16) Read five classic novels

I've always loved reading - my mum talks of me learning to read, recognising things from the TV and repeating them back. Once I started school I loved the monthly book clubs and was so disappointed the time we couldn't buy me a new book as we were moving house and my teacher lent me a school book to take home. I wanted books that much. Needless to say our house is crammed with them and I will always buy my children books - you just need to look in their rooms.....

But when you're a working mum of two, me time is scarce and finding time to read, well anything, is hard. And I figured, there are a few gaping holes in my reading which a challenge like this would help address. Don't fret these aren't the first classic novels I read - my English teachers at school made sure of this and I also have A Level English Literature. That's fairly hard to pass without brushing past a few classics (I could have avoided Chaucer though...)

So, it's done - and below are the five consumed and a brief 'book club' overview!

1) The Great Gatsby
I read Tender is the Night (or Tittin as we shortened it too) for my A Level and found how terribly sad it was. Now having read TGG I realise this may be a Scott Fitzgerald thing. All the glitz and the glamour but it all has to unravel. A very good read though and quite compelling to say the least. I hope the recent film lives up to the novel.

2) Oliver Twist
Yep sung at school, watched the film, never read the book. Well I have now. The classic film with Ron Moody seems to have a different ending to the novel which I'm not going to spoil. Needless to say they wanted to give something else to the audience. It's hard to read as of course written in the style of the time which shamefully as my first Dickens, I had yet to find out, but it is good to read the whole story rather than rely on the film.

3) Sense and Sensibility
What drove me to read this novel in particular was hearing the news all Jane Austen's works were to be rewritten by modern day writers. I admit that above I said some old books were hard to read but having previously read Pride and Prejudice I strongly felt that we should remain with the original. It's bad enough that classics are hard enough to come by (my village library hardly holds classics and I had to order this in from another library) but rewriting them? Anyway, with that in mind I plumped on Sense and Sensibility. It's like many other books of this time and young women finding suitors to obviously marry and settle down with and of course secure the futures for their families. With that in mind there is always a slight sense of predictability, and you feel fairly sure of the ultimate outcome, but I felt in this case Austen seemed to get bored and suddenly rush to the end.

4) Howards End
I read this one over a week at my in laws when raiding my mother in laws book selection. I was going to go for A Room with a View but as it had been one of my sister in laws study texts, like my books it's covered in handwriting making it impossible and distracting to read. So I plumped for this and really enjoyed the book - with a number of twists to the tale but essentially a happy ending. Definitely worth a read.

5) Alice in Wonderland
Well as the clock was ticking a bit I thought it might be an idea to find a relatively short classic! And Alice did not disappoint certainly in terms of length! It's written in such a way that it's almost as nonsensical as the characters within and you race around at about 100 miles an hour. However it gets a fifth ticked off quite nicely indeed!

So there you go, definitely a good challenge as made me put time aside to read. And pleased to have it done as it means I've freed up some time to read the books that I've got stacked up in a pile but not allowed to read as they're not classics, and also time to write one of my books so it does become one!