January 2022 Reading Challenge: Read a Classic Book
Our 2022 Reading Challenge is up and running, and we’ve kept it really simple (you can read the details of 2022’s Reading Challenge HERE). January’s challenge is to read a classic books, so we’ve compiled a list of classic titles available to check out from the library, or borrow on the Libby app.
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
GENRE: Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: Four sisters and their mother at home. Their father is fighting in the war. Louisa May Alcott semi-autobiographical novel has captured young women and the young at heart for years. On Christmas evening they receive a lovely dinner by their nieighbor James Laurence. Jo meets the old mans grandson at a dance. Jo, Amy, Beth, and Meg befriend him.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “Little Women” by Louisa May Alcott:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
GENRE: Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchanted and inspired millions of readers for more than sixty years. By turns overwhelming, sublime, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the daily experiences of the unforgettable Nolans are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” by Betty Smith:
FROM THE LIBRARY
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The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
GENRE: Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: The hero-narrator of The Catcher in the Rye is an ancient child of sixteen, a native New Yorker named Holden Caulfield. Through circumstances that tend to preclude adult, secondhand description, he leaves his prep school in Pennsylvania and goes underground in New York City for three days. The boy himself is at once too simple and too complex for us to make any final comment about him or his story. Perhaps the safest thing we can say about Holden is that he was born in the world not just strongly attracted to beauty but, almost, hopelessly impaled on it. There are many voices in this novel: children's voices, adult voices, underground voices-but Holden's voice is the most eloquent of all. Transcending his own vernacular, yet remaining marvelously faithful to it, he issues a perfectly articulated cry of mixed pain and pleasure. However, like most lovers and clowns and poets of the higher orders, he keeps most of the pain to, and for, himself. The pleasure he gives away, or sets aside, with all his heart. It is there for the reader who can handle it to keep.
CLICK TO RESERVE “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger FROM THE LIBRARY
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
GENRE: Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: A gripping, heart-wrenching and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father- a crusading local lawyer - risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee:
FROM THE LIBRARY
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1984 by George Orwell
GENRE: Science Fiction, Dystopian
THE SYNOPSIS: Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell’s chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell’s narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions—a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “1984” by George Orwell:
FROM THE LIBRARY
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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
GENRE: Romance
THE SYNOPSIS: Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love—and its threatened loss—the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austen:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
GENRE: Gothic Fiction, Science Fiction
THE SYNOPSIS: At the age of eighteen, Mary Shelley, while staying in the Swiss Alps with her lover Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and others, conceived the tale of Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the monster he brings to life. The resulting book, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, is a dark parable warning against the risks of scientific and creative endeavor, the corrupting influence of technology and progress, and the dangers of knowledge without understanding. Frankenstein was an instant bestseller on publication in 1818 and has long been regarded as a masterpiece of suspense, a classic of nineteenth-century Romanticism and Gothic horror, and the prototype of the science fiction novel. Though it has spawned countless imitations and adaptations, it remains the most powerful story of its kind.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
FROM THE LIBBY APP (audiobook)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
GENRE: Coming-of-Age Story
THE SYNOPSIS: Pip is content with his simple life until a bitter gentlewoman employs him as a sometime companion to herself and her adopted daughter. Pip then aspires to become a gentleman himself, though his dreams are unrealistic until the day he mysteriously comes into a fortune and is sent to London to become refined. The story follows Pip’s journey into adulthood and emotional maturity and understanding.
CLICK HERE TO RESERVE “Great Expectations” by Charles Dickens:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
FROM THE LIBBY APP (audiobook)
Dracula by Bram Stoker
GENRE: Horror, Gothic Fiction, Epistolary Novel
THE SYNOPSIS: The story is told through a series of letters recounting a young Jonathan Harker, a lawyer who visits Count Dracula to arrange a real estate transaction and realizes before long that he has been taken hostage there. Harker escapes after a series of horrifying events, and Dracula makes it his mission to go after the young lawyer - and his lovely fiancé, Mina, and Mina’s friends.
With the assistance of an old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the tide turns against Dracula with Van Helsing chasing the Count back to his Transylvania castle, where the ultimate battle takes place.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “Dracula” by Bram Stoker:
FROM THE LIBRARY
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The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
GENRE: Gothic Fiction
THE SYNOPSIS: As Basil Hallward, an aspiring artist, puts a few touches on a portrait of his handsome young friend Dorian Gray, Gray wishes that the portrait might grow old while he remains forever young. While Dorian Gray spends his life pursuing fresh experiences and new sensations, his looks do not change. However, the portrait, secretly hidden in the attic of his residence and with which he has grown increasingly obsessed, does. More And more, as Dorian struggles to hide his true identity, the portrait reveals his progressive pathway to dissolution.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
GENRE: Adventure Fiction, Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: The orphan Tom Sawyer, raised by his aunt, is never out of trouble for long. A mischievous, charming boy (not to mention genius at escaping from trouble), Tom's adventures involve many unwitting bystanders. From one moment to the next, the boy could change into a pirate, or ship's captain - when he's not trying to win Becky Thatcher for a sweetheart, of course. Tom is also a friend of Twain's other beloved boy-hero, Huckleberry Finn.
CLICK TO RESERVE “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" of Mark Twain:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
FROM THE LIBBY APP (audiobook)
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
GENRE: Romance, Historical Fiction
THE SYNOPSIS: Set in the staunchly Puritan world of 1600s Boston Hester Prynne has committed adultery and given birth to an illegitimate daughter, Pearl, while her elder husband is away. Refusing to reveal Pearl’s father Hester is punished and scorned by the community and forced to wear a red letter “A”.
Over seven years Hester, Pearl’s father, and Hester’s estranged husband Roger Chillingworth, suffer the consequences of betrayal, guilt, revenge, and humiliation.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “The Scarlet Letter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne:
FROM THE LIBRARY
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The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
GENRE: Young Adult Fiction, Coming-of-Age
THE SYNOPSIS: The novel tells the story of Ponyboy Curtis and his struggles with right and wrong in a society in which he believes that he is an outsider. According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs for the sake of his fellow greasers--until one terrible night when his friend Johnny kills a soc. The murder gets under Ponyboy's skin, causing his bifurcated world to crumble and teaching him that pain feels the same whether a soc or a greaser.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “The Outsiders” by S.E. Hinton:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
FROM THE LIBBY APP (audiobook)
Of Mice and Men and John Steinbeck
GENRE: Novella, Trajedy
THE SYNOPSIS: In this classic story of an unlikely pair, two migrant workers in California during the Great Depression who grasp for their American Dream, profoundly touches readers and audiences alike. George and his simple-minded friend Lenny dream, as drifters will, of a place to call their own - a couple of acres and a few pigs, chickens, and rabbits back in Hill Country where land is cheap. But after they come to work on a ranch in the fertile Salinas Valley of California, their hopes, like “the best laid schemes o’mice an’ men,” begin to go awry.
CLICK BELOW TO RESERVE “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck:
FROM THE LIBRARY
FROM THE LIBBY APP (eBook)
FROM THE LIBBY APP (audiobook)
What are you going to read for the January challenge? Let us know in the comments below.
