Happy Victober and here's my TBR

Victober plans fill me with joy.
For more about Victober check the announcements and tbr videos of my fellow hosts ‪@katiejlumsden‬ ‪@katehowereads‬ and Marissa ‪@BlatantlyBookish‬
Do join the conversation on Discord / discord
And the Storygraph challenge app.thestorygr...
Books mentioned
The Doctor's Wife by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell
A Terribly Strange Bed, The Dead Hand and The Dream Woman by Wilkie Collins
Study in Scarlet. The Sign of Four, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle
Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas
Salome by Oscar Wilde
London Assurance by Dion Boucicault
Afternoon by Ouida
Alan's Wife by Florence Bell and Elizabeth Robins
The Internet Archive archive.org/

[@brianhaas1154]

I read Pickwick Papers a few years ago, and enjoyed it. I find humor in distinguished, respectable people making complete fools of themselves.

[@amandalavelle2638]

I managed to track down a play by a female Victorian playwright- quid pro quo by Catherine Gore and I think it’s from 1844 so fairly early in the period. I’m waiting for delivery on that as I couldn’t find a digital copy anywhere but I’m planning on reading that when it arrives xx

[@barbarahelgaker390]

Yes I have the BBC radio collection of Oscar Wilde plays too - some fantastic actors - Diana Rigg, Judi Dench, Martin Jarvis, Edward Fox etc etc! Can hardly wait. There are productions of the plays on Marquee TV which has a good offer on for 3 months at the moment.

[@barbarahelgaker390]

And where do I find the Victober messages on Storygraph?

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

​​​@@barbarahelgaker390 hope this works. Also added to the video description. app.thestorygraph.com/reading_challenges/fd310e25-19f3-4aed-ad70-8c15a57e3803

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Yes I was excited by the BBC casts. they should be good.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@barbarahelgaker390 KZbin removed my reply with the Storygraph link but it is in the video description.

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

Such a wonderful TBR, Ros. I'm really excited about participating in my first Victober. My initial order of The Doctor's Wife was cancelled by Thrift Books, but I am expecting the book to arrive today from a different source--just in the nick of time. I am planning to read a good bit of Oscar Wilde this month too. He's been on my mind since returning home from Ireland where he kept coming up at several different points along the trip. I'm hoping to read The Canterville Ghost, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. We'll see if I am able to get to them all with everything else going on. I'm trying to combine some Victober and some spooky season reads, if possible.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@BookChatWithPat8668 that's a feast of Wilde. I hope the new Doctor's Wife arrives but if not it's on Project Gutenberg for free so you could start with that maybe until it does.

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 yes, I did find it on my kindle, I think, for free also. I just really wanted the book. I’ll be able to start, one way or another. I also found on my book shelves a book of Victorian ghost stories by women, and it has a story by Braddon in it as well, which I may try to read as well. 😊

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@BookChatWithPat8668 and fitting for the time of year.

[@BookChatWithPat8668]

It just this minute arrived!! Hooray!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@BookChatWithPat8668 wonderful!

[@MarcelaChandía]

I started Victober on Sunday listening to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Stephen Fry, and today I read The Yellow Wallpaper, so onward we go!!!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@MarcelaChandía I started early with Sherlock Holmes too. I whipped through A Study in Scarlet at the weekend. When I finish The Sign of Four I'll move to The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Great fun. I shudder just remembering The Yellow Wallpaper.

[@katehowereads]

What a delight a Ros Victober tbr is! I hope it's a splendid reading month for you.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@katehowereads you too 😘

[@Rubylee-i2p]

I just found you and Victober! Thank you for making this episode.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@Rubylee-i2p welcome to Victober ☺️

[@CharlieBrookReads]

I hope you enjoy your feast of Oscar and all the other books you get to Ros ☺️❤️📚❤️You always have such great choices.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

It's an Oscar and Sherlock feast I think. Victober does make me happy.

[@novellenovels]

Great choices. I started the pickwick papers yesterday and it is good 😊

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@novellenovels hurrah. Look forward to sharing some thoughts on Pickwick.

[@paulsomerville4005]

What a wonderful selection of books! I really enjoyed hearing you discuss them.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@paulsomerville4005 thank you. I love Victober.

[@ameliareads589]

It has been absolutely my pleasure to set up the reading challenge on StoryGraph and show my support. 🤗

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@ameliareads589 thanks 😊

[@lindawalker2451]

Love your channel. This is my first time watching and of course I have subscribed. Love your October list. I will be reading a great deal of Oscar Wilde also. He is one of my favorites.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@lindawalker2451 lovely to "meet" you. Wilde is such a pleasure to read, especially his plays for me.

[@kathleencraine7335]

A very diverse TBR as always. I read both Ruth and Sylvia's Lovers in the past year, and you chose the right book! Ruth features a minister and his sister. I'll be reading her Round the Sofa stories. Also this year I read Mad Monkton and Other Stories by Collins. It included A Terribly Strange Bed, which was one of my favorites in the collection, so good choice again! I'll be reading his Man and Wife. Enjoy your Victober!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@kathleencraine7335 thanks for that information on Ruth. I was trying to check but doing that without encountering huge spoilers was impossible. I'm definitely looking forward to A Terribly Strange Bed. I have heard Man and Wife is a good one.

[@Bessie-On-Wheels]

I am buddy reading The Pickwick Papers atm. We have both been really enjoying it. However because we wanted to mark Victober property, we are taking a brake and starting Cranford tomorrow

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@Bessie-On-Wheels I hope you enjoy Cranford. I love that book. Will I love Pickwick though?

[@readandre-read]

Yay! I love Victober. This is a stellar list.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@readandre-read and not crazily ambitious I think. Glad you love Victober too.

[@RaynorReadsStuff]

What a fabulous tbr. So many great ideas. Thank you. I started Victober at the weekend watching the 1999 adaptation of An Ideal Husband and then reading the play The Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins overseen by Charles Dickens. So looking forward to my second Victober. 😊

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@RaynorReadsStuff off to a brilliant start then. How did you find The Frozen Deep? I heard mixed reports on that.

[@elizabethaliteraryprincess]

Great tbr Ros! I hope you enjoy Ouida. I haven't read Afternoon, but her novels are tons of fun!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@elizabethaliteraryprincess her life story is intriguing. If I enjoy the play I'll try one of her novels next.

[@HannahsBooks]

I haven't read Pickwick in decades! I am eager to hear what you think of it now, as well as your thoughts on Ruth! Happy Victober!!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@HannahsBooks I have started with Sherlock Holmes and The Doctor's Wife but will embark on Pickwick soon too. What about you?

[@HannahsBooks]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 Yesterday, I started an Eliot biography which is a reread -and was surprisingly disappointed by its opening. I found it smoother sailing after I was past the introduction, though.

[@reflectiverambling1148]

While I was watching this I was wondering if you belong to National THeatre Online. I haven't read it, but I did watch Salome and really really enjoyed it. One other resource because I can't remember if I commented on your announcement or not (forgive me if I'm being repetitive) I don't know if it's available in the UK without, say something like VPN, but L.A. Theatre Works via PRX (public radio network type organization) has a buch of audio recordings of plays, some of which I know are victorian. If that's a help to anyone. Undecided, but I will at least pick up one Victorian title. I applaud you for dickens. I made my way through David Copperfield to read it before Demon Copperhead and... I barely survived. In retrospect probably shouldn't have done so so close to "war and peace" where my brain was long-book exhausted...

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@reflectiverambling1148 Tilly my daughter has a year's subscription and I am visiting her so hoping to see some. It is called National Theatre at Home over here. London Assurance and Salome are top of the list. I'll look at whether LA Theatre Works is accessible here. I find I have to settle into Dickens, his pace and style, but love it once I do.

[@reflectiverambling1148]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 I"m a dolt. It's at home here too. Though there have been a couple times despite it claiming to be international a few hare listed as available but not :( I maintain the subscription but I actually haven't gotten to watch any lately. But it's something small I can do to support the arts, so why not? I will take your word on it and give DIckens another go. I did enjoy the concepts and themes when I read him. It's just a result, I believe, of him stretching i tout since he was being paid per word/length.

[@jimsbooksreadingandstuff]

Enjoy your Victober reading and challenges. I think it should be "Victobrian" for a Victober participant. I like you prefer later Dickens (from David Copperfield onwards), I have two of the earlier Dickens left to read Barnaby Rudge and Nicholas Nickleby. I have Barnaby Rudge on my TBR this year, it fits in with the religious component challenge, as there is some anti-papist threads in the plot. Wilkie Collins' supernatural short stories fit in nicely with Halloween and the spooky season.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

I like Victobrian and easier to pronounce too. I haven't read Barnaby Rudge either. Maybe next year. I will be interested in your opinion of it.

[@elizabethaliteraryprincess]

I second Victobrian!

[@59cubanita]

Great list Roz! I am going to read some Victorian lit but not sure what exactly. Definitely reading Crawford which I have been putting on and taking off from my TBR. Play will probably be George Bernard Shaw and maybe Oscar Wilde. Religion I am thinking about Amy Levy’s Reuben Sachs. The Fate of Fenella for playing with form and probably the Moonstone for serialised an Wilkie Collins. If I have time I will read the group read but not with the group. Have a great Victober!

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@59cubanita that sounds like a good selection Alina. I read Amy Levy's Romance of a Shop last Victober. I liked it but didn't love it. Her life story is interesting though.

[@59cubanita]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 yes I read that too. I want to read something about religious groups who were in a minority. Reuben Sachs is about the Jewish experience written by a Jewish author anfd it is not that long.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@59cubanita and wasn't it partly reacting to Eliot's Daniel Deronda being well-intentioned but a bit off key.

[@59cubanita]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 probably

[@royreadsanything]

I'm excited at my first full-on Victober! Your choices look awesome.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Great to have you as a Victoberer. Or is it Victobrian? Anyway you have an interesting perspective I think.

[@johncrwarner]

I thought "The Pickwick Papers" wasn't Victorian being published before the death of William IV.? I have left over from another Victober "The Uncommercial Traveller" by Dickens which I will definitely read next month. I have all the Sherlock Holmes short stories as read by someone on KZbin which I last listened to when I was ill in hospital So I might get those out of storage so to speak.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@johncrwarner well the serialisation started during William's reign but continued into Victoria's and the book version was after her accession so that satisfied the pedant in me.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Enjoy your bit of Sherlock and Dickens.

[@johncrwarner]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 LOL

[@johncrwarner]

@@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711 Thank you I found the Dickens when I was reorganising my bookshelves - so I do recommend doing that periodically.

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

@@johncrwarner mine are firmly alphabetical, for fiction at least.

[@josmith5992]

Ros, I love the idea of “Victobering”! You’ve got a couple on your list I love, Pickwick and Ruth and I’m envious of your Stephen Fry Sherlock collection. I’ve only read one Sherlock story myself so will be reading at least one more this month. I also might read Alan’s Wife but if I don’t get to it at least I can get your thoughts and very much looking forward to the reading of Charley’s Aunt. I have a couple of buddy reads which are Uncle Silas and a reread of Jane Eyre- after 30 years! Then Dead Secret by Collins, Treasure Island, The Doctor’s Wife and Modern Instances by Ella D’Arcy are rounding out the reading and I think that’s all doable 🤞

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Sounds like a you have great victobering ahead Jo. Thank you for your help with the women playwrights.

[@nnjack9931]

It's the most wonderful time of the year.....

[@scallydandlingaboutthebook2711]

Better than Christmas 🎄 More reading, less cooking!