Presenting the first ever Reading Challenge from Books on the Nightstand! (Since it’s our first, I’m still a little unsure of the do’s and don’t's of creating a reading challenge, so I hope all of you RC veterans out there will look kindly on our freshman effort!)
A new book arrives in U.S. stores today, May 19th; Beowulf on the Beach by Jack Murnighan is an accessible, funny and extremely readable guide to 50 great works of literature, as chosen by the author. You can hear me rave more about this book on episode 31 of the podcast, which goes live May 20th.
Long story short, I was embarrassed at how few of the 50 books I had read, and have committed, this summer, to reading 4 classics I’ve never read before. Want to join me? The reading challenge is very flexible, but here are few “rules:”
- The reading challenge runs from May 25 – September 7, 2009 (Memorial Day to Labor Day)
- Read at least one book featured in Beowulf on the Beach, though you can, of course, read more.
- Write about your challenge and reading experience (on a blog, Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, etc.)
- Feel free to use one of our beautiful reading challenge buttons on your blog (see above and below)
Pretty simple, huh? Click into this widget to see the Table of Contents, listing all of the books covered:
and now, for some free books:
Win one of FIVE signed copies of Beowulf on the Beach!
There are four different ways to enter:
- Comment on this blog post, telling us what your favorite classic is
- Comment on the discussion at Goodreads
- Comment on the discussion at Facebook
- Tweet the following on Twitter: “BOOKS ON THE NIGHTSTAND is giving away five signed copies of BEOWULF ON THE BEACH! To enter, tweet this! http://is.gd/Bn7A”
We’ll pick two winners from the blog comments and one from each of the other three “venues.” We’ll announce the winners on Sunday May 31st, so you’ll still have plenty of time to participate in the challenge… Good Luck and Good Reading!
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Have a comment, question, or book recommendation? Call our voicemail line and wait for the beep. Tell us if we may play your message on a future podcast.
Hi Dottie-
Not sure why the widget isn’t showing up for you…? Go to this page and if it doesn’t show up here, it must be an add on or some other program your computer needs:
https://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780307409577
Thanks for pointing out the fun items listed in the index! When I read the book on my eReader, there was no index, and I hadn’t noticed that in the printed version!
What a great challenge! I have to say that my favorite classic is Anna Karenina by Tolstoy! A classic love story! I also love To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper.
Will blog about the challenge this weekend! Thanks for the challenge! Sometimes I think we forget that ‘classics’ are allowed as summer beach reads!
Just tweeted the giveaway!
I LOVED reading the Iliad last year. Other favorites include Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. I realize I need to read a lot more of the classics! They are so good.
Hi Michael! I just posted the Beowulf on The Beach Reading challenge on my blog Chick with Books!
Here’s the URL for everyone to come by and check it out:
http://www.chickwithbooks.blogspot.com/
Book sounds great!
I really like The House of Moreys, by Phyliss Bentley, but that just might be old and not so much a classic. Not sure. And of course I have my stand bys, Little Women & Pride and Prejudice
As with all such lists, this one seems to me to have some flaws, especially regarding readability. Some of the choices are just plain boring, whatever other merits, at least by my experience:
Musil’s book: boring! And he’s anti-Semitic.
Faerie Queene by Spencer: boring! I suffered through it in college.
“Brothers Karamazov” by Dostoevsky: boring! I tried reading it again recently, and found it digressive and overblown.
“Ulysses” by James Joyce: boring! Like reading a jigsaw puzzle… and for what?
Proust’s multi-book “Remembrance of Things Past” is impossible! Thousands of pages! Hundreds of hours wasted! OK, try the first of the books, “Swann’s Way” which is quite wonderful.
“Beowolf” is deadly unless one reads the wonderful modern version by Irish poet Heaney.
Some are choices of great authors that are not my own first choice:
I’d rather read “Cousin Bette” anyday than “Pere Goriot” by Balzac.
I like the more reachable “Absalom! Absalom!” rather than the much-academia-touted “Sound and the Fury”.
Mann’s “Magic Mountain” is pretentious and “meaningful” in all the most boring ways. I much prefer his “Buddenbrooks”.
The three Shakespeare plays are all tragedies, because I guess tragedies are serious and therefore more worthwhile than… a comedy! “As You Like It”, a masterpiece. Or, god forbid, a history play, like the masterpiece “Henry IV, parts 1 and 2″, in which is introduced the character of Falstaff.
And a few that just do not belong on a list of classics: Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer”?! (Only Miller can make heterosexual sex boring!) and Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room” (much as I like Baldwin)?
And, of course, forgivable are the missing readable classics, like maybe Sophocles’ plays or Terence’s comedies or Racine’s verse tragedies or… Calderon or… Eugene O’Neill’s “Touch of the Poet”, among the many many missing dramatists. Where’s Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn”? Where’s any one of Yasanari Kawabata’s novels like “House of the Sleeping Beauties”? or one of Munichiro Tanizaki? Why so few women – something not classical about Wharton? Cather? Penelope Fitzgerald? One might argue for Trollope’s “The Way We Live Now”. Is it too early to declare for “The Assault” by Dutchman Harry Mulisch, a standard in that country? Ah, but these are forgivable in a list like that.
I think for my favorite classics I’d have to go with Hamlet and Macbeth. I liked seeing all the classics people mentioned!
Ernie,
I think the point is, that if you found those books boring, you need to read “Beowulf on the Beach,” for an approach that would make them NOT boring!
Inasmuch as you’re not supposed to judge a book by the cover, judging it by the TOC is also probably not a good idea!
Plus, Ernie, books always come down to individual opinions… What Jack does here is tells you what to look for in these books, what he thinks makes them interesting and why HE thinks their worthwhile.
I’m sure he realizes that not everyone will love these books the way he does, but maybe those on the fence will be pushed over to the good side with a little bit of help.
But again, it’s all about individual opinions and thanks so much for sharing yours!
Beowulf On The Beach looks like such an awesome book!
I haven’t read all that many but it would be a toss-up between Divine Comedy or a volume of Collected Works of Shakespeare (feels like cheating but I love Shakespeare too much to show favoritism)
To Kill A Mockingbird is my favorite classic book. I read it in junior high and it has stuck with me every since!
Many thanks, Cindi
My favorite classic (so far) is Dickens’ “Bleak House.” I re-read it every couple of years and always find something new to appreciate.
My favorite classic is To Kill A Mockingbird.
I only meant to warn those of you moving towards picking a book, in my experience, which of them are not enjoyable and/or especially enriching experiences. It is, of course, subjective. On the other hand: these selections seem especially middle-brow (“serious” is good, “comic” is not), Western-culture centered (where’s Japan? Africa? Australia? India?), and therefore miss alot that’s out there. And: reading his book, or standing on my head, or eating ice cream the entire time, will not make (for me) REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST less boring. But: there’s alot from the list that IS worthwhile and enjoyable, and I encourage you to choose one.
Probably my favourite classic is Pride and Prejudice.
My favourite classic is The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
but I also love Shakespeare plays, George Eliot, Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell
http://lyndasbookblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/beowulf-on-beach-reading-challenge.html
I used to love Anna K., but in recent years I’ve developed a strong desire to kick her in the butt. Pride and Prejudice is coming on strong.
Ernie calls Brothers K. boring, but I could not put it down when I read it in college. Re-read it in my forties and enjoyed it once again. Absolutely fascinating people in dramatic situations.
This definitely demonstrates that its different strokes for different folks. That’s fortunate, or only one type of author would be able to sell books.
I tweeted and commended on Facebook. I’m glad I found you.
My new favorite is To Kill a Mockingbird. My old favorite is The Count of Monte Cristo.
My favorite is probably The Three Musketeers…the LONG, unedited version.
I’ve been a lurker for a while so this is as good a time as any to comment. I’m very excited about this challenge as I’ve recently resolved to read more classics and even joined a local book club to accomplish that end.
I too despaired over how little of the Beowulf list I have covered. Some of it, like Virginia Woolf, is a writer I’ve always meant to read–btw, that would be an interesting list or challenge too. Writers you always meant to read but somehow never did. I made my own list recently and found it quite shaming: Jane Austen, Kurt Vonnegut (I know, right?), Cormac McCarthy, Woolf, Marshall McLuhan.
Anyways, I suspect I’ll tackle someone from that list for my own challenge. I’m not sure anything can make me read James Joyce or Proust tho. Sorry.
For my own classic favorites, I vote for “To Kill a Mockingbird”, any number of Tennessee Williams’ plays, “In Cold Blood” and “Great Expectations.”
Welcome Vanessa (lurker-no-more!)
I love the use of fountain pens and rich creamy stationary, and hardback books with bindings; but I also love my iPhone and today, I dnloaded the Kindle app and did my first WhisperSync dnload, “BOTB!” While I don’t groove on e-readers in general, this I like! I can goto the TOC, tap on the title of a book, and I’m automagically taken to that entry! The app now also has landscaping and tap-to-turn pages (as opposed to portrait-only presentation and swiping). Still, I’ll be buying the novels themselves in dead-tree versions!
Pride and Prejudice.
What’s the protocol on getting an actual discussion started? Do we post a general comment about a book, respond to JM’s points from his book, write something provocative… Do we just jump right in, or will Ann, Michael, and/or Jack moderate/guide discussions or, post Conversation Starters? Do we confine our posts to one forum, or cross-post across all three (blog, FB, Goodreads?)
Just curious
I’m in! I posted about the challenge here on my challenge-focused site but my reviews will be at Becky’s Book Reviews.
My favorite classic is probably Frankenstein, though really I love so many it’s hard to know for sure
This is just the thing I was looking for, for a summer challenge. I’m in!
I’ve just found your reading challenge via The Book Lady’s Blog.
I have several classics that I particularly enjoyed. Pride & Prejudice is a read often favourite. I still have my high school copy with all the notes I wrote in the margins.
I also loved Daniel Deronda by George Eliot and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of being Ernest (am I allowed to include plays?). I also love some of the children’s classics, especially Alice in Wonderland.
thanks to all who have commented over the past few days.. glad to hear so many have taken up the challenge! (and Susan, plays can definitely count as favorites! Jack includes several by Shakespeare in the book…)
Regarding Tanya’s question about where the discussions will happen…. Firstly, I’d like to apologize for not setting something up sooner. Thanks for the nudge, Tanya!
I’ve set up a Beowulf on the Beach RC folder on our Goodreads group. Within that folder, we can start a discussion topic thread for any of the 50 books in Beowulf on the Beach that we’d like to discuss. I’ve already started one on Moby Dick. Check out my introductory post for more info.
As for whether Jack will chime in, that’s up to him. He’s certainly welcome to, and I’ll extend the offer, but I know he’s a busy guy. That being said, he’s been thrilled with all of you taking on this challenge and reading his book, so I suspect we’ll hear from him!
(NOTE: to any of you not on Goodreads… I know it’s somewhat limiting to confine all of our discussions to one site, but we have a vibrant group over there and Goodreads makes it very easy to organize topics into one folder for easy viewing. It’s a great site that I highly recommend, and it’s free!)
as Ann points out, we actually have more fans on Facebook, than on Goodreads, so I’ll add some discussion areas there as well!
I’d like to join the challenge please and read Jane Eyre, as I never have and so many view it as one of their favourites. Thank you.
My all-time favorite has been Pride and Prejudice for quite some time (I can’t get enough of the wit and insults exchanged between Elizabeth and Darcy!).
Still, I can’t help but give an Honorable Mention to Les Miserables. I read it last year as my own personal challenge, and while large sections of it were difficult (who needs to know about Napoleon at Waterloo?), every single one of his characters had such depth and truth. I have to say it: Hugo has skills.
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