Books to Read February 2014 – Keep Going, Stay the Course #theclassics

Books to Read in February 2014 – Keep Going, Staying the Course

In January 2014, I didn’t spend too much time thinking about which books to read, and it was tough to read some of my selections, so I decided to put more care into the books to read February 2014 as I journey toward my classic education. So far I am learning a lot from my informal education, and I am finding the new information useful. The return of Sherlock Holmes is on the list of books to read in February 2014 because of an article that I read in Maclean’s magazine, “The 609-day cliffhanger: Sherlock Holmes goes global.” The article reminded me that I hadn’t gotten around to reading the book, which I purchased a few years ago.

Books to Read in February 2014

1.  Beowulf: A New Verse Translation (Bilingual Edition)
2. Season of Migration to the North (New York Review Books Classics), Tayeb Salih
3. Sentimental Journey (Wordsworth Classics), Laurence Sterne
4. The Age of Innocence (Dover Thrift Editions), Edith Wharton
5. The Aeneid (Penguin Classics), Virgil
6. All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel, Erich Maria Remarque
7. The Woman in White (Penguin Classics), Wilkie Collins
8. The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Dover Thrift Editions), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 

Use the random number generator below to select which four books or more to read  in February 2014.

The Authors

• Tayeb Salih: Born on July 12, 1929 in Al Dabbah, Sudan, Tayeb Salih’s best-known book, Season of Migration to the North was published in 1967. The book which received critical acclaim is about two Sudanese men who have experienced the West and have returned home.
• Laurence Sterne: Born on November 24, 1713 in Clonmel, Republic of Ireland, Laurence Sterne wrote A Sentimental Journey, which is a travel book. Tristam Shandy and A Sentimental Journey brought Stern immediate fame. A Sentimental Journey is referred to as an uninhibited conversation, which invites the reader to look at the world through different lenses.
• Edith Wharton: Born in New York City, USA on January 24, 1862, Edith Wharton was a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist for The Age of Innocence, her 12^th novel. She wrote over 20 novels and numerous short stories, and is best known for The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, and The Age of Innocence. The story is set in a Victorian society where there are unspoken but understood rules.
• Virgil: Publius Vergilius Maro, a Roman poet was born in 70 BC near Mantua in North Italy. The Aeneid is about how Rome was founded and its central theme is duty. According to the notes from Books That Have Made History course that I am taking, “Vergil’s Aeneid tells about another age of civil war, destruction, and widespread hopelessness from which the entire world was saved by one man who did his duty. That man was Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, known to the world as Augustus.”
• Erich Maria Remarque: Born on June 22, 1898, in Osnabrück, Germany, Erich Maria Remarque fought in World War I. The Nazi government banned and destroyed All Quiet on the Western Front and his other book, The Road Back. All Quiet on the Western Front deals with the desolation of war. The book depicts the lives and deaths of eight front-line soldiers in the trenches of World War I. An international bestseller, Remarque gained instant fame and recognition with the publication of All Quiet on the Western Front.
• Wilkie Collins: Born on January 8, 1824 in Marylebone, United Kingdom, Wilkie Collins is best known for The Woman in White, The Moonstone, Armadale, and No Name. The Woman in White is a dramatic story and Collins bases some of it off a criminal case. In Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, “The exact source, which seemingly has not been pointed out, was the celebrated case of Madame de Douhault, which Collins found discussed fully in Maurice Méjan’s Recueil des Causes Celebres.”
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Born on May 22, 1859 in Edinburg, United Kingdom, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the man behind Sherlock Holmes, the world’s best known fictional character. “In The Final Problem, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kills off the Sherlock Holmes character, and I thought it was quite odd the way in which he did it. I know that each short story stands alone, but the author introduces the character Professor Moriarty. Moriarty is very evil, a criminal mastermind, and Holmes thinks that if he gathers enough evidence to get him arrested for life he could retire a happy and accomplished man,” from my Review of Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. There was such a public backlash to the death of Sherlock Holmes that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had to find a way to respond, which he did in The Return of Sherlock Holmes.
• Beowulf was written anonymously and is about the tale of a mighty warrior who goes in search of adventure and fame. It’s an epic poem set in Scandinavia. 

Book Tour

By way of these eight books, we’ll be taking a tour, making stops in New York, The United States; Mantua, Northern Italy; Osnabrück, Germany; Marylebone and Edinburg, United Kingdom; Clonmel, Republic of Ireland and Al Dabbah, Sudan.

Thinking about which books to read in February 2014? Why not pick one or two from this list? Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. Liked this post? Share it and subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!

Author Bio: Avil Beckford, an expert interviewer, entrepreneur and published author is passionate about books and professional development, and that's why she founded The Invisible Mentor and the Virtual Literary World Tour to give you your ideal mentors virtually in the palm of your hands by offering book reviews and book summaries, biographies of wise people and interviews of successful people.

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