one needs to interpret the symbols
Great list! I was just considering Wylder's Hand and The Rose and the Key by Le Fanu. I am presently reading East Lynne by Mrs. Henry (Ellen) Wood, which I am enjoying quite a lot. It is quite long so it is going to take me a while, probably into Victober.
Well, it’s never bad to dream big!!📚🥰
Pretty impressive TBR
So excited to hear your thoughts on thr third you read!
I feel better watching your video because I thought I was the only one with a ridiculously long TBR! 😊 But I narrowed mine down to 4-5 books. It’s so hard when you want to read all the books!
I just really do want to read all the books!
I still have fond memories of playing Lord Fancourt Babberley in Charley’s Aunt in 1979. It is extremely funny and, although somewhat male-dominated (surprise!) the only sensible ‘adult in the room’ turns out to be Donna Lucia, the title character. You could certainly read it in a morning if you’re looking for some light relief…
I'm reading A Burglary by Amy Dillwyn right now! I've never read anything by her, and I'm really enjoying it.
She's great! I'm excited to read A Burglary.
Yay for the long pile of possibilities! Charley's Aunt is a great read. (I made the mistake of reading it along with high school students fairly unaware of the historical gender attitudes. Don't do that...)
I loved Man and Wife, so I look forward to hearing what you think of it😊
I have heard so many good things!
I've got a reread of Wuthering Heights queued up for October. For shorty September I did a reread of Northanger Abbey (which I enjoyed much more than the first time when I was unable to grasp its subtlety), and yesterday I finished The Joy Luck Club. It was 332 pages so possibility a little too big but the type was large and the pages small. It was about 4 pairs of Chinese mothers and daughters living in San Francisco in the 1980s. All of them possess an unquenchable thirst to drink in authentic Chinese culture, and some of them succeed. However, I very much doubt any of them qualify as a New Woman.
Have you read any Balzac? If not, you must read Old Goriot or Cousin Bette. I'm sure you would like them.
I've read Old Goriot but didn't love it - I think I need to give him another try!
The Unsocial Socialist has a character Agatha that (according to the Intro of the Virago edition) "is a herald of the New Woman." So I think that means a foreshadowing(??) of the new woman. She's unconventional, for sure.
So excited for this one, too!
I just discovered that I enjoy listening to her more by setting the speed to 0.75x.
The funny thing is that I already digitally slow my videos down to .85x when editing, so you're actually listening to me at like .60x speed. I talk ridiculously fast, I know.