The Classics Club: The Classics Spin #42

"Words and Peace" is a blog I've been following for a couple of years and I have always found some interesting new (or old) books there, especially French ones.

On her page, I found the posts by "The Classics Club" asking us to create a post, this time before next Sunday 19^th October 2025, and list our choice of any twenty books that remain "to be read" on our Classics Club list. They'll then post a number from 1 through 20 and we have time until Sunday 21^st December 2025 to read it.

This time, I read two books from my old list (Classics Spin #41) ("Lysistrata"  and "Martin Chuzzlewit"). I do want to concentrate on a couple of books in the near future, so I have listed only ten books and repeated them. The books are all in chronological order.

1. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I" (Faust) - 1772-1808
2. Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias) - 1848
3. Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
4. Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
5. Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
6. Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
7. Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
8. Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929
9. Cela, Camilo José "Der Bienenkorb" (The Hive/La colmina) - 1951
10. Plaidy, Jean "The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katharine Parr" - 1953
11. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von "Urfaust. Faust Fragment. Faust I" (Faust) - 1772-1808
12. Dumas, Alexandre fils "Camille: The Lady of the Camellias" (La Dame aux Camélias) - 1848
13. Turgenjew, Iwan Sergejewitsch "Fathers and Sons" (Отцы и дети/Otzy i deti) - 1862
14. Conrad, Joseph "Victory: An Island Tale" - 1915
15. Hamilton, Cicely "William - an Englishman" - 1920
16. Hesse, Hermann "Wir nehmen die Welt nur zu ernst" [We just take the world too seriously] - 1928
17. Faulkner, William "The Sound and the Fury" - 1929
18. Hemingway, Ernest "A Farewell to Arms" - 1929
19. Cela, Camilo José "Der Bienenkorb" (The Hive/La colmina) - 1951
20. Plaidy, Jean "The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katharine Parr" - 1953

This is a great idea for all of us who want to read more classics. Go ahead, get your own list. I can't wait to see what I get to read this time.

Here are all the books on my original Classics Club list.

And here is a list of all the books I read with the Classics Spin.

Nobel Peace Prize 2025

Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year "to the person (or group) who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.".

There was a lot of talk and controversies about it this year, especially since one person in particular insisted he deserved it. (I won't mention his name, we all know who he is, anyway.) Thank you, Norway, for not giving in to the threats that were made.

Wikimedia

The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to María Corina Machado, member of the Venezuelan National Assembly "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy."

See also my list of Nobel Peace Prize Winners.

Congratulations!

The 1925 Club

This book challenge takes place twice a year and concentrates on one year and one year only. I call it "Read the Year Club". This time, 1925 was picked. For more information, see Simon @ Stuck in a Book and Kaggsy @ Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings (here is Karen's invite and here is Simon's). If you are looking for inspiration, there are a few books from that year that I read already:

de Man, Herman "The Growing Water" (NL: Het wassende water) - 1925

Feuchtwanger, Lion "Jew Suss" (GE: Jud Süß) - 1925
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "The Great Gatsby" - 1925

Ford, Ford Madox "Parade's End" (Tetraology: Some Do Not - 1924, No More Parades, 1925, A Man Could Stand Up 1926, Last Post 1928) - 1924-28
H., A. "My Struggle" (Notes by some megalomanic who thought he could rule the world, GE: M. K.) - 1925/26

Mandelstam, Ossip "The Din of Time" (RUS: Шум времени/Shum vremeni) - 1925

Wodehouse, P.G. "Carry On, Jeeves" - 1925

Woolf, Virginia "Mrs. Dalloway" - 1925

I also found some other ideas, if you are looking for more:
Christie, Agatha "The Secret of Chimneys"

Dos Passos, John "Manhattan Transfer"

Dreiser, Theodore "An American Tragedy"
Gorky, Maxim" The Artamonov Business" (RUS: Дело Артамоновых/Delo Artamonovykh)

Kafka, Franz "The Trial" (GE: Der Prozess)

Lewis, Sinclair "Arrowsmith"
Maugham, W. Somerset "The Painted Veil"
Stein, Gertrude "The Making of Americans"
Undset, Sigrid "The Master of Hestviken, vol. 1: The Axe" (NO: Olav Audunssøn i Hestviken)
Wells, H.G. "Christina Alberta's Father"

This challenge takes place from 20 to 26 October 2025.

I have picked a story by a fascinating author of whom I always wanted to read more:
Hemingway, Ernest "In Our Time" - 1925

Top Ten Tuesday ~ Book Series

"Top Ten Tuesday" is an original feature/weekly meme created on the blog "The Broke and the Bookish". It was created because they are particularly fond of lists. It is now hosted by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

Since I am just as fond of them as they are, I jump at the chance to share my lists with them! Have a look at their page, there are lots of other bloggers who share their lists here.

This week's topic is Book Series

I have read a lot of series, tetralogies, trilogies (see links), or at least the first one(s) of them. So, it wasn't all that easy to find only ten but I managed in the end. I liked all these book series and have read most of them completely. I have always put the picture of the first one of the series here but listed all the books I read in that series.

Ackroyd, Peter "The History of England, Vol. 1 Foundation" - 2011
- "The History of England, Vol. 2 Tudors" - 2012 
- "The History of England, Vol. 3 Civil War" - 2014
- "The History of England, Vol. 4 Revolution" - 2016

- "The History of England, Vol. 5 Dominion" - 2018

- "The History of England, Vol. 6 Innovation" - 2021

Drinkwater, Carol "The Olive Farm" and further Olive Farm Books - 2001-2010
- "The Olive Harvest" - 2006

Follett, Ken "The Evening and the Morning" (Kingsbridge #0.5) - 2020

- "The Pillars of the Earth" (Kingsbridge #1) - 1989
- "World Without End" (Kingsbridge #2) - 2007

- "A Column of Fire" (Kingsbridge #3) - 2017

- "The Armour of Light" (Kingsbridge #4) - 2023

Ingalls Wilder, Laura "Little House Books" - 1932-71

Little House in the Big Woods (1932)

Farmer Boy (1933)

Little House on the Prairie (1935)

On the Banks of Plum Creek (1937)

By the Shores of Silver Lake (1939)

The Long Winter (1940)

Little Town on the Prairie (1941)

These Happy Golden Years (1943)

On the Way Home (1962)

The First Four Years (1971)

McCall Smith, Alexander "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" Series 1-9 *
- "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" (1) - 1999
- "Tears of the Giraffe" (2) - 2000
- "Morality for Beautiful Girls" (3) - 2001
- "The Kalahari Typing School for Men" (4) - 2002
- "The Full Cupboard of Life" (5) - 2004
- "In the Company of Cheerful Ladies" (6) - 2004
- "Blue Shoes and Happiness" (7) - 2006
- "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive" (8) - 2007
- "The Miracle at Speedy Motors" (9) - 2008
- "Tea Time for the Traditionally Built" (10) - 2009
- "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" Series #11-17 - Mma Ramotswe Serie
- "The Double Comfort Safari Club" (11) - 2010
- "The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party" (12) - 2011
- "The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection" (13) - 2012
- "The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon" (14) - 2013
- "The Handsome Man's De Luxe Café" (15) - 2014
- "The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine" (16) - 2015
- "Precious and Grace" (17) - 2016

Ruiz Zafón, Carlos "The Shadow of the Wind" (E: La sombra del viento - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #1) - 2001
- "The Angel's Game" (E: El juego del ángel - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #2) - 2008
- "The Prisoner of Heaven" (E: El prisionero del cielo - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #3) - 2011
- "The Labyrinth of the Spirits" (E: El laberinto de los espíritus - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #4) - 2016

- "The City of Mist" (E: La Ciudad de Vapor - El cementerio de los libros olvidados #5) - 2020

Scott, Mary "Breakfast at Six" - 1953

-- "Dinner Doesn’t Matter" - 1957
-- "Tea and Biscuits" - 1961
-- "A Change from Mutton" - 1964
-- "Turkey at Twelve" - 1968
-- "Shepherd’s Pie" - 1972
-- "Strangers for Tea" - 1975
-- "Board, but no Breakfast" - 1978 

Stroyar, J.N. "The Children's War" - 2001
- "A Change of Regime" (The Children's War #2) - 2004
- "Becoming Them" (The Children's War #3) - 2017

Trollope, Anthony "Barchester Chronicles": The Warden - 1855; Barchester Towers - 1857, Doctor Thorne - 1858, Framley Parsonage - 1861; The Small House at Allington - 1864; The Last Chronicle of Barset - 1867

Weir, Alison "Six Tudor Queens. Katherine of Aragon. The True Queen" - 2015
- "Six Tudor Queens. Anne Boleyn. A King's Obsession" - 2017
- "Six Tudor Queens. Jane Seymour. The Haunted Queen" - 2018

- "Six Tudor Queens. Anna of Kleve. Queen of Secrets" (US Title: The Princess in the Portrait) - 2018
- "Six Tudor Queens. Katheryn Howard. The Tainted Queen" (US Title: The Scandalous Queen) - 2020 
- "Six Tudor Queens. Katharine Parr. The Sixth Wife" - 2021
- "The Six Wives of Henry VIII" - 1991

📚 Happy Reading 📚

Vreeland, Susan "The Passion of Artemisia"

Vreeland, Susan "The Passion of Artemisia" - 2002

I read "Girl in Hyacinth Blue" by this author a couple of years ago and really loved it. I always wanted to read something else by her. Now, I came across this book and it's about a female paper from the Baroque period. I had never heard of Artemisia Gentileschi even though I love art. Typical, women are never acknowledged much.

To start, I really like the note by the author. She mentioned that any work of fiction about history or a historical character ist still a work of imagination, not of reality. Based on known evidence, she spins her story. She used actual works of the artist and actual occurrences. I loved that.

Her style or writing is very vivid. Her descriptions are very detailed. We could see how people at the time lived, what were their hopes and fears. How did the church impact their lives?

Through this novel, I got to know a wonderful woman, a keen and gifted painter who struggled with the constrictions of the time but who nonetheless created some beautiful art.

I will look for more books by Susan Vreeland. Let me know if you've read one.

From the back cover:

"From extraordinary highs - patronage by the Medicis, friendship with Galileo and, most importantly of all, beautiful and outstandingly original paintings - to rape by her father's colleague, torture by the Inquisition, life-long struggles for acceptance by the artistic Establishment, and betrayal by the men she loved, Artemisia was a bold and brilliant woman who lived as she wanted, and paid a high price."

Six Degrees of Separation ~ I Want Everything

Dominic Amerena

"I Want Everything" - 2024

#6Degrees of Separation:
from I Want Everything (Goodreads) to Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? 

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here. 

The starter book this month is "I Want Everything" by Dominic Amerena. As usual, I haven't read the starter book. This is the description of the novel:

"You all know this, of course, but years and years ago, acclaimed Australian novelist Brenda Shales went missing. After two explosive, controversial books that would shape the literary canon of the country for decades to come — and that terrible legal scandal about plagiarism, of course — she was simply gone. 

That was, right up until a frustrated young writer sees an elderly woman swimming at his local pool in Melbourne. She looks familiar…very familiar in fact. No. It couldn’t be. Stunned, he returns home to confirm the impossible truth; it’s Brenda Shales, now in her old age and stranded in a retirement home. He’s determined to pursue her, to discover what happened to her all those years ago, and to possibly fulfil his dreams of literary stardom through a tell-all biography. But when he finds her, a case of mistaken identity and Brenda’s own terrible secrets begin to derail his ambitions, and ultimately, his entire life.

From brilliant debut novelist Dominic Amerena, I Want Everything is a wickedly sharp story of desire and deception, authorship and authenticity, and the devastating costs of creative ambition."

This was a nice title to find connections through words. I like that because it usually gives us a lot of different topics rather than all the same books. And I often get books I don't use so often otherwise. So we start with: I Want Everything

Bryson, Bill "A Short History of Nearly Everything" - 2003
The title is so true. There is so much information in this book, I wish my science teachers would have been half as informative and concise as he is, I learned more from this book than I did in years of trying to learn just a little about this subject.

Tartt, Donna "The Secret History" - 1992

A very impressive story hat will probably stay with me forever. A group of students does something really bad and can only get out of it by doing something even worse. The characters are not really likeable but they get under your skin.

Grenville, Kate "The Secret River" - 2005
The story of William Thornhill, whose main crime was to be born into absolute poverty in a time where there was no way out of it, where people were forced to become criminals in order to feed their families and, when caught, sent to a foreign country, a country so remote that the voyage there was one of no return. 

Tademy, Lalita "Red River" - 2007
The author tells the story of her father's ancestors that came all the way from Egypt as free men only to be turned into slaves in the States. The story begins after the Civil War when the slaves have officially been freed but white supremacists don't want to accept that, so there is still a long struggle ahead of them.

Xueqin, Cao (Cáo Xuěqín) "Dream of the Red Chamber/The Story of the Stone" (CHN: 红楼梦/Hung lou meng) - 1717-63

This novel has semi-autobiographical sides, it is said that it shows not just the rise and fall of the author's family but also that of the Qing Dynasty. It teaches us a lot not just about everyday Chinese life in the 18th century, but also their culture, religion, science, art and literature. Really captivating. Certainly one of the most informative books I have read about Ancient China, and I have read quite a few.

Dick, Philip K. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" - 1968

I always wondered about this weird title. The story is primarily about a bounty hunter in a dystopian world. After a nuclear global war damaged the earth tremendously, there are hardly any animals left. Or humans. So, the survivors have to create a new world.
The film "Blade Runner" is based on this novel.

* * *

Is there a connection between the starter book and the last one? Maybe this: The Androids dream of everything, they want everything. That's about the closest I can get.

📚📚📚

Spell the Month in Books ~ October 2025

Reviews from the Stacks

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Books are the New Black who found it at One Book More. It was originally created by Reviews from the Stacks, and the idea is to spell the month using the first letter of book titles.

October: Trick or Treat – Books that you feel strongly about, whether positively or negatively

Even if I don't like a book, I prefer to list books that I liked. There are always people who loved a book I loathed. So, have you read any of these and did you like them as much as I did?

OCTOBER

O

Obama, Barack "Of Thee I Sing" - 2010

This is one of the cutest picture books I have seen. Every page adds a new example of a person who is an ideal for as all. There is Martin Luther King jr., Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, but also Helen Keller, Billie Holiday and many, many fabulous people who do their bit in order to make this world a better one.

Barack Obama wrote this for his daughters when they were little. It shows how much he loves not just his own children but people in general.

C

Frazier, Charles "Cold Mountain" - 1997

I have read this book several times. This is all about the American Civil War, about love, struggles in bad times, companionship. But it doesn't just show the life of people during the Civil War, it seems to be a never ending description of life. I think it is a great novel that will live on and be read for generations.

T

Rowlatt, Bee & Witwit, May "Talking About Jane Austen in Baghdad. The True Story of an Unlikely Friendship" - 2010

Two very different women form a friendship via e-mail, a young British journalist, mother of three little girls and a middle-aged Iraqi woman who is desperately trying to leave her country during the war. 

O

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" (RUS: Оди́н день Ива́на Дени́совича/Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha) - 1962/63

We always hear about the Gulag, the prisoners who sent to Siberia and have to work there etc. But we never really know what is going on there, what the work is like, how the prisoners are kept.

Unless we read about the one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich Shukhov, starting the instant he opens his eyes in the morning until he closes them again in the evening.

And once we read it, we understand why this writer was awared the Nobel Prize for Literature.

B

Mann, Thomas "Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family" (GE: Buddenbrooks) - 1901

This is definitely one of my most favourite books of all times.

The novel, an epic story, dates from 1901 and describes the life in a wealthy merchant family over several decades from the 1800s until the beginning of the twentieth century. The story is based on the author's own family who lived in Lübeck.

E

Buck, Pearl S. "East Wind: West Wind" - 1930

I love the way Pearl S. Buck can explain the life in China, life in China during her lifetime, of course, I am well aware that it has changed a lot again. She has a wonderful way of explaining the Chinese way, almost in parables.

R

Bryson, Bill "The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island" - 2015

My favourite book by my favourite travel writer so far was "Notes from a Small Island", a book about the country we both love so much: Great Britain.

Then he did it again, he travelled around the island and wrote about the different kind of landscapes, people, funny encounters.

* * *

Happy Reading!

📚 📚 📚

#ThrowbackThursday. August 2015

I've been doing ThrowbackThursdays for a while but I noticed that I wrote a lot of reviews in a short time when I first started. So, I post more than one Throwback every week. These are my reviews from August 2015. 

Doerr, Anthony "All the Light We Cannot See" - 2014 
Anthony Doerr managed to write a different kind of war story, a story about the little people, on either side of the war, those that had not much to say about what was happening to them and who paid the highest price. 

Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker) "Max Havelaar" (NL: Max Havelaar of de koffiveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappy) - 1959

Eduard Douwes Dekker aka Multatuli should probably be called the Dutch Charles Dickens. At least, he's from the same era and is just as popular in the Netherlands as Dickens is in the United Kingdom.

His book seemed to have opened the eyes of many Dutch people at the time as to what colonialism really meant. "Max Havelaar" is also called "the book that killed colonialism" and was chosen as the most important book in Dutch literature in 2002.

Orsenna, Erik "Grammar Is a Sweet, Gentle Song" (French: La grammaire est une chanson douce) - 2001
An interesting story that explains grammar not only to children but also to learners of the French language. 

Shakespeare, William "Hamlet" - 1599/1602 
You always hear about the Danish Prince, the Skull, "To be or not to be", Elsinore, Ophelia, Rosenkrantz & Guildenstern etc. etc. But you never know the whole story until you have seen the play or read the fascinating story.

Zweig, Stefanie "Nowhere in Africa" and "Somewhere in Germany" - 1995+1996 * Book Club Questions - Nowhere in Africa - Somewhere in Germany (German: Nirgendwo in Afrika + Irgendwo in Deutschland) - 1942 

We are writing the year 1938 and attorney Walter Redlich manages to flee Nazi Germany in the last minute. They move to Kenya where he is hired as the manager of a farm. They are all experiencing this new country differently, Regina, 9 years old, embraces the life on the new continent, learns the languages, finds friends and cannot imagine another life. 

This is an almost-autobiography of author Stefanie Zweig who is one of my favourite authors. 

Happy October!

Happy October to all my Friends and Readers

New Calendar picture with this
beautiful watercolour painting by Frank Koebsch
"Ganz in Familie auf der Kranichwiese"
"All in the family on the crane meadow"

Frank says to this picture:
"Es ist immer wieder spannend, die Kraniche auf den Wiesen und Feldern zu beobachten. Gerade wenn im Herbst für die Vögel des Glücks der Tisch reichlich gedeckt ist."
"It's always exciting again to watch the cranes in the meadows and fields, especially when the table is richly laid in autumn for these birds of joy." 

Another beautiful picture. I love when the cranes fly in autumn and you can see their formations in the sky. A couple of years ago I was lucky to have the opportunity to take a picture of one.

Isn't that just beautiful?

Read more on their website here. *

* * *

September, my favourite month, was more a month of concerts but next month, there will be some plays in the theatre again. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet, some meetings with friends, some visits to the restaurant and an outing on a boat with my sick brother and his wife.

* * * 

Our Jane Austen read (see #Reading Austen project) this month was "Northanger Abbey" which has always been my least favourite novel by Jane Austen. However, I have quite enjoyed it this month. I can hardly believe that the year is almost over.

* * *

Not really a saying or a proverb this month but a word that is very important to Germans at this time of year:
Übergangsjacke

If you have learned German in school (or have a little feeling for languages), you probably know that Jacke means jacket. Übergang can usually mean passage, segue or crossing but in this case, it means transition. This is a jacket that you wear when it might be too cold for your summer jacket or too hot for your winter one. So, you wear your "Übergangsjacke" for a while until it gets colder.

Do you have a word for jackets like that in your language?

* * *

* You can also have a look under my labels Artist: Frank Koebsch and Artist: Hanka Koebsch where you can find all my posts about the two artists. 

🍁 I wish you all a very Happy October! 🍁