[issybird]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Congrats on starting this new venture! I hope it’s a success. The titles look terrific.

The only thing I would suggest for order might be to have Don Quixote go second or third. This is for a purely selfish reason; it’s the one I’ve already read and for me it might be nice to have the first one in the order be something I haven’t. But I don’t have a strong feeling either way so if others prefer the Cervantes first then that’s fine for me too.

ETA- And I like the snazzy new classics icon.

Thanks! As for Don Quixote (or any of the other titles), if there’s an objection other titles could be entertained. You don’t seem averse, though; the main feeling seems to be not to have that come first.

Originally Posted by Catlady

The classics I would most like to be prodded to read include these:

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
• Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Les Miserables has been on my short list for a while so I’d love to get to that. A few of these have already been read in earlier book clubs and especially for substantial works, those who’ve participated in a discussion about them already might (reasonably, it seems to me) wish to invest the time in something new. One final note about War and Peace; it might not be of interest to those who followed the very popular online discussion of that last spring. I did, and I know astrangerhere did.

Originally Posted by John F

What's the rush? Let's nominate and vote. If we don't want to get bogged down, then go with the old rule: three nominations per member, first ten books with 3 nominations (or one week) move on to the poll, then read, then discuss.

We really, really want to get away from that model. It’s too time-consuming and takes a lot of effort that could better be spent reading and discussing.

FWIW, the first post was the first time I'd seen those three books "nominated". And as far as classics, wouldn't Middlemarch be more appropriate than Daniel Deronda?

As I said in the first post, Don Quixote and Daniel Deronda were gleaned from earlier posts expressing an interest in discussing them. East Lynne is a little out of left field, but why not? It doesn’t all have to be serious. And Middlemarch was already read in the Lit Club.

Ultimately, it’s a case of so many books, so little time. We can’t read everything, more’s the pity. Can we hold some thoughts? If things go swimmingly, we could well want another selection this year. Does anyone have a serious objection to one of the proposed titles?

Given the input so far, I’d propose for a schedule:

May 15: Daniel Deronda
Aug 15: East Lynne
Nov 15: Don Quixote

This breaks up the two serious works with the lighter selection and postpones Don Quixote until the end, when a substitution could be made if it were thought it wouldn’t work out.