2012 Challenges: And my first challenge to sign up for is....

...Laura's Reviews Victorian Challenge. I have been anticipating the official sign-up post for at least a month now!!! So I was thrilled to find it's up now!!!

What I Read:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis
The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright
A Boy Called Dickens. Deborah Hopkinson.
Charles Dickens: England's Most Captivating Storyteller. Catherine Wells-Cole.
The Mistress of Nothing. Kate Pullinger.
Being God's Friend. Charles Spurgeon.
Power in the Blood. Charles Spurgeon.
The Practice of Praise: How To Develop the Habit of Abundant, Continual Praise In Your Daily Life by Charles Spurgeon.
Grace God's Unmerited Favor. Charles Spurgeon.
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
The Light Princess. George MacDonald. 1864. 110 pages.
The Princess and the Goblin. George MacDonald. 1872. 259 pages.
Cousin Henry. Anthony Trollope. 1879. 336 pages.
Dombey and Son. Charles Dickens. 1846-1848. 880 pages.
Magnificent Obsession: Victoria, Albert, and the Death that Changed the British Monarchy. Helen Rappaport. 2012. St. Martin's Press. 352 pages.
Becoming Queen Victoria: The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte and the Unexpected Rise of Britain's Greatest Monarch. Kate Williams.
The Queen of Hearts. Wilkie Collins. 1859. 484 pages.

What I Watched:

Jane Eyre (1944)
David Copperfield (1935)
Victoria and Albert (2001)
North and South (2005)
The Valley of Decision (1945) (set in America/England)
Young Victoria (2009)
Jane Eyre (1983)
Jane Eyre (2011)
Jane Eyre (1934, 1944, 1949)
Jane Eyre (1970, 1973)
Jane Eyre (2006)
Jane Eyre (1997)
Jane Eyre (1996)
Pickwick Papers (1985)
Our Mutual Friend (1998)

I definitely plan on watching some movies:

• several adaptations of Jane Eyre
• North and South (because can I really go a year without at least seeing it once? if not twice?!)
• Our Mutual Friend and/or Pickwick Papers and/or Bleak House (essentially *something* Dickens related
• Wives and Daughters and/or Cranford 
• possibly a George Eliot adaptations? (Adam Bede, Middlemarch, Mill on the Floss, Silas Marner, Daniel Deronda).

I definitely plan on reading some books:

Anthony Trollope: I'll be starting the Palliser series if all goes well. Can You Forgive Her?, Phineas Finn, The Eustace Diamonds, Phineas Redux, The Prime Minister, The Duke's Children.

Charles Dickens: I know I want to read Nicholas Nickleby. I am also really tempted to reread Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House. But I'll definitely try to read some Dickens throughout the year!!!

Wilkie Collins: I have several unread Collins to experience: No Name, The Law and the Lady, Basil, Miss or Mrs?, Haunted Hotel, Guilty River. But I also am wanting to reread some I've already read, in particular, Man and Wife and Armadale. (The Woman in White I read in October, so I'm not exactly ready to reread that just yet.)

Elizabeth Gaskell: Wouldn't it be FUN to read/reread all of Gaskell's books in 2012?! It sounds so tempting to me!!! Anyway, I KNOW I'll be rereading North and South. And I'd love to reread Wives and Daughters. And maybe Cranford. And maybe Mary Barton. But I'd definitely like to get to Ruth and maybe just maybe Sylvia's Lovers. And Gaskell's biography of Charlotte Bronte would be good too. Anyway, Gaskell is going to get some of my attention next year!

Charlotte Bronte: I'd like to read Shirley and possibly Villette.

Anne Bronte: Agnes Grey



© 2011 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews