Category: Classics Club

The Classics Club Spin #19

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The Classics ClubHow time flies because it’s time for another Classics Club spin.  And not just any old spin but ‘an extra special, super-dooper CHUNKSTER edition’!  This time, the wonderful people who run The Classics Club are encouraging us to fill our spin list with 20 of the HUGE books we may have put off reading up until now.

For those unfamiliar with how the spin works, here are the step-by-step instructions:

  • At your blog, before next Tuesday 27th November 2018, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. This is your Spin List.
  • You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.
  • On Tuesday 27th November, we’ll post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List, by 31st January 2019.

When I looked at the unread books left on my Classics Club list, I was disappointed to find (OK, that’s a lie) that I don’t have that many huge books to choose from and very few that would qualify as ‘chunksters’.  However, I’ve selected the twenty biggest books…many of which will probably viewed as positively svelte by some.   Knowing my luck, though, I’ll end up with the biggest one anyway.  (The page numbers are in some cases from Goodreads so may not be accurate.  Gulp, you mean the books might actually have more pages than shown…?)

My Classics Club Spin #19 List

  1. The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood (281 pages)
  2. Villette by Charlotte Bronte (575 pages)
  3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (374 pages)
  4. Sick Heart River by John Buchan (318 pages)
  5. Kindred by Octavia E Butler (295 pages)
  6. Romola by George Eliot (708 pages)
  7. Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (461 pages)
  8. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (304 pages)
  9. Invitation to the Waltz by Rosamond Lehmann (255 pages)
  10. The Town House by Norah Lofts (301 pages)
  11. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (359 pages)
  12. A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates (406 pages)
  13. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers (483 pages)
  14. Katherine by Anya Seton (516 pages)
  15. The Last Man by Mary Shelley (291 pages)
  16. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (528 pages)
  17. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (343 pages)
  18. The Flowers of Adonis by Rosemary Sutcliff (425 pages)
  19. The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin (361 pages)
  20. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson (234 pages)

Will you be taking part in the Classics Club Spin #19?  If so, what’s the biggest book on your spin list and are you excited or daunted by the prospect of reading it?

Book Review: Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

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Gothic TalesAbout the Book

‘Such whispered tales, such old temptations and hauntings, and devilish terrors’

Elizabeth Gaskell’s chilling Gothic tales blend the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. Whether in ‘Disappearances’, inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings which mixes gossip and fact, or in ‘Curious, if True’, a playful reworking of fairy tales, all the pieces in this volume form a stark contrast to the social realism of Gaskell’s novels, revealing a darker and more unsettling style of writing.

Format: ebook (347 pp.)    Publisher: Shandon Press
Published: 11th October 2016      Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, Classics

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk  ǀ  Amazon.com 
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Gothic Tales on Goodreads

My Review

Better known now for her novels, such as Mary Barton and Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell became popular in her own time for her ghost stories, aided by Charles Dickens, who published her work in his magazine Household Words.  The stories in this collection date from 1851 to 1861.

Like many short story collections, some of the stories are stronger than others.  I wouldn’t say any of them are particularly scary but in the best of them there is certainly an unsettling air and a sense of the Gothic.  Common features include mysterious disappearances, revenge in the form of curses inherited down through generations, family rifts, ghostly visitations, heroines in peril and gloomy manor houses or chateaux.

Stories I particularly enjoyed were:

‘Lois the Witch’ – in which the reader gets a bad feeling for the fortunes of the heroine, Lois, as soon as it becomes clear she’s headed for 17th century Salem and that not everyone is pleased to see her.

‘The Old Nurse’s Story’ – in which a ghostly presence roams the freezing Northumberland moors

‘The Poor Clare’ – in which an evil double, the result of a woman’s bitter curse, haunts future generations

‘The Grey Woman’ – featuring a full-on Gothic chateau, complete with dark passages and sealed off wings, and a husband of dubious moral character

Gothic Tales is a book on my Classics Club list and my book for the Classic Club’s October Dare which involved reading a book from your list that classified as thrilling, a mystery, Gothic or a book or author that SCARED you (because of its length, it’s topic, it’s reputation etc).

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In three words: Spooky, mysterious, Gothic

Try something similar…Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James

Elizabeth GaskellAbout the Author

Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, née Stevenson (29 September 1810 – 12 November 1865), often referred to simply as Mrs. Gaskell, was an English novelist and short story writer during the Victorian era. She is perhaps best known for her biography of Charlotte Brontë.

Her novels offer a detailed portrait of the lives of many strata of society, including the very poor, and as such are of interest to social historians as well as lovers of literature.