CurrerBell's BFBs for 2024

Back again for another year. Hope I can do better this year than just the nine I chalked up for 2023. I've got the centenary edition of Balzac, though, the one translated by Ellen Marriage. It came, I think, to 34 volumes in its original publication; but then it was reprinted in apparently "economy" texts with each volume doubled up to create a 17-volume set, which is what I have. The doubling up makes all seventeen volumes BFBs.

I'm planning on a major reading project on the 19th century French novel for the coming year. I started with Balzac and got through a first volume (Wild Ass' Skin, Chouans, ... other stories) back in August and I've already gotten partway through a second volume (Eugénie Grandet, Country Parson ... other stories) of which all I've read so far is Eugénie Grandet, so Balzac gives me a good start on BFBs. Then of course there's Hugo; but I don't know of any others who will necessarily qualify as BFBs (except for Dumas, whom I personally consider a bit of a lightweight), although including Maupassant should give me a BFB for his complete short stories.

The Reading Through Time Group will be taking up Adultery in October and I'll most likely be taking up Anna Karenina in the Norton Critical. (My own hosted topic, Vive la France!, is scheduled of course for July in honor of Bastille Day, and I'm hoping I'm very well along on Balzac by then and itching to get on to Zola.)

There's always plenty of the Library of America to get through (James, both Henry and William; Faulkner; Washington Irving ... to name just a few). And I could do with a reread of my single-volume edition of Lord of the Rings and Barnes & Noble single-volume edition of Narnia, maybe also a reread of my deluxe The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition.

Let's start by trying for FIVE.
Hit my initial goal of 5. Now aiming for TEN.
Having hit 10 I'm now aiming (unrealistically?) at TWENTY:

Jan 22: Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shards of Earth 558pp (Kindle)
Feb 20: C.S. Lewis, The Space Trilogy 720pp
Feb 29: Elizabeth Taylor: Complete Short Stories 626pp
Mar 11: Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water 724pp
Mar 21: Honoré de Balzac, Country Doctor; Quest of the Absolute ... other stories ~760pp

Apr 14: Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris (Oxford World's Classics, trans Alban Krailsheimer) ~591pp
MaY 13: Victor Hugo, The Toilers of the Sea 579pp
May 21 ... Honoré de Balzac, Eugénie Grandet; Country Parson ... other stories ~815pp
Aug 8 ... Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (Modern Library) (trans Julie Rose) 1376pp
Aug 21 ... Iain Pears, Arcadia 510pp

Sep 26 ... Hannah Whitten, For the Throne 513pp
Nov 26 ... Edgar Rice Burroughs, Venus series 990pp (Kindle)
Dec 18 ... Samuel Delaney, Dhalgren 801pp

You have some great reading planned for 2024. Anna Karenina will be perfect for adultery - I wish I hadn't reread it recently.

>1 CurrerBell: I'm a big fan of Balzac and I also have his collection of La Comédie humaine, inherited from my grandmother. I have not read enough of his work so maybe this year I can take the plunge and crack open Le Colonel Chabert.

Fun fact: I lived in Sceaux in regularly go back. Balzac's short story Le Bal de Sceaux is inspired from the incredibly popular balls held there in the 1800s; Victor Hugo went there to surprise his fiancé and wrote a poem about it. Today, only a plaque remains, next to the marketplace.

Hi Mike. So glad see you here reading those BFB's. I hope you will reach your goal and your reading plans.

... and to add another 19th century French BFB, I just found at a used bookstore (for $6.50) a nice hardbound copy of a number of novels/stories of Théophile Guatier.

Hi Mike, welcome back.

>7 johnsimpson: Thanks, John. Always happy to be here having fun with BFBs! I see Tim gave us a but of a promotion in the most recent State of the Thing (us and several other of the challenge groups, including the 75-book group I'm in).

>8 CurrerBell:, Hi Mike, it was lovely to see the group mentioned in the State of the Thing newsletter, it has garnered us some new members so it has done its work.

So far, coming along better this year than ever before ... three so far, with two in February (one a C.S. Lewis reread, but not my Narnia omnibus as I thought I might but rather The Space Trilogy omnibus, which tied in with the February Reading Through Time theme).

ETA: The Elizabeth Taylor volume also ties in with the Virago Reading Project for February.

Just hit my initial goal of 5, now aiming for 10.

>13 barbucueSnakePussy: Thank you!

OK, having now hit 10, I'm again going to reset my goal, this time to 20; but considering that roughly two-thirds of the year is finished, 15 might be more realistic. We'll see what happens.

OK, let's call it quits at 13. Not bad at all, especially considering that my year was a bit interrupted for a couple of months recovering from a broken hip.

Next year, as part of my Vive la France! project, I'm planning on a bit of a Dumas binge, which will produce a few BFBs. And I'll be getting back to my Balzac in the 1899 Centennial translation edition of La Comédie humaine, all of which are BFBs. And for the first quarter read (the Renaissance) in the Reading Through Time group, I'm planning on a complete read of Montaigne's Essays.

>16 CurrerBell: Oh! very nice projects! I'm a huge fan of Balzac. Bonne chance