Reading with Kim

/ 31 Mar 2017

Last year, Kim and I started to meet regularly to discuss, among other things, books. Somehow, we came up with a plan of reading some books together, and pairing them in couples. We came up with these ten titles. And we both read them all, (except I didn’t re-read the Odyssey).

My favorite out of these ten are:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn,

The Great Divorce,

Wuthering Heigths

But I am glad to have read them all. Once we finished the last title, we decided to pick new titles together. And we came up with these 8:

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  1. Brothers Karamazov (not in the picture), which we will read from April till June,
    along with ✓ 
  2. Tales of the Alhambra, by Sleepy Hollow’s Washington Irving
  3. Starting in June, we’ll listen to The Gray House, (together with others who are joining). I plan to savor this book, and take from June to October to listen to it and write about it.
  4. In July, we have decided to read The Daughter of Time, and
  5. Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen
  6. In August, we’ll read Ten Fingers for God
  7. In September, we have The Scent of Water, and
  8. Silence
  9. In October, The Moviegoer

Kim gave me some books she got for me at one of our local book sales a few weeks ago while I was camping. Thanks, Kim. (I specially love the vintage P.G. Wodehouse book).

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For the two long Russian books, we have a schedule. One we’ll do with an audio. We believe that a schedule is the key to stay on task and read books that are lengthy.  This is a picture of it:bk scheduleInitially, we had planned to read My Antonia, but we ended up choosing The Moviegoer, a book published in 1961, versus My Antonia, published in 1918. We wanted something more recent, and this book was mentioned in a podcast we both had enjoyed about freedom in literature.

I knew I had this book, but I could not find it anywhere in my shelves. Today, as I came from meeting with Kim, and after I took pictures of the books, I looked behind me, where I keep some books in transit, and it was there, like you see it in the picture.

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20 thoughts on “Reading with Kim”

  1. That’s great to hear! I love graphic novels, but I don’t get to them nearly enough. I’d like to start incorporating more into my reading.

  4. Kim, I had never read A Tale of Two Cities; but my husband read it in high school. He wanted to read it again since it’d been so long ago and he remembered that it was one of his favorite Dickens novels. I’m only on Chapter 8. 🙂

    Silvia & Kim, last night, I was looking at where I was at in The Brothers Karamazov and I’m further than I realized. So I’ll just keep reading and maybe we’ll catch up together at some point. 🙂

  5. And as you may know, Rob, Scorsese directed a movie based on the book, Silence, with Liam Neeson as the protagonist.
    BTW, I’ve been enjoying your comic page at your blog. I’m picking some titles I’ve read and new ones tomorrow from the library. I’ll share them once I get my hands on them.

  6. I have A Tale of Two Cities on my own list too! Read it so long ago and am looking forward to working my way through it toward the end of this year 🙂

  7. Great list! I like the reading schedule idea.

    I’ve only read Northanger Abbey, but of the books listed, Silence and The Moviegoer intrigue me the most.

  8. Oh, forgot to add that I am going to check out the Classics Club. Even if I didn’t participate, it would be neat to still start building a list of classics I’d like to read. 🙂

  9. Sure! At least for The Brothers Karamazov. That would be awesome to read it with others! Like I mentioned, I’m already on Book III and it looks like that would be the second week of April for you all. So maybe I can just go really slowly and then be ready to read Book IV at the same time on your schedule with you all. 😉 That should work out great because as I mentioned before, my husband and I are both reading A Tale of Two Cities, so I can focus on trying to finish that up soon. 🙂 Plus, I also picked up Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and started that yesterday for my reading challenge.

    And yes, there’s so many titles. It’s been tough to decide what direction I want to go with my reading BECAUSE there’s so many books I want to read. I’ve been trying to make a decision on that while reading The Brothers Karamazov and A Tale of Two Cities. And I haven’t absolutely decided on reading through Year 7. Although, I think I probably will do that. I do at least want to start the Churchill books. And finish Watership Down! Regardless, I want to finish The Brothers Karamazov and A Tale of Two Cities first.

  10. I told Silvia the same thing last night…that I want to re-read Wuthering Heights but take it at a slower pace to savor it. Same for me…weird, powerful, redemptive. A book to learn from in many ways.

  12. I remember you had started on the BK. Maybe you want to read along with us those unfinished books?, or add them to your own Classics Club list (this list doesn’t require the books to be 50 or more years old, so everything you have mentioned could be in your list).
    I too want to read Churchill, lol. So many good titles.

  13. I’m SO grateful you have our list here because now I can refer to this for a while until I update my blog 🙂 Really looking forward to these books and the doable schedules planned for them all! And happy you found My Antonia…good timing 🙂

  17. I started The Brothers Karamazov in January and read a good bit. Then I got sidetracked with other books. LOL I’m now on Book III and am being more intentional about getting this read. 😉 I like how you all have your longer reads planned out. I haven’t read any of the titles you all have in your plan to read. I did start The Scent of Water last year sometime but never finished it. I have The Daughter of Time on my shelf. I’m thinking of trying to read through some of Year 7 and The Daughter of Time is on that list. A year or two ago I decided to try and read through Year 7 but ended up not getting very far. Ha! So I think I’m going to give it a another try. I’ve been wanting to read The History of the English Speaking Peoples by Churchill for a long time now. (I’ve read portions of this series but not the entirety of each book.) So this is a good start since Year 7 uses the first volume. And maybe now I’ll finish Watership Down! 🙂

  18. What a great pile of reading, Silvia. There are so many little rabbit trails of goodness in here for me to follow SOON. I still haven’t read any P.G. Wodehouse. Which title of his is your favorite?

  19. I’d like to read Wuthering Heights again – weird but powerful & redemptive. My older girls & I enjoyed Ten Fingers for God. Thanks for linking that podcast. I’ll save it & have a listen later.

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