Guest ii Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 (edited) As the name suggests, this is a challenge for reading throught the decades of the 20th century. I've provided a few titles here as a starting point (yes, biased), but this is just an example. Please, provide suggestions, and I'll add them here for everyone to see. Also, if I've gotten something wrong, do say so, and I'll stand corrected. In some decades I was seriously pulling blanks, so help me out, please. 1900's A Room with a View by E. M. Forsters Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum 1910's Demian by Hermann Hesse Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Howards End by E. M. Forster 1920's The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham Lady Chatterly's Lover by D. H. Lawrence Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner The Age of Innocence byEdith Wharton 1930's Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier The Grapes of Wrath or Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (1936) Finnegans Wake by James Joyce Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain Brave New World by Aldous Huxley Voyage au Bout de la Nuit (Journey to the End of the Night) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline 1940's 1984 by George Orwell Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller The Stranger by Albert Camus For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 1950's Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricial Highsmith On the Road by Jack Kerouac The Tin Drum by Günter Grass Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov Lord of the Flies by William Golding Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak By Love Posessed by James Gould Cozzens 1960's The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey The Godfather by Mario Puzo One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez In Cold Blood by Truman Capote Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 1970's Ragtime by E. L. Doctorov Sophie's Choice by William Styron All the President's Men by Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch 1980's The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Beloved by Tony Morrison The Color Purple by Alice Walker The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez 1990's American Pastoral by Philip Roth The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunninham The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje Should there be like some rules for this? One book per month? So that'd be ten months. Starting September? I've never posted a challenge before... And I apologise for the typos, I'm at BF's computer, and the letters are all in the wrong place... Edited September 9, 2008 by ii added some books Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kell Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 (edited) I found a nice list of potentials over on Wikipedia if anyone wants to take a look HERE. You can also click on each year to be taken to a longer list for that year and expand your choices even further. This is a challenge in which I'm seriously interested, but I can't commit to another at the moment - it's taken me about 3 weeks to read I, Claudius, which I rather enjoyed! Edited August 22, 2008 by Kell Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ii Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 Thank you, Kell! I did mean to put more effort into this and even had a preliminary list of possible titles but then I forgot it home when we left (of course). I'll take a look at the list you provided and add what seems like interesting later, once I have more time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankie Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 This seems like a really interesting challenge but I don't think I have the time for it just now because I really want to shorten my TBR list at the moment A Home at the End of the World was written in 1990. It's a really, really fantastic read but just a little misplaced on the list Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ii Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 A Home at the End of the World was written in 1990. It's a really, really fantastic read but just a little misplaced on the list You're right. I knew that. Just a slight (80 years!) copy-paste error. So sorry, will fix it right away. Thank you for noticing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kate Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 I like the sound of this challenge, when my TBR list goes down I may join in Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted August 24, 2008 Share Posted August 24, 2008 How are people planning to do this? For instance, does it have to be a fresh book or if we've already read one from a particular decade then does it count? Should we establish some guidelines, or are people going to do their own thing? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ii Posted August 24, 2008 Share Posted August 24, 2008 I guess we should get some guidelines, yes. I'm flying back home today, so I can focus more on it then. What kinds of things do you usually have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 I'm not sure - I've not taken part in any challenges before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phoenix Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Hi, I just found this thread - it really sounds great and I would love to join but I have a very similar personal challenge at the moment and not yet sure whether this one is colliding or harmonising with it. I'll just add my personal reading challenge idea to this thread. May be you want to add some of those books to your challenge. What I started doing some months ago is reading books from winners of the nobel price of literature. There is quite a good website from the nobel foundation itself: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/index.html So far, I have read books written by: Doris Lessing Elfriede Jelinek G Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freewheeling Andy Posted August 27, 2008 Share Posted August 27, 2008 Too many poets in the Nobel list. Interesting that there are little bunches together where I've read a few, and then large swathes where I've read none. There's a stretch from '54 to '64 where I've read stuff by seven of them (and bought a book by an eighth before giving it away). But from 64 to 82 I've only read a book by one of them. I wonder if the judges change and go from slightly more populist novelists to obscurants and poets, and then back? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly2008 Posted August 28, 2008 Share Posted August 28, 2008 I'd love to join in this challenge I don't have any suggestions for other books though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nursenblack Posted August 30, 2008 Share Posted August 30, 2008 I would be interested in this challenge. Sounds like fun. Here are a few of my suggestions: The Metamorphosis -Franz Kafka (1915), Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell (1936), Forever Amber -Kathleen Winsor (1944), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey (1962), Peyton Place -Grace Metalious (1956), I'm The King Of the Castle - Susan Hill (1977), The Color Purple - Alice Walker (1982). I've never read any of these, but I think they all sound like good reads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly2008 Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 To help me find books for each decade I'm going to use http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/most-popular/?year=1900&genre= I just typed in the year 1900 and loads of books have come up so hopefully I'll find a good one. Are we starting this now? and is it one decade/book per month? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Here's what I posted in my thread. I'm not 100% sure what other people are planning to do, so I may adapt it, but for now I'm planning to read one book from each decade of the 1900s - not in any particular order - and I may even throw the 1800s in for good measure, if it doesn't prove too tricky! I'm not going to put myself under pressure by giving myself a timescale - I have to read what I fancy rather than being constrained to what I ought to read. I've started with 1908. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly2008 Posted September 3, 2008 Share Posted September 3, 2008 Thanks. Yeah I don't think I'll put a time scale on it, although I will try to read atleast one a month. I think I'm going to try and read in order so I can keep track I'll see what happens and it also depends in what books I am able to get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ii Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 I added some books to the list in the original post, quite at random, I must say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 This definitely sounds like a challenge I will join. It meshes well with my goal to read one-each of every noted American author and I see good books on the list, plus many decades I already have covered, heh heh. If one should be reading previously unread books in the decades I'll gladly sign up for that also. Might I suggest two good reads: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (1958) By Love Posessed by James Gould Cozzens (1957) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janet Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 If one should be reading previously unread books in the decades I'll gladly sign up for that also. It's personal choice, I believe, but I'm certainly aiming to read 'new to me' novels. I've just looked for By Love Possessed on Amazon, but as it's only available second-hand there is no synopsis. Could you give a bit of a synopsis, please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted September 9, 2008 Share Posted September 9, 2008 I've just looked for By Love Possessed on Amazon, but as it's only available second-hand there is no synopsis. Could you give a bit of a synopsis, please? OK, I'll do that. Give me a bit to scratch my head, or perhaps look up my copy which is around here someplace after just re-reading it recently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted September 10, 2008 Share Posted September 10, 2008 I've just looked for By Love Possessed on Amazon, but as it's only available second-hand there is no synopsis. Could you give a bit of a synopsis, please? OK Janet, Actually I didn't much care for the synopsis on the back cover. It's amateurish and makes it sound like a pot-boiler, so I put together a full review which I'm going to put in the Book Review section here. If you'd still like a shorter synopsis, I can do that too. Your call on how you want to handle it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kernow_reader Posted September 13, 2008 Share Posted September 13, 2008 Hmm, I'm thinking of joining this challenge. For 1900 I was going to choose Ethan Frome. Then I was drawn to The Secret Garden or The Wizard of Oz. Next I looked at Lucky Jim. Then I followed Kelly's link as above and Eureka! I'm going with this one by Anthony Hope "Captain Dieppe" Can't think why Like it's not as if it: reminds me of anyone in particular or anything like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.