Mary Barton is wonderful, it was my first Gaskell novel and I can't wait to read Wives and Daughters. I also loved The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Small House at Allington, I'm looking forward to starting to read the Barsetshire series from the beginning. Some really great and obscure reads here. Excited to hear your thought on them.
Thanks for gently nudging me into reading Gaskell! I can’t wait... these days most of my Victorian reads revolve around my boy, Thomas Hardy (Casterbridge is wonderful) so it will be a treat to pick some more up in October!
So interesting! My October reading has always been creepy, so I think that a combination of Victorian and spooky is in order. Such a wide range. Great video!
Great TBR, I'm loving all the Gaskell hype and I hope I'll enjoy her books as much as you do! There are so many interesting and obscure books on your TBR, I'm interested to hear what you make of them.
Fingers crossed you do! Thank you! My Victorian Literature hobby is a rising ceiling and the amount of novels are endless. Looking forward to sharing my thoughts.
I love the thought of the serialized app for Vanity Fair! I may have to try that as it really intimidates me and I really want to take my time with it when I finally start it. I also love your long, ambitious TBR. It's put a few things on my radar, especially that Ghost Tales book! I just uploaded my TBR and I'm excited to get started. Bring on the Vic Lit!
I'm so excited to get to The Mayor of Casterbridge! I also want to read all of Hardy's books and Casterbridge will be my third so far :) I adore Wuthering Heights, I reread it earlier this year and it's just so good. Ah it's such a great idea to listen to readings of poetry. Hope you have a great reading month :)
I’m excited to participate a little in victober. I plan on reading Jane Eyre (which completes all the challenges), but also The Picture of Dorian Gray and maybe Tess of the D’Urbervilles. 🤓
Hi! This is such an interesting and in-depth tbr! I'd never even heard of half of the books you're hoping to read, and I was English major! I actually just started a channel, and I hid my victober tbr in my September wrap up (maybe I shouldn't have. Alas). But I'm planning on reading Wives and Daughters, Vilette, and the Invisible Man (which I think counts as Victorian? I'm still not super sure) I'm really excited to be participating this year, since I hadn't even heard of Victober last year!
What a broad list to choose from, love the more obscure choices! I read Deerbrook 20 years ago and loved it. This will be my first Victober, so excited! I already have Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde loaded onto my tablet..2 classics I have never read! I also plan on: Our Mutual Friend, The Woodlanders, Dracula, Lorna Doone, Miss Marjoribanks, Barchester Towers, and if I can fit it in a re-read of Portrait of a Lady. I kinda wish October would last forever :) I like to call it Rocktober as well, where I collect interesting rocks, climb rocks, photograph them, and just notice them for the wonder that they are!
Thank you! I'm really hoping Deerbrook will be a new favorite. Yay! Those are two super fun ones I haven't read yet - I hope you thoroughly enjoy them. What a fun rest of your TBR! Rocktober sounds awesome. My Dad has a great collection.
What an amazing list, Kate! There were many I've never heard mentioned before so will be eager to hear your reviews. I keep changing my mind about my list. There's just so many great ones!
I’m really excited to read “Wives and Daughters” and also “Middlemarch”... although I’m thinking that’s all I’ll have time for as they are both so long! I’m impressed with your ambitious TBR!
Thank you for highlighting so many authors I'd never heard of and Victorian Secrets Publishing. I think I've only read Wuthering Heights and Vanity Fair on your list but need to reread them both, VF for the third time as I love it so much! My TBR will be far more restrained but will hopefully include Wives and Daughters, Lord Jim and Heartease.
P.s. I hadn't heard of Heartsease and after looking it up it's one I definitely wanna get to in the next year! I will try to get through The Heir of Redclyffe by her first though. I can't wait to try out her books!
Oh Kate, kate, kate! I thought I was all set with my TBR and then I go and watch you and I've found myself thinking, yeah sure, I can add another 10 books to my list! Slightly over optimistic I think! Xx
I'm so glad I'm not the only one with a 20-minute-long Victober TBR :D. Mine will be up on Monday. I can't wait for our buddyreads. The publisher Victorian Secrets sounds amazing. I can't wait for you to read The Small House at Allington! And you are going to love David Copperfield - do you have the Simon Armitage audiobook? It's so good!
I'm glad too! 😂😂😂 I've been wanting to read our buddy read books since last year! I can't wait for such a chunky Trollope novel, I've missed his writing so much. The one I have is Nicholas Boulton and he sounds excellent. I'm feeling very optimistic about David Copperfield!
Thank you for reading a sentence from each book. Great idea! I’m finally going to read a novel for Victober. I have picked “The Way We Live Now.” I have never attempted Anthony Trollope. I would love it if you would read favorite passages from novels you read for October.
Anita Hayne I’m so glad you enjoyed hearing some bits from the books and I love your idea to read my favorite passages! I hope you enjoy Trollope’s writing.
I'm also thinking I might want to read some of Emily Brontë's poetry, I haven't read much Victorian poetry but I feel like the Brontë sisters have such beautiful imagery in their writing, it's bound to be beautiful. So many interesting books here! I really look forward to hearing your thoughts on these and all of the Victober videos! :)
I'm so excited for Victober this year! I'm hoping to post my TBR today or tomorrow. And thank you so much for curating a Victober TBR playlist! It's so helpful to have all the TBRs organized in one place. I'm planning on reading Mary Barton for Victober as well with Petra. I know you already have a lot of people in your buddy read, but would it be possible to add one or two more? There are so many books on your TBR that I now want to add to mine lol, but I'm trying to keep my reading goals realistic for this Victober. We'll see how that goes lol. Happy reading! :)
I really liked this style of TBR, hearing passages from the books made them come to life. I've been trying to keep my TBR unambitious to be realistic but where's the fun in that? :) Good luck with Victober, I know I can't wait!
Great list, I especially enjoy hearing about lesser known authors! I’ll be doing the group read of Wives & Daughters, then hope to also read Lorna Doone for your challenge, Jane Eyre for Lucy’s, Far from the Madding Crowd for Ange’s and The Pickwick Papers and The Jungle Book for Katie’s. I also plan to watch as many movies/miniseries as possible and I’m sure at least one will coincide with one of these books🤓
Thank you! Those sound like a great lineup of Victorian awesomeness. 😄 I'm definitely planning on watching a fair number of miniseries when I need a reading break.
Whoa lady, that's an ambitious TBR! I have no doubt that you'll manage it 😊 In addition to my Victober reads, I've got a TON of modern Victorian gothic fiction and some nonfiction I'm planning to dive into. My Victober is basically an all year kinda thing lol. For Victober I'm planning to read Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell for Challenge 1, Lady Audley's Secret for 2, The Turn of the Screw for 3, not sure yet on 4, and for the video I'm sure I'll find loads. I'd like to work Sylvia's Lovers in there somewhere! Great video!
So many books and authors I haven't heard of! I'm halfway through Wuthering Heights (my second time reading it). Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that and East Lynne, which is on my general TBR.
Loved this so much and loved you reading out the books each one I being thinking of reading vanity fair I know the story very well. But there lots of the books you want to read that I want get to some time don’t know when . Thinking of play and wuthering heights but we well see it changes with me sometimes .
Right?! I was too excited about all of them to narrow it down...I hope you enjoy Wives and Daughters! It's such a phenomenal novel. Yay for Hardy as well!
Have you, Kate, or anyone writing comments read any Miss Mulock for Victober (or any other time for that matter)? I came across her works totally by accident a year ago when I bought an 1870s set of her works. I have read two of her less famous novels, "Mistress and the Maid" and "A Noble Life." A bit too moralizing and predictable and not nearly as sophisticated as Dickens, Thackeray, or Brontes...but in the general VERY Victorian and I think downright great reading. "Mistress and the Maid" has a "Jane Eyre" feeling to it: the Maid from the title, Elizabeth, could be Jane Eyre's cousin (plain, strong, morally upright,etc.). Miss Mulock has other novels that were more popular in her day and today, such as "John Halifax, Gentleman" or "The Ogilvies", but I find i enjoy reading less well known works to get a flavor of a Victorian writer's oeuvre.
I am going to read Pickwicks' Papers like people used to read in the past (so 4 chapters in the month) and also Mrs.Mackenzie by Trollope. Ive never read anything by him and hoping to like his writing ;)
I'm so happy and excited to see that you're reading an Amy Dillwyn! I'm reading Jill by Amy Dillwyn with Shawn (the book maniac) and I'm super interested to compare how we all feel about Dillwyn's work 😊😊😊
Tired Mama Tries to Read A Welsh Witch last year made me want to read ALL the Welsh literature! Very cool to know about your channel now since I don’t think I know about any other Welsh booktubers. Looking forward to our Dillwyn books!
Love the shirt! Where did you get it? ITV in U.K. has just produced an adaptation of Vanity Fair. Particularly interested in the Irish writers on this list
I've started to read Vanity Fair as the mini series is on TV here in the UK. I think they pair up nicely as a kind of readalong as I think I would have struggled to solely read the book and understand the humour/historical context. The show sets up the context well so I recommend you watch the series too if you can as it's enhancing my enjoyment of the book :) happy reading!
This was soooo fun for me to watch! I've been frantically adding all kinds of Victorian lit to my Goodreads because of your TBR...and my meager little pile is looking pretty sad! But at least I'm trying! I will be finishing Middlemarch, which I too am loving so much more the second time around, and then I'm starting Dracula and reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte later in the month. I might do some short stories in there too. Thanks for helping me have an excuse for reading more of my favorite literature! ;) @dickens.and.docks
Mary Barton is wonderful, it was my first Gaskell novel and I can't wait to read Wives and Daughters. I also loved The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Small House at Allington, I'm looking forward to starting to read the Barsetshire series from the beginning. Some really great and obscure reads here. Excited to hear your thought on them.
Thanks for gently nudging me into reading Gaskell! I can’t wait... these days most of my Victorian reads revolve around my boy, Thomas Hardy (Casterbridge is wonderful) so it will be a treat to pick some more up in October!
I'm so curious what an Adam buddy read will be like, I can't wait!
I didn't know you liked Hardy! I'm amazed at what an impact his books have on me.
So interesting! My October reading has always been creepy, so I think that a combination of Victorian and spooky is in order. Such a wide range. Great video!
Jan Smith Yes, please do it!
Great TBR, I'm loving all the Gaskell hype and I hope I'll enjoy her books as much as you do! There are so many interesting and obscure books on your TBR, I'm interested to hear what you make of them.
Fingers crossed you do! Thank you! My Victorian Literature hobby is a rising ceiling and the amount of novels are endless. Looking forward to sharing my thoughts.
i just got a Honno Press women's welsh victorian book from the library because i couldn't put it down, so i'm going to read that now!
So glad you're reading Mary Barton! It's so fun to see the differences and similarities between it and North and South.
I can't wait! Especially since Katie from books and things says it's her third favorite Gaskell.
I like that you read a little bit from each book!
Ahhh! Loved that introduction to Deerbrook! That might have to go on the wish list for next year. Looking forward to our buddy reads. Soon!
I always get so excited to see how excited you are about victober!!
Thank you! Between Victorian Literature for me and Horror for you I think October one of our best reading months 🤓
I love the thought of the serialized app for Vanity Fair! I may have to try that as it really intimidates me and I really want to take my time with it when I finally start it.
I also love your long, ambitious TBR. It's put a few things on my radar, especially that Ghost Tales book!
I just uploaded my TBR and I'm excited to get started. Bring on the Vic Lit!
Jennifer Brooks Thank you! I loved seeing your tbr and I really hope you’re able to get to The Woman in White.
What a wonderful tbr, enjoy.
I am so excited to hear your thoughts on East Lynne! Your videos make #victober so much fun 😄
I'm so excited to get to The Mayor of Casterbridge! I also want to read all of Hardy's books and Casterbridge will be my third so far :) I adore Wuthering Heights, I reread it earlier this year and it's just so good. Ah it's such a great idea to listen to readings of poetry. Hope you have a great reading month :)
Rachel'sReadingCorner I can’t wait for Hardy doing such a plot heavy novel...I’m really hoping it lives up to my memories. Thank you!
I’m excited to participate a little in victober. I plan on reading Jane Eyre (which completes all the challenges), but also The Picture of Dorian Gray and maybe Tess of the D’Urbervilles. 🤓
Hi! This is such an interesting and in-depth tbr! I'd never even heard of half of the books you're hoping to read, and I was English major!
I actually just started a channel, and I hid my victober tbr in my September wrap up (maybe I shouldn't have. Alas). But I'm planning on reading Wives and Daughters, Vilette, and the Invisible Man (which I think counts as Victorian? I'm still not super sure)
I'm really excited to be participating this year, since I hadn't even heard of Victober last year!
What a broad list to choose from, love the more obscure choices! I read Deerbrook 20 years ago and loved it. This will be my first Victober, so excited! I already have Treasure Island and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde loaded onto my tablet..2 classics I have never read! I also plan on: Our Mutual Friend, The Woodlanders, Dracula, Lorna Doone, Miss Marjoribanks, Barchester Towers, and if I can fit it in a re-read of Portrait of a Lady. I kinda wish October would last forever :) I like to call it Rocktober as well, where I collect interesting rocks, climb rocks, photograph them, and just notice them for the wonder that they are!
Thank you! I'm really hoping Deerbrook will be a new favorite.
Yay! Those are two super fun ones I haven't read yet - I hope you thoroughly enjoy them. What a fun rest of your TBR! Rocktober sounds awesome. My Dad has a great collection.
What an amazing list, Kate! There were many I've never heard mentioned before so will be eager to hear your reviews. I keep changing my mind about my list. There's just so many great ones!
Kathy Bolton Thank you! Please let me know what you end up picking up!
I’m really excited to read “Wives and Daughters” and also “Middlemarch”... although I’m thinking that’s all I’ll have time for as they are both so long! I’m impressed with your ambitious TBR!
Rainey M. Good luck with two fabulous books!
Good luck and happy reading!
Ooh love your choices. Good luck with your TBR stack!
Thank you!
Thank you for highlighting so many authors I'd never heard of and Victorian Secrets Publishing. I think I've only read Wuthering Heights and Vanity Fair on your list but need to reread them both, VF for the third time as I love it so much! My TBR will be far more restrained but will hopefully include Wives and Daughters, Lord Jim and Heartease.
You're so welcome! That's so wonderful to hear about you reading Vanity Fair twice - I'm so intimidated it's great to hear an endorsement.
P.s. I hadn't heard of Heartsease and after looking it up it's one I definitely wanna get to in the next year! I will try to get through The Heir of Redclyffe by her first though. I can't wait to try out her books!
Oh Kate, kate, kate! I thought I was all set with my TBR and then I go and watch you and I've found myself thinking, yeah sure, I can add another 10 books to my list! Slightly over optimistic I think! Xx
Haha, it's just too hard when I love Victorian literature so much! Glad I'm not alone and making an unrealistic TBR. 🤓😂
I'm so glad I'm not the only one with a 20-minute-long Victober TBR :D. Mine will be up on Monday. I can't wait for our buddyreads. The publisher Victorian Secrets sounds amazing. I can't wait for you to read The Small House at Allington! And you are going to love David Copperfield - do you have the Simon Armitage audiobook? It's so good!
I'm glad too! 😂😂😂 I've been wanting to read our buddy read books since last year!
I can't wait for such a chunky Trollope novel, I've missed his writing so much.
The one I have is Nicholas Boulton and he sounds excellent. I'm feeling very optimistic about David Copperfield!
Thank you for reading a sentence from each book. Great idea! I’m finally going to read a novel for Victober. I have picked “The Way We Live Now.” I have never attempted Anthony Trollope. I would love it if you would read favorite passages from novels you read for October.
Anita Hayne I’m so glad you enjoyed hearing some bits from the books and I love your idea to read my favorite passages! I hope you enjoy Trollope’s writing.
I'm also thinking I might want to read some of Emily Brontë's poetry, I haven't read much Victorian poetry but I feel like the Brontë sisters have such beautiful imagery in their writing, it's bound to be beautiful. So many interesting books here! I really look forward to hearing your thoughts on these and all of the Victober videos! :)
Curious Reader I agree! They have such a skill at making their books atmospheric! Thank you!
I'm so excited for Victober this year! I'm hoping to post my TBR today or tomorrow. And thank you so much for curating a Victober TBR playlist! It's so helpful to have all the TBRs organized in one place. I'm planning on reading Mary Barton for Victober as well with Petra. I know you already have a lot of people in your buddy read, but would it be possible to add one or two more? There are so many books on your TBR that I now want to add to mine lol, but I'm trying to keep my reading goals realistic for this Victober. We'll see how that goes lol. Happy reading! :)
I really liked this style of TBR, hearing passages from the books made them come to life. I've been trying to keep my TBR unambitious to be realistic but where's the fun in that? :) Good luck with Victober, I know I can't wait!
Samantha S thank you! Right?! A person can dream 🤓
Great list, I especially enjoy hearing about lesser known authors! I’ll be doing the group read of Wives & Daughters, then hope to also read Lorna Doone for your challenge, Jane Eyre for Lucy’s, Far from the Madding Crowd for Ange’s and The Pickwick Papers and The Jungle Book for Katie’s. I also plan to watch as many movies/miniseries as possible and I’m sure at least one will coincide with one of these books🤓
Thank you! Those sound like a great lineup of Victorian awesomeness. 😄 I'm definitely planning on watching a fair number of miniseries when I need a reading break.
BEAUTIFUL PRONUNCIATION! You go girl! There are so many books here that I've never heard of, and I'll definitely have to check them out :)
Thank you! 😘 One of my hobbies now is browsing the internet for my Victober picks 😂
You have an incredible month of reading planned!! :)
Thank you!
Whoa lady, that's an ambitious TBR! I have no doubt that you'll manage it 😊 In addition to my Victober reads, I've got a TON of modern Victorian gothic fiction and some nonfiction I'm planning to dive into. My Victober is basically an all year kinda thing lol. For Victober I'm planning to read Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell for Challenge 1, Lady Audley's Secret for 2, The Turn of the Screw for 3, not sure yet on 4, and for the video I'm sure I'll find loads. I'd like to work Sylvia's Lovers in there somewhere! Great video!
Right?? I just couldn't narrow it down more than this. I hope you enjoy all your awesome Gothic reads!
So many books and authors I haven't heard of! I'm halfway through Wuthering Heights (my second time reading it). Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that and East Lynne, which is on my general TBR.
Browsing the internet for more Victober reads has become a new hobby of mine 😂🤓I'm hoping I enjoy it as much as Bethany did.
Loved this so much and loved you reading out the books each one I being thinking of reading vanity fair I know the story very well. But there lots of the books you want to read that I want get to some time don’t know when . Thinking of play and wuthering heights but we well see it changes with me sometimes .
Your TBR is utterly crazy!!! I'm gonna read Blue Eyes by Tom Hardy and Wifes and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell... i'm really exited to read them!!!
Right?! I was too excited about all of them to narrow it down...I hope you enjoy Wives and Daughters! It's such a phenomenal novel. Yay for Hardy as well!
Heh, listing up all of those books at once must have been heavy! 😉
Love the shirt!
Remembered Reads haha, it was! Thank you!
Have you, Kate, or anyone writing comments read any Miss Mulock for Victober (or any other time for that matter)? I came across her works totally by accident a year ago when I bought an 1870s set of her works. I have read two of her less famous novels, "Mistress and the Maid" and "A Noble Life." A bit too moralizing and predictable and not nearly as sophisticated as Dickens, Thackeray, or Brontes...but in the general VERY Victorian and I think downright great reading. "Mistress and the Maid" has a "Jane Eyre" feeling to it: the Maid from the title, Elizabeth, could be Jane Eyre's cousin (plain, strong, morally upright,etc.). Miss Mulock has other novels that were more popular in her day and today, such as "John Halifax, Gentleman" or "The Ogilvies", but I find i enjoy reading less well known works to get a flavor of a Victorian writer's oeuvre.
I am going to read Pickwicks' Papers like people used to read in the past (so 4 chapters in the month) and also Mrs.Mackenzie by Trollope. Ive never read anything by him and hoping to like his writing ;)
Lena #Ciro12 very fun! I shall now look up Mrs. Mackenzie since I hadn’t heard of it.
I'm so happy and excited to see that you're reading an Amy Dillwyn! I'm reading Jill by Amy Dillwyn with Shawn (the book maniac) and I'm super interested to compare how we all feel about Dillwyn's work 😊😊😊
Tired Mama Tries to Read A Welsh Witch last year made me want to read ALL the Welsh literature! Very cool to know about your channel now since I don’t think I know about any other Welsh booktubers. Looking forward to our Dillwyn books!
I loved David Copperfield. Enjoy!
I am going to attempt to read Wives and Daughters.
How wonderful! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I can't wait to attempt Victober this year! where did you get your sweatshirt? I want one!
Don't worry. My TBR is probably not realistic either.
Haha, yes! There's just too many good choices.
Love the shirt! Where did you get it? ITV in U.K. has just produced an adaptation of Vanity Fair. Particularly interested in the Irish writers on this list
Thank you! A friend gifted it to me from an Etsy store. I know! I really hope they show it in the US sometime soon.
I've started to read Vanity Fair as the mini series is on TV here in the UK. I think they pair up nicely as a kind of readalong as I think I would have struggled to solely read the book and understand the humour/historical context. The show sets up the context well so I recommend you watch the series too if you can as it's enhancing my enjoyment of the book :) happy reading!
This was soooo fun for me to watch! I've been frantically adding all kinds of Victorian lit to my Goodreads because of your TBR...and my meager little pile is looking pretty sad! But at least I'm trying! I will be finishing Middlemarch, which I too am loving so much more the second time around, and then I'm starting Dracula and reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte later in the month. I might do some short stories in there too. Thanks for helping me have an excuse for reading more of my favorite literature! ;) @dickens.and.docks