Cecrow - 2019 TBR Challenge

Primary List:
1. Memoirs of Hadrian - Marguerite Yourcenar (2019/01)
2. The Histories - Herodotus (2019/03)
3. Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self - Claire Tomalin (2019/04)
4. Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys - S. Pepys (2019/04)
5. Tom Jones - Henry Fielding (2019/06)
6. Spangle - Gary Jennings (2019/09)
7. Lives of the Noble Romans - Plutarch (2019/09)
8. Bleak House - Charles Dickens (2019/10)
9. Seven Gothic Tales - Isak Dinesen (a.k.a. Karen Blixen) (2020/05)
10. Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (2019/11)
11. Anathem - Neil Stephenson (2019/12)
12. Not Wanted on the Voyage - Timothy Findley (2020/01)

COMPLETE (2020/05)

Alternate List:
1. The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor (2019/06)
2. Smilla's Sense of Snow - Peter Hoeg (2019/02)
3. Hothouse - Brian Aldiss (2019/03)
4. She - H. Rider Haggard (2019/06)
5. Cosmicomics - Italo Calvino (2019/06)
6. Paula - Isabelle Allende (2019/09)
7. The Invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares (2019/09)
8. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter - Simone de Beauvoir (2020/01)
9. A Separate Peace - John Knowles (2019/10)
10. I Am Legend and Other Stories - Richard Matheson (2019/10)
11. Vathek - William Beckford (2019/11)
12. The Human Stain - Philip Roth (2020/09)

COMPLETE (2020/09)

Eighth year of the challenge! First I'm going to smash away at all seven slippery titles that escaped me during the past two years, since the last time I was all caught up. The remainder either serve other reading goals (Dickens, Greece/Rome, gothic, 1700s, sci-fi, Canadiana) or respond to instances in 2018 when I was caught saying "it's in my pile but I haven't read that yet".

I've the vague idea that in future I'd like to include at least one title I've read before; there might be something to this re-reading idea. But that feels impossible to consider while there's still this knock-down, drag-out battle among all the titles I haven't yet read.

It's funny, I had forgotten that I own Tom Jones until I saw your list. Thanks for nudging that title back into my consciousness. Hope you enjoy Bleak House, I remember liking it though it may have been a little slow in the beginning. Cosmicomics was fun even if I didn't understand most of the math references. There was a story in there about the moon that I loved.

Lots of other authors/titles that are familiar to me but haven't read yet. Really intriguing list!

I could have forgotten about Tom Jones too, I've had my copy for so long. I meant to read it before Vanity Fair, just didn't get there in time so I'm making up for it now. If only I could stop humming "Bye, bye, my Delilah!" every time I look at it.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you think of Anathem, also a tbr for me. I liked Bleak House quite a bit. I can't recall Tom Jones at all, so a reread does seem like a good idea. I liked Smilla's Sense of Snow and A Separate Peace, also. A wonderful list!

I've way over-prepared for Anathem. I somehow got it in my head that I oughta read any other monk-themed work in my TBR pile that preceded it first, like A Canticle for Leibowitz and Magister Ludi. And I'm putting Sophie's World right in front, so I'll have all the philosophy stuff fresh in mind. It's overkill, but I'm aiming to catch as many references that might crop up as I can.

Have you read any other Stephenson?

Just Cryptonomicon, but that was enough to keep him on my radar. Looking over his others I'm interested in Snow Crash and maybe The Diamond Age, too.

I don't think I have read any of his books, but I have several of them hanging around. I think I mostly have ebooks, but Anathem is a real book. Very large.

Ooh, nice list!

From this list I've read Sophie's world, as a teen, so uselessly long ago; Seven Gothic Tales, for this challenge in 2017; a whole bunch of Flannery O'Connor stories, who is great at alienation; Smilla's sense of snow (twice); She; and Vathek, which is bonkers. All interesting choices!

On my tbr: Yourcenar and Herodotus (the books on this list) and Stephenson, de Beauvoir (other books). Let's see if you can nudge me to pulling these exact authors off the shelf. I'll most likely be reading The invention of Morel this year as well, so if you want to read it in tandem, let me know!

Oooo, you're tackling one of the Greeks. One day I'll attempt that :) Following along for another year.

It’s great that we’re all coming back, and it’s always great to have the company no matter how varying our reading gets.

I’ve got a few Greeks and then Romans in TBR so I figured I’d line them up chronologically. But I’ve been stalling on Herodotus for a while now; this year I’ve pushed him near the front of the line with Plutarch in the wings for good measure.

I read A Separate Peace earlier this year, that should be a short, easy one to cross off your list!

Interesting list! I have the Pepys diary, 1935 copy, not read yet though. Not read anything from list 1, though a few others are also on my eventually will get there list, lol. The Matheson is great, duh, he was awesome. Vathek is...interesting. The story itself is fine, but the repetition didn't go over well for me. I've read a few of Roth's, but not that one.

#1 Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar

This is well-regarded historical-fiction-slash-fictional-memoir, by a French author and published in 1951. In anticipation, I was likening it to works by Margaret George and thinking this would be something relatively light to start with - big mistake. This dense and deliberate book slowed me to non-fiction speed. Before reading it, I only knew that Hadrian was an emperor of Rome and had a wall named after him. I'll trust the extolled research enough to assume I've learned what else he did, even if the conveyed fictional sentiments are suspect. Hadrian was very liberal and pragmatic in his views, judgemental of tyrants who assumed the office before him and rectifying their errors as much as possible. He also was aiming (less successfully, as we know) to set a course for the future that would make Rome more robust if it again fell prey to weak men risen to power. Some of his reflections feel a step too far, hinting at a too-accurate perception of the future's course. Even some of his wilder visions are wildly accurate, an artificial way for the author to enable Hadrian to compare his present with ours. Even with those bits, it's a very impressive work. All kinds of inserted facts are conveyed entirely naturally without dumping them on the reader's head, and she does an excellent job of making Hadrian feel like a real person.

That might be all I get done this month, but I've made some headway with the O'Connor and Matheson stories, halfway through Smilla, and I'm also planning to start Herodotus.

Nice review!

Ooh, my husband read that one a couple years ago and enjoyed it quite a bit as well. I want to check it out eventually, too. :)

>15 Cecrow:
That one's on my TBR list. Maybe I shouldn't wait much longer...

#2 Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg

Perfect book to read during Canada's coldest months. I'm not generally attracted to the mystery/thrillers but I try now and then, and this was worth it. I've long wondered about the relationship between Greenland/Denmark and this is the first novel I've read that explores it. There's similarities here with Canada and the Inuit of our northern territories, the same challenges of culture clash and racism. I really liked the portrayal of Smilla, a Greenlander in Denmark society. Smilla inevitably perceives the world differently from those born in Denmark, in ways that only someone with a similar background who hasn't fully integrated can understand. Most significant for this story, she has an intimate relationship with ice and snow. No footprint can fool her. They tell her things the authorities miss, and the mystery begins. Now I need to track down the 1997 movie.

More than halfway through Herodotus, still reading O'Connor, and I'm going to introduce myself to Brian Aldiss.

I enjoy thrillers myself. I guess I didn't really think of that one as a thriller, but I guess it is. I also liked it. Really interesting characters.

>21 frahealee:, I thought I was a strict reading organizer, but I think you might have me beat! :)

O'Connor has definitely disturbed me a couple of times already.

>19 Cecrow: - That sounds like something I would enjoy since I do love a good mystery/thriller.

>19 Cecrow:
You seem to be one of the many people who enjoyed Smilla's sense of snow.

Unfortunately, I wasn't. I'll copy/paste what I wrote about Smilla in another thread:

I'm in two minds about Høeg myself: I think he's got some good ideas, but he doesn't take them far enough. I'd enjoy his books more, I think, if he didn't stop too early, just when things are getting well underway. [...] Smilla I felt was approaching an area of sense-making, but again stopped short after making a few very obvious points. [The book] could have taken [its] thoughts a bit further but ended prematurely. [...] I even re-read Smilla eight or so years after the first time. People kept gushing about it, and I'd spent more time in Denmark at the time, so I figured things might have gone over my head the first time round. I still feel pretty meh about it. I think the book doesn't have as much to say about Danish colonialism as it thinks it does, nor does it go as deep.

Edit to add:
Nothing wrong with liking Smilla; it just wasn't my cup of tea.

>24 Petroglyph:, I'd agree it wasn't strong on message, my attraction was to the characterizations. I liked this portrayal of alienation, of being alone in the middle of society, maintaining one's own code rather than assimilating under all that pressure. I've a weakness for characters who can largely defy the "no man is an island" mantra, provided it doesn't tip too far past believability. Several of the supporting characters were also of this type, succeeding/failing to various degrees, inviting the question of why Smilla was able to persevere while they were not.

#3 The Histories by Herodotus

Beautiful cover, wasn't it? Until my dog tore it off and chewed it to shreds. That traumatic incident aside (a brand new copy ...), this was the opposite of Memoirs of Hadrian in that I expected a struggle and instead Aubrey de Selincourt's translation makes it extremely friendly. Herodotus' core story is Persia vs Greece, but every time he strayed from the main narrative I quickly didn't care since even the silliest aside proved so interesting. The introduction to my edition (still intact) put me in the right frame of mind to take it all in. You need to read Herodotus with your critical thinker activated, and my solid edition with maps and helpful notes along the way was a major plus (it had a nice cover, too), but the broad picture he shares of ancient Grecian times is judged to be largely accurate even if you doubt there were actually any dog-headed people (I wonder if they ever chewed books?)

Halfway through Hothouse; and Flannery O'Connor progresses, although she's beginning to disturb me in a not-so-good way. But now I'm gonna do a bad thing. I'm gonna step away from my challenge to read a new bestseller I could not resist (a rarity for me), Black Leopard, Red Wolf. If I zoom through it, I may be able to get my challenge back on track by the end of April.

Nothing wrong with a new release for fun :)

Nice review!

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#4 Hothouse by Brian Aldiss

The sci-fi (horror?) world of Hothouse (Hugo winner, 1962) is creepy as heck. Comparing it with Pandora from the Avatar movie makes it a bit more palatable, but the denizens of Pandora have it easier seeing as their planet is ultimately benevolent. Hothouse is just plain out to kill you, and your entire day is consumed with avoiding death. Picture our greenhouse effect ramped up to infinity, where animals are mostly gone except for us, and the world now belongs to the vegetable kingdom. All those things that are trying to kill you still have jaws, tongues, tentacles etc, but they're all plants: the ultimate 'man vs nature'. And get this: Hothouse is Earth. It's billions of years from now, when the sun is finally nearing the end of its life cycle. We're a fifth our former size, practically fairy folk, only half sentient, with zero technology and living on instinct, our past long forgotten. That's not even mentioning that the Earth has ceased to spin, the Moon is in a locked orbit and vegetable spiders have woven a bridge between them ... this is a weird, weird future. Plot? Characters? Well, there's a bit of that going on by way of offering the tour, but mostly it's a stupendous world-building display that so overwhelms, you can almost forget there ought to be anything else. A good novel it is not, but an incredibly vicarious experience it most definitely is.

>29 Cecrow:
Nice review!

That picture is gorgeous, though maybe a tad frightening.

>31 LittleTaiko:, captures the atmosphere of the book well. I think it’s the cover image of a German edition.

Sounds like an interesting idea for a SFF novel, a different type of post apocalypse.

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#5 Passages from the Diary of Samuel Pepys by Samuel Pepys
#6 Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self by Claire Tomalin

I can't think of when I first heard of and became curious about Pepys' diary, but definitely by university I was considering reading it. The full version comprises eight volumes covering nine years (1660-1669), but I've only read this single-volume cruelly abridged version. Samuel worked for the Admiralty in London, England and was 27 when he began recording his diary, which he kept up daily. This period coincides with multiple key events in history including the Restoration, the Black Plague's last gasp (in London, anyway) and the Great Fire of London, for all of which he provides on-the-scene details. What it's really heralded for, however, is how remarkably open he is with recording his unfiltered thoughts and doings. You can visit pepysdiary.com to sample the entries, and check out helpful links to maps, background information, who's who, etc.

Tomalin's biography rolls back the clock to begin with his birth and describes his rise to his eventual station, as well as exploring what came after the diary's conclusion. It also presents a big picture view of political and other events during the Pepys years, a forest to complement the diary's trees. I was morbidly interested in Sam's kidney stone ordeals, comparing it to my own experience (he had it worse, in every way). More went on in the post-diary years than I suspected but which only makes sense, since he was in his early thirties when it ends. Not an admirable guy in all respects (#MeToo would severely trip him up today), but his diary remains a noteworthy historical treasure.

Good on you for finishing those -- they sound absolutely fascinating.

I first heard about Pepys' diary at uni, and it's been one of those books I want to have read. One day I'll get to it, perhaps. It'd be nice if I did.

I might perhaps even tackle the full-length books -- I gather that the abridged versions are often based on bowdlerised pre-1970s editions.

>35 Petroglyph:, correct! You need a 1976 edition or later to get the full version as Pepys wrote it. Everything earlier is needlessly watered down. The abridged version I read is only one eighth the total that one of these already-edited versions amounted to, and it was difficult to follow in places. The biography was indispensable alongside it.

Worth a peek at pepysdiary.com if you'd like a sense of the tone, language, etc. And that online version has every word, so I was often checking an entry against it.

How smart to pair the two books together to get a richer reading experience. I somehow have never really heard of his diary but am now greatly intrigued and will be on the lookout for it.

#7 She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard

This is by Haggard of King Solomon's Mines fame. It's his other best-known work, and source for the humble husband's expression "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed". By the 1960s it had sold at least 83 million copies; that's more than The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter if you believe the hype. Similar to what happened in 'Mines', a small band of Brits journeys into the classic depths of darkest Africa, this time in Zanzibar (a contemporary East African setting wouldn't have quite the same 'ring'). The character She is pretty amazing, albeit not appearing until the second half, and makes the novel. It's a fun bit of classic adventure from an era when unexplored corners of the world were still imaginable.

Seems I'm three books behind at the moment, but I've two that are more than half done and I'm starting another.

>38 Cecrow: That sounds interesting. Might be a good candidate for my classic slot.

>38 Cecrow:
I really liked She when I read it a few years back. It's made me want to pick up more by Haggard, some of whose books I read as a kid. Those must be due for a reread (King Solomon's mines tops that list, obvs).

>38 Cecrow: - Somehow I've never heard of this book, but have heard of the phrase "She Who Must Be Obeyed" - it was used in a mystery series that I read a book or two of. Now I know where that author got the phrase from! This is definitely a book that I'll put on my wishlist and be on the lookout for. Sounds fun.

#8 The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling by Henry Fielding

I was terribly slow with this one, though I can't adequately explain why. Tom is raised as the adopted son of a well-to-do clergyman. His mutual love interest is Sophie, whom he pursues after she goes on the run to avoid the lover her family prefers. It gets a bit drawn out as Sophie and Tom separately flee/chase across the countryside, dropping in and out of inns and having their miscellaneous adventures, but it all maintains a light-hearted (even ribald) tone that makes it fun. Fielding's narrative insertions are another selling point, sometimes extending into entire essays. His topic might be something to do with the plot, or it may be on the art of writing, or in challenge to his anticipated critics. And it is often funny, as when he 'apologizes' for one such digression: "... others may probably wish, short as it is, that it had been totally spared as impertinent to the main design, which I suppose they conclude is to bring Mr. Jones to the gallows, or if possible, to a more deplorable catastrophe."

This must have been on my shelf a while, since the 2nd-hand bookstore where I bought it is long since closed and torn down. Excluding my e-reader I've only Tristram Shandy left among 18th century works on my TBR pile, so I'll probably tackle that one next year.

#9 Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

A whimsical merging of art and science, Calvino quotes a bit of scientific fact or theory at the beginning of each story and then weaves a tale around it, positing his narrator Qfwfq as some anthropomorphic entity or other - he's something different every time, I think, and there's no correlation or overlap among his many renditions - to humanize these difficult concepts into playful stories about relationships and family. It's a fun little exercise, although this might not have made me race out to read more Calvino if I'd started here. On the other hand, I read all of these in the time it took me to get through just a couple more by O'Connor, so you can tell who's stories I enjoyed more.

Agree that it's probably not his best or most accessible, but I did enjoy it while not coming close to understanding it.

#10 The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

This was my first disappointment of the year. After a good start in January, it began to drag on. Flannery O'Connor's reputation as a short fiction author was built up quite a bit in my mind prior, and I was looking forward to indulging in her complete collection. The anthology presents them chronologically in the order she wrote them, and it starts off well with a lot of variety and skill on display in the early ones she wrote for her Masters thesis. Not long after comes the stunning 'A Good Man is Hard to Find', which is disturbing but worth reading at least twice. I guess she liked it too, because she wrote that story again; and again; and again; and it got old real fast. I'm not the most spiritual fellow you're liable to meet, so I felt like O'Connor was painting a bullseye on my head with her theme about happy heathens going to hell. One well-shot arrow, fine, I can appreciate that. Thanks to my pledging to read this entire collection, I basically armed her with a full quiver. Excellent writing, a superb talent, but I'm frankly glad to see the last of it. Her novels don't sound worth pursuing, not that I'd be tempted at this point.

Speaking of seeing the last of something, I'm once again all caught up - i.e. I've read every book listed in my TBR challenges up to this year. If only I could somehow catch up on this year's to keep it that way, I'm about a month behind right now.

I've read one novel by O'Connor (Wise blood) and a bunch of her short stories. Dour they are, and I've always felt I should read more by her. Friends gave me her collected works published by The Library of America. Based on >45 Cecrow:, perhaps I should read a novel instead of more short stories.

#11 Spangle by Gary Jennings

I spent my summer touring Europe! ... between the pages of a book set in the 1860s. I read all of Jennings' other major novels about twenty years ago, but I didn't find this one until recently. It's what Islandia was for me last year, a massive novel hardly anyone's heard of but among the most anticipated reads on my list. It lived up to it, but beware: if you've read or heard anything about this guy's historical fiction (e.g. Aztec), then you know he never heard the term 'politically correct'. You'll also know you're liable to be drowned in a Titanic-sized bucket of historical detail. He's one of those fiction writers who makes me wonder why he didn't write non-fiction instead, there's so much he wants to teach you, but then he couldn't have included those OMG elements which he seems to love just as much. I don't know what was up with this guy, and I half believe his stuff should all come stamped with warnings (pedophilia! racism! homophobia! ... how many stickers do you have??). I do know that, provided you can tolerate his antics, he creates historical settings and period like nobody's business, and he knows a few tricks about making you feel something while he's at it.

Lol - how intriguing and discouraging all at the same time. Not sure I'm up for reading it anytime soon, especially as I'm slogging my way through Atlas Shrugged, another gigantic book, for book club. Maybe someday I'll give it a go.

>49 LittleTaiko:, given how satisfied I was with it at the end, I really wanted to praise it, but praising Jennings overmuch can be a dangerous thing. :) Whew, yes, you do have a big task on your hands. I read that at 19 right after The Fountainhead, which basically made me a convert for a few years. Maybe not an ideal age to expose anyone to her philosophy.

#12 Paula by Isabel Allende

I'd not read anything by her before, but I think I'll pursue more now. This was an intimate portrait of her experience when her daughter fell into a coma in the early nineties, balanced between hope and despair. It is also largely a memoir of her life, from family history and her childhood all the way up to the present. It strikes an honest tone, and Isabel is often self-effacing, which always makes a memoir/autobiography more pleasant to read. Today she is the most popular living Spanish author, but there was nothing in the first forty years of her life to indicate that was ever liable to happen, or that she would ever become an author at all. I was equally taken up by both past and present scenes, and sympathizing as a parent. I don't think I'd agree with her too-mystical philosophy in person, but somehow it worked very well for me on the page and I expect it shines through wonderfully in her other work.

#13 Lives of the Noble Romans by Plutarch (Edmund Fuller, editor)

Plutarch's Lives is an enormous reading task that I wasn't inclined to tackle in full. Edmund Fuller helpfully chopped away all of the Greeks, selected only ten of the Romans, then edited some of those to shorten them. The result is a quarter or less of the full work, with a focus on the Republic. This was still enough to send me down a rabbit hole in reading about Roman history on Wikipedia, which was part of the goal as it sets me up nicely for a lot more reading to do around this era. Plutarch is a relatively easy place to start.

#14 The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

Adolfo Casares was a kind of student of Jorge Borges, a favourite author of mine. In this novelette, Adolfo heads more explicitly into science fiction territory than Borges typically did but without the same depth. A man is trapped on an island with a number of strangers he must hide from, and no means of escape; on top of which, he begins to fall in love with one of them. There's a mystery here that you can probably unravel before the narrator does if you know your genre fiction, but it must have seemed practically unique in its day (1940). I liked the realism with which the poor guy tries to reason his way out of his situation in all the wrong directions. There's some interesting comparisons to be drawn between what happens here and our world today.

>53 Cecrow:
That book is on my TBR! I was planning on getting to it next year, but I might have to bump it higher towards the top after reading your review.

#15 A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Several LTers have cited this as a book they were forced to read for school, so it puzzled me that I'd never heard of it. Gene and Phineas have a complex relationship, in that Gene can't pinpoint Phineas' personality or motives and yet is closely drawn to his unique qualities. World War II is the backdrop, never far from any student's mind as they approach the eligible age to enlist or be drafted, and Gene begins to find a kind of solace in Phineas' appreciation for living in the moment. There's some decent grist here for study, but it's a very bland novel by today's standards and I'm afraid most teens now must surely be bored to tears. A quick google suggests they seek evidence for shipping Gene and Phineas as an item just to inject some spice into it.

#16 I Am Legend and Other Stories by Richard Matheson

Somehow I remained spoiler-free for the last-man-on-Earth main feature "I Am Legend". Might try to find the Will Smith movie now. I don't know the horror genre very well, and while I gather Matheson has some relevance to its history I find him mostly dull. I can't put it better than another reviewer who said he has the distinction of having occupied a new space in fiction that opened its doors, but otherwise he didn't make a very lasting mark. A couple of exceptions were the animated doll of "Prey", and the stylish "Dress of White Silk".

>56 Cecrow: I never realized the movie was based on a short story. I always thought it was a full book.

>57 Narilka:, I guess it counts as "novelette". It was 160 pages in this edition, way longer than the rest what's in this collection (nothing else over 40pgs).

#17 Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Here is Dickens firing on all cylinders: he has his plot marching along very orderly without relying overmuch on surprise coincidence, his social commentary (centered here on the horrors of the judicial system) dramatically conveyed, his usual array of colourful characters, and plenty of humour to keep it lively. Many cite this as Dickens' best. I'll reserve my final judgement until I've read the last five, but this is a strong contender and lived up to its reputation, unlike my disappointment with David Copperfield. This is the one in which somebody literally goes up in a puff of smoke, i.e. by spontaneous combustion, happily not used too conveniently. I think this is his longest novel, but I didn't feel it; not nearly so depressing and much more fun than its title might suggest.

Hmm, I'm not sure where I'd rank it, though it wouldn't be my top favorite but it definitely wouldn't be at the bottom either. You're making me want to go pick up Hard Times since that is my Dickens book for the year.

Oh! This is probably not up your alley at all, but I recently read a book called Solitary House that is a mystery based on Bleak House and The Woman in White. The writing was a bit odd but the way the author turns the Dickens tale around was interesting to see.

#18 Vathek: An Arabian Tale by William Beckford

I'm an Arabian Nights fan from way back; I've had a beautiful show-off edition since I was a teen. Beckford rode on the coattails of that tradition, mixing it with the gothic that was just then taking off, and came up with this ... mess. It's filled with flowery description, overflows with fancy, and the plot marches madly off in all directions just as any self-respecting Arabian Nights tale might. At the same time there's a hint of satire going on here that makes me take it less seriously than it otherwise seems to desire. It winds up with a fairly conventional moral lesson. Perhaps it's the ending I emotionally wanted, but at the same time I was hoping for a surprise. It was preferable to Horace Walpole and Anne Radcliffe, but I still can't say I liked it much. After those three strikes, I think it's time I step away from the gothic. Someday curiosity may still compel me to seek out Melmoth the Wanderer and/or The Monk.

The gothic. to me, is an aesthetic that its various practitioners have implemented in very different ways: early stories like Radcliffe's, The castle of Otranto, The Monk and Vathek are very different from each other, but also from later examples, like Frankenstein and The hunchback of Notre-Dame and Edgar Allan Poe and even H. P. Lovecraft (if you count that as Gothic). The further you get into the 19thC (and later), the less moralizing the tales become, or at least, the less straightforwardly allegorical.

My introduction to Vathek described the last decade of the 18th century as a bit of a low point, before modern fiction came on the scene and started ramping up toward Jane Austen. It did not have flattering things to say about Radcliffe, even while it identified her as the best English novelist at that time.

I'd agree that Walpole, Radcliffe and Beckford don't really group together very well if considered outside of the trappings. I've enjoyed all of your later examples (well, maybe not a big Lovecraft fan, but that's another story).

#19 Sophie's World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder

First published in Norway (1991) and later an international bestseller (1995). Gaarder was (is?) a Noregian philosophy professor who thought up a way to put his entire introductory course into novel format. In his chapter on Socrates, he says the majority of us are either falsely certain (I suppose that used to be me) or indifferent (I suppose that's me now), whereas a philosopher admits she/he knows nothing and is tireless in the pursuit of answers. It sounds like an exhausting task, and by that same token this book too can be exhausting - but hang in there. The framing story starts off innocently enough, and then it begins to mess with your head:

Suddenly the dog started to shudder violently. He's going to bark now, thought Sophie. Then his jaws began to vibrate, but Hermes neither growled nor barked. Then he opened his mouth and said "Happy Birthday, Hilde!"

That made me lower the book and stare at the wall for a few seconds. Later I had reason to find it eerie that the publisher's name for my edition is Berkley. And that this hurricane-speed philosophy overview ends on Sartre, while at the same time I've been reading Simone de Beauvoir's first memoir which also ends with Sartre. Just an unplanned coincidence - or is it? Cue the Twilight Zone theme; or the talking dog.

Making good progress with the memoir, but it encourages slow reading. The calendar suggests I should get through at least one more from my primary list, so let's make it Stephenson. The remaining three titles in my challenge have their places reserved for next year.

>64 Cecrow:
I read this book as a teenager and I suspect much of it went over my head. I don't remember much from the frame story -- that scene with the dog rings no bells att all -- nor from the rest of the book. If i did, I would probably enjoy re-reading it to see what I think of it now, having taken a few philosophy classes.

Reading coincidences are cool: the same character/real-life person or event or concept showing up in several books in short succession are great fun -- like you're being prodded towards a certain niche interest. It's the Interconnected Universe of Real Life! Or, you know, history.

#20 Anathem by Neal Stephenson

I bought this at discount in hardcover about ten years ago, shortly after reading Cryptonomicon. He's had time to write some more while I was still thinking of this as his "new one". This was nothing like the challenge I was prepared for; it's easy reading that reminded me of Ready Player One. My philosophy refresher was practically unnecessary; an overview of Plato is handy but hardly essential.

This might be Stephenson's only novel where he transports us to another world entirely: the planet Arbre, home of an alternative human civilization. Scientists and mathematicians are the ones holed up behind monastery walls, while the world carries on with its activities and civilization building/destroying on the outside. Plato's ideals (or rather, Arbre's equivalent of Plato) are what these scientists worship and work to bring themselves closer to an understanding with and interpretation of, rather than a Biblical heaven. Stephenson's writing is very straightforward, the only challenge being a glossary's worth of invented terms that overlays everything. The glossary is fairly easy to grasp since its terms are frequently only misspellings of words we know, with parallel meanings but different connotations; you get used to it quickly.

The plot has the typical Stephenson hallmarks: thin and slow (especially dull right in the middle), weighed down with all kinds of side topics. But it's the side topics that you typically read Stephenson for, and in this case they proved a lot more relevant than I at first expected. It ends with a nice wrap up and just the right amount of pervading mystery. I'm not sure who to recommend this sci-fi + philosophy crossbreed to, but I rate it only slightly behind Cryptonomicon if you've a mind to try it.

Very close to finishing the memoir I'm reading, but technically my final score for 2019 is 20/24. I started off with believing I was gonna get through them all, but Tom Jones and Spangle were larger projects than I thought. Lots of good stuff, I won't even try to choose what was best. I would only opt for a smaller O'Connor collection were I to do it all again. Last year I had 116 books left to read, this year I've forced it all the way down to … oh, whoops, 116. I'd wish for the world to stop tempting me with exciting new acquisitions, but for fear that it might.

Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir

I've discovered a new name for my favourite authors list. This is a highly recommended memoir, one of several that Simone wrote about her life. She's famous for her writing, her feminism, and for her relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. Sadly her reputation is tarnished by having had illicit relations with three of her students that eventually cost her teaching license. This is the safest and probably least veiled of all the memoirs she wrote, since it covers only her own childhood and adolescence up to meeting Sartre for the first time. It seems like a fairly random thing to have read, but it had the power to make me pause and reflect on my own memories to see what applied, like I haven't encountered since reading James Joyce. Her approaches to coming out from under her parents' wing and to romance prevented me from absorbing more than a few pages at a time; it was much more fun to pause and reflect, thus the two months this required of me. My interest has been piqued by some of her fiction, although I'm on the fence about continuing with her memoirs.