Category: The Classics Club

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret7 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

8

which for me is The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by 2 June 2024.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Set at the height of the “tulipomania” that gripped Holland in 17th century, this is the story of Cornelius van Baerle, a humble grower whose sole desire is to grow the perfect specimen of the tulip negra.

When his godfather is murdered, Cornelius finds himself caught up in the deadly politics of the time, imprisoned and facing a death sentence. His jailor’s daughter Rosa, holds both the key to his survival and his chance to produce the ultimate tulip.


I loved The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas so I’m hoping to love this one too.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret20 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin.

Before next Sunday, 21 April 2024 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. On that day the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by 3rd March, 2024.

Here’s my list:

  1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  2. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  3. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
  4. The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin
  5. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
  6. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  7. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  8. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
  9. The Birds and other short stories by Daphne du Maurier
  10. I’ll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier
  11. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  12. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
  13. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
  14. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  15. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  16. Daisy Miller by Henry James
  17. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  18. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
  19. Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning
  20. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault

Which one/s would you recommend?

The Invisible Man by H G Wells

Published on by Margaret6 Comments

The Invisible Man is my Classics Club spin book The rules of the Spin are that this was the book for me to read by 3rd March 2024 and I did. In fact I finished it about two weeks early and only got round to writing about it a few days ago. The Invisible Man was first published in 1897, a science fiction novel, originating in Pearson’s Weekly. But it was not quite what I expected. And I certainly didn’t expect it to turn into slapstick comedy.

Synopsis from Amazon

‘The man’s become inhuman … He has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head.’

One night in the depths of winter, a bizarre and sinister stranger wrapped in bandages and eccentric clothing arrives in a remote English village. His peculiar, secretive activities in the room he rents spook the locals. Speculation about his identity becomes horror and disbelief when the villagers discover that, beneath his disguise, he is invisible.

Griffin, as the man is called, is an embittered scientist who is determined to exploit his extraordinary gifts, developed in the course of brutal self-experimentation, in order to conduct a Reign of Terror on the sleepy inhabitants of England. As the police close in on him, he becomes ever more desperate and violent.

In this pioneering novella, subtitled ‘A Grotesque Romance’, Wells combines comedy, both farcical and satirical, and tragedy – to superbly unsettling effect. Since its publication in 1897, The Invisible Man has haunted not only popular culture (in particular cinema) but also the greatest and most experimental novels of the twentieth century.

My thoughts

Griffin, a scientist, is a stranger to the village of Iping in West Sussex, staying at the Coach and Horses Inn. His story is a sad one. Whilst experimenting he has managed to make himself invisible, and dresses from top to toe in clothes, which even in winter makes him stand out from the crowd. Everything he does leads everyone to wonder what is wrong with him and draws attention to himself. What follows grows in intensity, as Griffin causes first confusion, then panic and finally madness. There’s a lot of shouting, pushing and fighting and surprisingly (to me at any rate) quite a lot of comedy – after all the invisible man is as naked as a new born baby.

I enjoyed it. There’s not much to the plot, it’s mainly a character study really, but what an amazing personality. And being invisible is not what he had thought – having to walk around with no shoes or socks on, especially in winter is not funny, neither is the sight of undigested food floating around mid-air. But it is worse than that because Griffin is only at the start of his escapade. By the end he is stark staring bonkers. Wells demonstrates the dangers of using science beyond control. Griffin has succeeded in lowering the refractive index of his body to make it invisible – ‘Either a body absorbs light or reflects it, or refracts it, or does all these things. If it neither refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible.’

Sadly, the end is all violence and drama!

The Classics Club Spin Result

Published on by Margaret5 Comments

The spin number in The Classics Club Spin is number …

20

which for me is The Invisible Man by H G Wells. The rules of the Spin are that this is the book for me to read by 3rd March 2024

Synopsis from Amazon

‘The man’s become inhuman … He has cut himself off from his kind. His blood be upon his own head.’

One night in the depths of winter, a bizarre and sinister stranger wrapped in bandages and eccentric clothing arrives in a remote English village. His peculiar, secretive activities in the room he rents spook the locals. Speculation about his identity becomes horror and disbelief when the villagers discover that, beneath his disguise, he is invisible.

Griffin, as the man is called, is an embittered scientist who is determined to exploit his extraordinary gifts, developed in the course of brutal self-experimentation, in order to conduct a Reign of Terror on the sleepy inhabitants of England. As the police close in on him, he becomes ever more desperate and violent.

In this pioneering novella, subtitled ‘A Grotesque Romance’, Wells combines comedy, both farcical and satirical, and tragedy – to superbly unsettling effect. Since its publication in 1897, The Invisible Man has haunted not only popular culture (in particular cinema) but also the greatest and most experimental novels of the twentieth century.

I was hoping I’d get one of the shorter books on my list – this one is just that at 192 pages. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Did you take part in the Classics Spin? What will you be reading?

Classics Club Spin

Published on by Margaret15 Comments

It’s time for another Classics Club Spin.

Before next Sunday, 21 January 2024 create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list. On that day the Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by 3rd March, 2024.

Here’s my list:

  1. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
  2. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
  3. The Case of the Gilded Fly by Edmund Crispin
  4. The Stars Look Down by A J Cronin
  5. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens
  6. Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
  7. The Lost World by Arthur Conan Doyle
  8. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
  9. The Birds and other short stories by Daphne du Maurier
  10. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
  11. Brighton Rock by Graham Greene
  12. The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
  13. Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith
  14. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  15. Daisy Miller by Henry James
  16. Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
  17. How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
  18. Friends and Heroes by Olivia Manning
  19. Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault
  20. The Invisible Man by H G Wells

Which one/s would you recommend?

Every Man For Himself by Beryl Bainbridge

Published on by Margaret11 Comments

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Every Man For Himself was the winner of the 1996 Whitbread Novel Award and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in that year.

For the four fraught, mysterious days of her doomed maiden voyage in 1912, the Titanic sails towards New York, glittering with luxury, freighted with millionaires and hopefuls. In her labyrinthine passageways the last, secret hours of a small group of passengers are played out, their fate sealed in prose of startling, sublime beauty, as Beryl Bainbridge’s haunting masterpiece moves inexorably to its known and terrible end.

This is one of her historical novels, so it’s no surprise that this is a disaster novel. It’s the story of Morgan’s voyage divided into four days as he tells it. It’s mainly the story of the young rich people as they drink and party their way across the Atlantic. Morgan is part of the crowd but he is not rich, and although he has connections, he’s a young American who has to earn his living. We only see a glimpse into his background and I found it confusing for quite a way into the book. But eventually we learn more about him and things became clearer,

By the time he writes about day 4, the sinking itself, the pace speeds up, and the story came to life for me. I think Bainbridge conveys what it must have been like –

There was such a dearth of information, of confirmation or denial of rumours – the racquet court was under water but not the Turkish baths; a spur of the iceberg had ripped the ship from one end to the other but the crew was fully equipped to make good the damage and were even now putting it to rights – and such an absence of persons in authority to whom one might turn that it was possible to imagine the man in the golfing jacket had spoken no more than the truth when presupposing we were victims of a hoax. (page 179)

I could easily imagine what it was like to be a passenger, people rushing about the boat, trying to get on the lifeboats and being separated from friends and family. And the final scenes bring home the reality that it really was a case of every man for himself with the callous attitude towards the steerage passengers, the lack of lifeboats and the disregard of the ice warnings. And so the boat described as unsinkable, sank.