U3A York Revisiting the Classics
Membership of this group is open to current members of York U3A. Prior to joining York U3A you may attend ONE 'taster' session. Please contact the leader before attending your first session.
“...the reader who plucks a book from her shelf only once is as deprived as the listener who, after attending a single performance of a Beethoven symphony, never hears it again.”
― Anne Fadiman
This group offers the opportunity to re-read books and reflect on them, noting how one’s impression of or feeling about them has changed over time. However, it is also a chance to “visit” a well-known author or novel, British or otherwise, for the first time and catch up on “essential” reading.
Titles are proposed by the group, and members will participate by each introducing a book each year, as well as taking part in the general discussions. Meetings take place on the last Friday of the month, from 2.00 till 4.00pm. There is no meeting in December or August. During the coronavirus outbreak we're meeting by Zoom. Links will be sent out to all members before each meeting. From September we hope to meet in the Garden Room, Friends Meeting House, York
Contact Details: revisitingclassics@yorku3a.com or 01904422414
Obtaining the books
Check York Libraries online. NB look for ebooks as well as hard copies.
Being classics, most of our books are available fairly cheaply on Kindle, some of them free.
Some are available free online as PDFs.
Amazon sell books second-hand. Older, well-known books are often extremely cheap, and the standard price for posting is usually £2.80.
The OXFAM bookshops in York can tell you if a particular book is in stock, and keep it for you: 69 Low Petergate: 01904 652749; 46 Micklegate: 01904 652140
Some details about availability, correct at the time of writing, are given under each title.
2020-2021
For 20-21 we are reading books from the BBC list of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World. The books that members have already chosen or suggested are marked on the list in red, as are texts that we have studied in past years.
2021-2022
From September 2021 we'll be reading books that are proposed by individual members, and that are acceptable to the rest of the group. Books chosen may be in translation, but must be at least 50 years old. They will be readily available and not prohibitively expensive.
We'll be meeting in the Garden Room in the Friends Meeting House, assuming the epidemic is over.
Next session: ZOOM
Friday May 28 (JB)
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole (Sue Townsend) 1982
Kindle £3.99, Amazon £5.66; used 0.50 + p&p; York Explore 2 copies + 1 electronic
Winter
THURSDAY JANUARY 1ST: Bank Holiday in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales
These are my New Year’s resolutions:
I will help the blind across the road.
I will hang my trousers up.
I will put the sleeves back on my records.
I will not start smoking.
I will stop squeezing my spots.
I will be kind to the dog.
I will help the poor and ignorant.
After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.
My father got the dog drunk on cherry brandy at the party last night. If the RSPCA hear about it he could get done.
Eight days have gone by since Christmas Day but my mother still hasn’t worn the green lurex apron I bought her for Christmas! She will get bath cubes next year.
Just my luck, I’ve got a spot on my chin for the first day of the New Year!
FRIDAY JANUARY 2ND: Bank Holiday in Scotland. Full Moon ...
Friday June 25 (CT)
The Big Sleep (Raymond Chandler) 1939
available as pdf online (https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20201159); 70p on Kindle, from £3.00 second-hand on Amazon, 3 copies in York Explore library
It was about eleven o’clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn’t care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars.
The main hallway of the Sternwood place was two stories high. Over the entrance doors, which would have let in a troop of Indian elephants, there was a broad stained-glass panel showing a knight in dark armour rescuing a lady who was tied to a tree and didn’t have any clothes on but some very long and convenient hair. The knight had pushed the vizor of his helmet back to be sociable, and he was fiddling with the knots on the ropes that tied the lady to the tree and not getting anywhere. I stood there and thought that if I lived in the house, I would sooner or later have to climb up there and help him. He didn’t seem to be really trying.
Friday July 30
tbc
2021-2022
Garden Room, Friends Meeting House, York
Sept 24
Oct 29
Nov 26
(2022)
Jan 28
Feb 25
Mar 25
Apr 29
May 27
Jun 24
July 29
Titles, 2020-2021
Titles, 2019-2020
Titles 2018-19
Titles 2017-2018:
Titles 2016-17:
TITLES
Ballet Shoes: Streatfeild, 20/21
Barchester Towers: Trollope, 18/19
Bleak House: Dickens, 19/20
Brave New World: Huxley, 20/21
Catch 22: Heller, 17/18
the Clown: Boll, 18/19
Cold Comfort Farm: Gibbon, 17/18
Collected Short Stories: Maugham, 18/19
Cry the Beloved Country: Paton, 19/20
the Diary of a Nobody: Grosmith, 16/17
the Dubliners: Joyce, 19/20
Effi Briest: Fontane, 19/20
Father and Sons: Turgenev, 17/18
the Girls of Slender Means: Spark, 18/19
the Go-Between: Hartley, 19/20
the Golden Bowl: James, 16/17
the Good Earth: Buck, 17/18
Great Expectations: Dickens, 17/18
the Heart of the Matter: Greene, 19/20
a House for Mr Biswas: Naipaul, 17/18
the House of Mirth: Wharton, 18/19
Kipps: Wells, 19/20
Lord Jim: Conrad, 18/19
Lord of the Flies: Golding, 20/21
Love in the Time of Cholera: Marquez, 16/17
Middlemarch: Eliot, 17/18
My Mother's House: Colette, 16/17
North and South: Gaskell, 16/17
O Pioneers: Cather, 19/20
the Remains of the Day: Ishiguro, 16/17
Robinson Crusoe; Defoe, 16/17
Sanditon: Austen, 16/17
the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole: Townsend, 20/21
the Secret Life of Walter Mitty: Thurber, 16/17
the Shipping News: Proulx, 19/20
The Slaves of Solitude: Hamilton, 20/21
Staying On: Scott, 18/19
the Talented Mr Ripley: Highsmith, 20/21
Things Fall Apart: Achebe, 18/19
a Thousand Splendid Suns: Hosseini, 20/21
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: le Carre, 17/18
To Kill a Mockingbird: Lee, 19/20
To Serve Them All My Days: Delderfield, 19/20
Troubles: Farrell, 17/18
Under the Greenwood Tree: Hardy, 17/18
White Fang: London, 16/17
Wide Sargasso Sea: Rhys, 18/19
Wuthering Heights: Bronte, 18/19
AUTHORS
Achebe: Things Fall Apart, 18/19
Austen: Sanditon, 16/17
Boll: the Clown, 18/19
Bronte: Wuthering Heights, 18/19
Buck: the Good Earth, 17/18
Cather: O Pioneers, 19/20
Colette: My Mother's House, 16/17
Conrad: Lord Jim, 18/19
Defoe: Robinson Crusoe, 16/17
Delderfield: To Serve Them All My Days, 19/20
Dickens: Bleak House, 19/20
Dickens: Great Expectations, 17/18
Eliot: Middlemarch, 17/18
Farrell: Troubles, 17/18
Fontane: Effi Briest, 19/20
Gaskell: North and South, 16/17
Gibbon: Cold Comfort Farm, 17/18
Golding: Lord of the Flies, 20/21
Greene: the Heart of the Matter, 19/20
Grosmith: the Diary of a Nobody, 16/17
Hamilton: The Slaves of Solitude, 20/21
Hardy: Under the Greenwood Tree, 17/18
Hartley: the Go-Between, 19/20
Heller: Catch 22, 17/18
Highsmith: the Talented Mr Ripley, 20/21
Hosseini: A Thousand Splendid Suns, 20/21
Huxley: Brave New World, 20/21
Ishiguro: the Remains of the Day, 16/17
James: the Golden Bowl, 16/17
Joyce: the Dubliners, 19/20
Le Carre: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, 17/18
Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 19/20
London: White Fang, 16/17
Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera, 16/17
Maugham: Collected Short Stories, 18/19
Naipaul: a House for Mr Biswas, 17/18
Paton: Cry the Beloved Country, 19/20
Proulx: the Shipping News, 19/20
Rhys: Wide Sargasso Sea, 18/19
Scott: Staying On, 18/19
Spark: the Girls of Slender Means, 18/19
Streatfeild: Ballet Shoes, 20/21
Thurber: the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 16/17
Townsend: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, 20/21
Trollope: Barchester Towers, 18/19
Turgenev: Father and Sons, 17/18
Wells: Kipps, 19/20
Wharton: the House of Mirth, 18/19