Although I had intended to post about the next tour in November (to be held in January), I’ve decided it’s time for a hiatus from The Classics Circuit. For those of you who follow my personal blog, you’ll know that I’m currently pregnant with my second child. Baby is due at the end of February, and in order to make life a little less stressful, I’m ready to take a break from The Classics Circuit now (as evidenced by the fact that I never got the next tour information up!).

I still really enjoy running The Classics Circuit. Assuming all goes well and I adjust to a newborn in a timely fashion, I do hope to pull together another tour by next summer or fall, but given how I’ve not yet experienced life with TWO children, we’ll have to see how things go.

I, of course, still love the classics, and I hope you decide to continue reading them on your own. If you are interested in community projects similar to The Classics Circuit, here are some that may appeal to you. You can also browse A Novel Challenge for more reading projects, challenges, and readalongs. If you are hosting a reading challenge (classic-focused or otherwise), fill out a form on that site to be included on the listings.

In the meantime, I hope you keep reading the greats of literature!

• The Beauty of Eclectisicm is hosting a 2012 Medieval Reading Challenge. She encourages you to read 4, 8 or 12 works written between 400 and 1550 B.C.E. during the year 2012. She provides reading list ideas on her site.
• Sarah Reads Too Much is hosting a 2012 Back to the Classics Challenge. She encourages you to read 9 different classic works in 9 different categories during the year 2012. There is a prize drawing for those who complete the challenge before the end of the year.
• Howling Frog Books is hosting a 2012 Greek Classics Challenge. She has four different reading levels you can sign up at, from 1 Greek classic to 11+. She encourages you to post a sign-up post on your blog and to post on your blog when you’ve finished a work for the challenge.
• Fig and Thistle is hosting a January 2012 Charles Dickens Month in honor of his 200th birthday. She encourages you to post about something related to Charles Dickens on each Tuesday in January (there are five). Those who post on Tuesdays will be entered into a drawing and mentioned on the round-up post on February 7 (Dickens’ actual birthday).

I found these challenges and projects on the A Novel Challenge blog.

Are you also hosting a classics-themed yearly or mothly project?

I know there are more out there. Let me know below, with a link to your post about the challenge, and I’ll add it to this site.

Happy reading in 2012!

It was during BBAW last year that I mentioned on my blog the crazy brilliant idea of sponsoring classic authors through a “blog tour,” and from those discussions, The Classics Circuit was born. I have loved visiting your blogs through the past year as we’ve highlighted everything from Wilkie Collins to Emile Zola and Georgette Heyer.

Here’s to you: thank you for your participation and support!

You are appreciated!

From Rebecca

Please tell us what you enjoy about the Classics Circuit and what you’d like to see in the future by filling out the feedback survey. It’s about 15 brief questions, and it shouldn’t take you long.

You don’t need to have participated in tours to fill out the survey, although it may be easier to answer some of the questions if you have been. You just have to be interested in the past and future of the Circuit.

Survey is now closed.

To avoid any confusion, I’ve turned off comments on this post. Please leave your feedback on the survey. The last page has a text box where you can share any general comments you may have.

Because of the holiday, we will be extending the sign up for the February 2010 Harlem Renaissance tour until the morning of January 2, 2010. There are numerous options to choose from, including poets (such as Langston Hughes) and fiction (like Zora Neale Hurston and James Weldon Johnson).

We’ll send out assignments this weekend, so make sure you sign up soon!

This week we’ll also be posting some recaps of the Victorian tours we hosted in November and December. I sure had fun following Wilkie Collins and Elizabeth Gaskell, and I hope you did too!

Elizabeth Gaskell blog stops for Monday, December 21st through Thursday, December 24th:

December 21, 2009 – Shelf Love Review: North and South

December 22, 2009 – Medieval Bookworm Review: Ruth

December 23, 2009 – A Book Lover Review: Cranford

December 24, 2009 – Michelle’s Masterful Musings Review: North and South

Wilkie Collins blog stops for Monday, December 7  through Friday, December 11th:

December 8, 2008 - It’s All About Books Review: Hide and Seek

December 9, 2009 - Books of Mee Review: The Woman in White

December 10, 2009 - Linus’s Blanket General: An Overview of Wilkie Collins

Elizabeth Gaskell blog stops for Monday, December 7th through Friday, December 11th:

December 7, 2009 – Books and Chocolate Review: short stories My Lady Ludlow and Dr. Harrison

December 8, 2009 – Melanie’s Musings Review: Wives and Daughters

December 9, 2009 – The Bluestocking Society Review: North and South

December 10, 2009 – So Many Books Review: Lois the Witch

December 11, 2009 – Eclectic/Eccentric Review: Cranford

We are so excited for the beginning of the Wilkie Collins Circuit next week. Thanks so much for your eagerness to celebrate the classics!

In the mean time, I created a logo for The Classics Circuit. Trisha also made up some buttons. Feel free to use them on your site if you are participating in the upcoming tours or even if you just feel like having a button!

I do ask that you download them to your own computer.

If you’d like, you  may add a sentence to your post that welcomes Wilkie Collins to “The Classics Circuit” and you can link to the full Collins Circuit schedule posted on this site so your blog readers can see where he’s been and where he is going. Likewise, Gaskell participants may want to direct their readers to the full Gaskell Circuit schedule.

I’m so excited for all the interest. I hope you are enjoying your reading!

For the January-to-February Tour, we’ve settled on American authors.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) through Saturday will be a poll of four American writers from which we’ll choose the January Circuit. Please note that if we have huge interest in more than one author, we’ll do overlapping tours as we did for the Victorians. Come back tomorrow to choose one of the four that you’d love to see on tour!

Sign up for the American January-to-February tour(s) will begin in November, probably the second week.

For the February-to-March tour, we won’t have a vote: we’ll be doing a thematic tour. We’re not sure how the theme will work, as compared to the author tours, but I’m excited because it’s an awesome theme. In honor of U.S. Black History month, we’ll be doing a Harlem Renaissance tour. We’re still working on the details (and we’ll get an information post up with reading options, as we did for the other tours). Sign up will be in December.

If you’re interested in the tours, here are some basics: Tours run Monday through Fridays. We’ll start assigning days the beginning of January and we’ll assign participants Monday through Friday until all participatns are assigned. Because we “assign” a day that the author will “visit” your blog, we like to know which days you are unable to host or which days your prefer. We need to know about other “tours” you’re doing that tie up your blog, weeks you’ll be out of town, and details like “I don’t want to host on Fridays.” Let us know that information when you sign up for the tour so the day we assign might work best for the tour.

We’re always looking for your suggestions on future tours. Fill out the Suggest a Tour form so we’ll have your ideas to work with!

Tours

I wanted to give you a quick note to remind you that the sign up for the Wilkie Collins tour will close Saturday morning (8 a.m. CST).

Next week, we’ll have a sign up for the Elizabeth Gaskell tour, which will overlap with Wilkie Collins.

I am so excited for all those who’ve signed up and I’m sure both are going to be fun tours around the the blogosphere!

We would like to plan to have another tour beginning the second week of January, but we need your help in deciding what authors would you love to see promoted via tour.

Go to the Suggest a Tour page and submit your authors and ideas. While right now we’re going to stay with authors, we may branch out in the future to subject tours. Please give us your insights and favorites so we have options to work with. I was thinking we select  a American author, but I’m up for suggestions!

Voting

In the middle of November, I plan on putting up a survey to vote for the January tour. Is that a good time to plan your reading for a January tour? Again, I’m open to suggestions.

A Community Effort

The most exciting thing about The Classics Circuit thus far is realizing how the community is joining together. Each of you will write a post for your blog. Our job it just to bring it all together, and I’m so excited how it’s all working out.

I’m realizing that this is going to be a lot of work to bring together a tour, and already I’m incredibly grateful to those who have helped out so far.

That great info about Wilkie Collins was compiled by Trisha (Eclectic/Eccentric), and Bella (A Bibliophile’s Bookshelf) is helping me organize the Collins tour. Elizabeth Gaskell book info (to be posted next week) was compiled by Eva (A Striped Armchair) and the Teresa (Shelf Love) is helping compile information about the life of Gaskell. Other bloggers are giving input behind the scenes as well, including Becky (Becky’s Book Reviews), Christine (booktumbling), and Cara (Ooh…Books). I’ve also gotten a few emails from some others who want to join in helping. I’ll be sure to get in touch with you too!

So the bottom line is that The Classics Circuit is turning in to a community effort. While I may post the surveys and the author info onto the website, there are a half a dozen other people who are helping out behind the scenes through emails, input, research, write-ups, and organization. I do truly appreciate all your help!

If you also want to help behind the scenes, send me an email at rebecca [at] rebeccareid [dot] com with “Classics Circuit Committee” in the subject line.

One more note: If you only want to subscribe to certain posts on The Classics Circuit, you can subscribe to each feed individually:

• General Information (such as this information post)
• Tour Schedule (future tour sign up, current tour schedules, past tour permalinks)
• Voting (voting for possible future tours, such as the Vote for November 2009 Circuit! post)