A Victorian Celebration: North and South Giveaway!

Well, A Victorian Celebration has been under way for a few hours, and it is time to launch the first giveaway. I have a number of giveaways planned for throughout the event, so make sure you check back to see what is currently underway!

I have been checking out my big old pile of reads for the event, and settled on finishing Nicholas Nickleby by Dickens (I started it in February, but set it aside), as well as The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell. I thought they would make a good jumping off point!

The first giveaway for the event is for another of Gaskell's works. I am a huge fan of Gaskell and have been slowly reading her complete works over the last couple of years. Today's title is one of my favorites by her and one that I hope I get to during this event.

From Goodreads.com...

"When her father leaves the Church in a crisis of conscience, Margaret Hale is uprooted from her comfortable home in Hampshire to move with her family to the north of England. Initially repulsed by the ugliness of her new surroundings in the industrial town of Milton, Margaret becomes aware of the poverty and suffering of the local mill workers and develops a passionate sense of social justice. This is intensified by her tempestuous relationship with the mill-owner and self-made man, John Thornton, as their fierce opposition over his treatment of his employees masks a deeper attraction. In North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell skillfully fuses individual feeling with social concern, and in Margaret Hale creates one of the most original heroines of Victorian literature."

Up for grabs is a brand new Penguin edition of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. To enter, please read and follow the rules and instructions below:

• This first giveaway will be open to any residents of the U.S. or Canada (my international participants, I have special giveaways planned for you later on in the event!).
• You MUST be a participant of A Victorian Celebration to enter.
• You MUST be 13 years or older
• You do not have to follow me or subscribe to qualify
• You MUST leave me your e-mail so that I contact you if you win
• The winner will have 48 hours to respond or I will pick a new winner.
• To enter, comment on this post and answer the following question: What is the first title you are reading for the event and why did you pick it?
• The giveaway will be open until 11:59 PM on Friday, June 8, 2012 EST. 

That's it! I hope you're enjoying your first reads!

Book 85: Mary Barton and Book Stats.

Title: Mary Barton

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865)

First Published: 1848

My Edition: Penguin Classic (seen at right)

Pages: 417

Other Works Include: Cranford (1853), Ruth (1853), North and South (1854), The Life of Charlotte Bronte (1857) and Wives and Daughters (1865)

I am fairly familiar with Elizabeth Gaskell. One of the first readalongs I hosted here was on Cranford (posts are linked below). In college, I had a friend introduce me to the wonders of the BBC adaptation of North and South, which I promptly purchased to watch over and over again. I eventually read the novel (which I LOVE), so I would say that I am definitely a fan of her work.

It was a recent re-watch of the BBC miniseries that inspired me to pick up another of her novels. I was feeling all needy for some Gaskell-inspired England, so this was the only choice left to me off my list (When I made my list, I originally excluded Gaskell, but eventually put in three of her titles. Since I had already read North and South, I decided to add in three titles I was unfamiliar with: Cranford, Mary Barton, and Wives and Daughters, which may be a readalong in September). Whew. Anyway, I am excited to read some of earlier work. This one seems promising and I am excited to dive in.

Have you read anything by Gaskell? I would love to read her biography on Charlotte Bronte, but I need to find a copy first. :)

If interested, here are the links to my posts on Cranford (Book 48):

• Readalong Sign-ups
• Post 1 on Chapters 1-8
• Post 2 on Chapters 9-16
  

Changes and Goals.

While I have been away from here, I have been reflecting a lot on the blog, the books I have chosen to read, and my goals for this coming year.

To start with, I simply planned on chronicling my reading of a set list of books that were predetermined in advance. Based on everything I researched, I simply selected 250 of the most recognizable classics. Even as I was making the list I was questioning myself. I wasn’t sure if I should slim down the list to a more “manageable” number (like 100), or if I should cut out all dramas, which slim the list down even more. It was a hard task, and inevitably, some books didn’t make it on the list while others did.

In the time since then, I have come to realize that there are 2 authors NOT on the list that should be. Both of these authors are considered among the “classics” and their work is from the same time period. I feel like it is only fair to myself and the credibility of my list that they be added. However, I didn’t want to add more numbers, so I decided, after a lot of indecision, to remove 5 books from the list.

Choosing which books should be removed was difficult. I honestly just wanted to remove the entire remaining Dickens novels….but I figured that would not be a good thing in regards to my goal of reading the classics (classics and Dickens seem to go hand in hand). I eventually decided to remove some of the few volumes of autobiographical work, as well as a few nonfiction titles. Pretty much everything on my list is fiction or drama, so those few volumes seemed to stick out.

So, here are the new changes.

Titles I will be removing:
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
Utopia by Thomas More
Autobiography by Malcom X

With the exception of Origin of Species, I have read all of these books in college, so I won’t be missing out on too much.

Here are the authors and titles I will be adding in their place:
Wives and Daughters, Cranford, and Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell (I am leaving North and South off the list since I have watched the BBC mini-series more times than I can count and know nothing of her other work).
The Woman in White and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins.

I am also going to give myself 5 free passes to take a break from this list to read something NOT on the list. I am doing this for a few reasons…but mainly because there are a lot of great concluding novels coming out in the next year or two to series that I have been following. I don’t want to have to avoid reading other book blogs for a time period because of reviews on those books. Also, I will need that opportunity for a break.
Don’t get me wrong, I love reading these classics, but they take a lot more brain power than a fantasy novel, or a young adult read. My reading pace has slowed considerably and it is hard not to get discouraged.

I am also going to be networking a little more than I was. I kind of “Gave up” on reaching out to other bloggers in the last month or so (the wedding being the main reason), so I want to really pick that up and discover some other new blogs to read.

As a personal “book” oriented goal, I really want to hit the magical 100 again this year, since I only hit 90 last year (a huge disappointment), so I will be trying to pick up some more things, or trying to switch between a few things if I get into a rut.

Anyway, that seems to be all of my thoughts on the blog and blog details for now. I am updating the book list (which was posted back in August) to reflect my new changes.

Happy reading everyone!