I am stoked to be participating in victober!! It’s a month long readathon focused on reading Victorian works, and hosted by Books and Things, Kate Howe and LucytheReader over on YouTube.
– the challenges –
This year, there are five challenges plus the group read, Gothic Tales.
- Read a Victorian sensation novel.
- Read a Victorian book set in the countryside and/or the city.
- Read a Victorian book with a female main character.
- Read a popular Victorian book you haven’t yet read.
- Read aloud a section of a Victorian work, or have it read aloud to you.
– the tbr –
- No Name is a sensation novel and my first dip into the work of Wilkie Collins. All I know is that it’s about a fall from grace. How mysterious!
- Bleak House seemed an obvious choice for a book set in the city given the opening line is ‘London.’
- For a female main character I looked to George Eliot as the women in Middlemarch are some of my favourite characters. the lead in The Mill on the Floss is Maggie Tulliver, and the blurb describes her as ‘a heroine whose rebellious spirit closely resembles George Eliot’s own’, so obviously I was sold.
- As a bestseller of 1891, I think New Grub Street is a fair choice for a popular Victorian novel. I’ve had this one on my shelves for quite a while so I’m glad to be getting around to it.
- I’ve picked The Pirates of Penzance as a work to be read aloud as there is a musical version so I can read the script as I watch along.
- Gothic Tales is the group read and I’m stoked to get to it! I’ve read a couple of Gaskell’s short stories before and loved them all.
- As a bonus read, I’ll be buddy reading Mary Barton with Lauren over on insta!
What are you hoping to read this month?
queerying literature 