I’ve managed to stop doing the Charleston long enough to catch my breath so we can chat about my my 1920s TBR shelf. You will probably note that my shelves are devoid of many of the august books of the 20s which is mainly due to the fact that I have already read most of those.

As usual, the full TBR can be found at the bottom of the post.

[For those who don’t know, I am participating in A Century of Books this year which requires me to read one book from each year from 1919 through 2018.]

1920

Happy House – Jane Abbott
Klingsor’s Last Summer – Hermann Hesse

The Abbott was a vintage find of which I have no knowledge and the Hesse is far too enticing to pass up. I think I may have actually read it when I was on a Hesse binge in college, but that was before I started keeping track.

1921

Vera – Elizabeth von Arnim
Joanna Godden – Sheila Kaye-Smith

I’ve already read Vera this year so 1921 is complete.

1922

The Camomile – Catherine Carswell
My Mother’s House – Colette
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Heir – Vita Sackville-West
Life and Death of Harriett Frean – May Sinclair
Seven for a Secret – Mary Webb
A Son at the Front – Edith Wharton

There is much here I would like to read, including Ulysses. I had sworn off Joyce until I read The Dead. Then I read a bit of Ulysses and thought “Hmm, that is way more readable than I thought.” But I won’t be reading it this year, I’ve already read Wharton’s A Son at the Front.

1923

Colin – E.F. Benson
Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley
Peter West – D.E. Stevenson

Let’s just be honest, it’s going to be the Benson or the Stevenson. I have tons of Benson on my TBR and quite a bit but much less of Stevenson. Both are likely to be comfort reads so this should be a cozy year to read.

1924

The Unlit Lamp – Radclyffe Hall
Seducers in Ecuador – Vita Sackville-West

I really liked Hall’s The Well of Loneliness because it is still so relevant and so ahead of its time in content. Her writing, on the other hand is a bit tortured at times.  And the Sackville-West is about 3 pages long. Still, it’s up in the air.

1925

Mother – E.F. Benson
Rex – E.F. Benson
Pastors and Masters – Ivy Compton-Burnett
Corydon – Andre Gide

I thought I had sworn off Ivy Compton-Burnett, but then I found a nice edition of this short work and thought I would give it another go. Less likely to read Benson’s Mother as it is literally about his mother. 

1926

Her Son’s Wife – Dorothy Canfield
Marazan – Nevil Shute

This is Shute’s first novel and one of the few I haven’t read. I think it is going to take the prize.

1927

Leadon Hill – Richmal Crompton
Wintersmoon – Hugh Walpole

I know nothing about the Walpole and I’ve loved all the Crompton’s I’ve read. On the other hand, Walpole is taking up a fair amount of space and I have had it for a long time. It might be time to move it along one way or the other.

1928

Brook Evans – Susan Glaspell
Quicksand – Nella Larsen
The Quarry Wood – Nan Shepherd

The Shepherd is part of an omnibus that I am not sure I want to commit to. I enjoyed Nella Larsen’s Passing and she might be the only person of color that I have in the 1920s. On the other hand I have never read any Glaspell and am very curious to understand what she is all about.

1929

Paying Guests – E.F. Benson
Sido – Colette
The Other One – Colette
Living – Henry Green
The Lacquer Lady – F. Tennyson Jesse
The Bride’s House – Dawn Powell
Three Came Unarmed – E. Arnot Robertson

Although there is much that attracts me here, I think I might go for one of the Colettes. I want to know if they are like the Claudine books, which I hated, or more like The Ripening Seed, which I loved.

For the whole list:

TBR Chron

 

As noted previously, I’ve decided to pursue A Century of Books based on Stuck in a Book’s plan to read the century 1919-2018 rather than 1900-1999. As I went through my giant TBR re-sort recently, it became clear that this was a good idea. I would have had a hard (and boring) time filling those years from 1900-1919.

The only weird thing about this shifted century is that I have this one year is a bit of an orphan and doesn’t have any decade pals. So it stands here on its own.

As you can see below the year 1919 is pretty darn compelling. I’ve only ever read (and loved) Canfield’s The Homemaker, so I am curious about that one. I really love Hermann Hesse and I really want to read this one, but there is more Hesse coming up so I thought I would give this one a pass for now. I’ve read a lot of Lewis and this one looks interesting. For some reason the May Sinclair novel doesn’t speak to me at the moment. And then there is the Morley. I know there is lots of blogger/reader chatter about him, but I really know nothing about him or his work. With a title like that, however, I decided to give it a go and am actually already about 10 pages in.

With a great selection like this for 1919 (and even better ones in other years as you will soon see), it makes me want to read everything I have for that year. Like maybe I change my ACOB approach to reading every book that I already own from each year. With 725 books on my TBR that would take about 7 years. Hmm…

1919

The Brimming Cup – Dorothy Canfield
Strange News From Another Star – Hermann Hesse
Free Air – Sinclair Lewis
The Haunted Bookshop – Christopher Morley
Mary Oliver: A Life – May Sinclair

For those of you participating in ACOB and needing ideas for your list I thought I would post the whole list at once rather than make you wait for my blog posts about each decade. Also helpful because it has all of my TBR books published prior to 1919 as well.

TBR Chron

For those of you NOT doing ACOB, you just might be curious to see whats on my TBR.

TBR Alpha

 

The other night I was picking a selection of books off of my shelves in order to decide what to read next. While doing so, I was cognizant of my decision to take part in A Century of Books and thought I should start keeping track of the years in which each of them was published.  I made a checklist to make sure I didn’t duplicate years.

After I had pulled together an interesting looking pile of almost 30 books to take up to my nightstand…I had a mental breakdown brilliant idea. Wouldn’t it be great to have a full list of all the books I own but haven’t read organized by year published so that I could make my ACOB choices from all that was available to me?

Here is what I did:

1. Took every book I haven’t read yet off of my shelves.
2. Moved all of the books I have read to one side of my bookcase and kept them alphabetical by author. It turned out that out of 30 shelves of fiction, the ones I have read only took up 10 shelves.
3. Opened up every single unread book to check the publishing date and put it on a shelf corresponding to a decade. (See picture below for what that looked like.)
4. Went by decade and created a spreadsheet with year published, title, and author for every book, then stacked the books according to the corresponding year of that decade.
5. Once I finished a decade I would sort the spreadsheet so I could put the books on the shelf in order without having to alphabetize in my head.

 

Let me say I was astounded by how many unread books I own. I was even more astounded by how inter-shelving read and unread books kept me from understanding how much variety I had to choose from. Once they were all sorted and put in order–all 726 of them–it became clear that I would be able to satisfy 99 out of the 100 years of books for ACOB. 2018 is the only year for which I don’t already own a book. Most years I have at least four or five books to choose from. I think there is only one year for which I only have one book.

In the coming weeks I am not only going to make my full TBR list available, but I am going to be breaking it down by year. In the meantime you can look at the organized shelves. Also check out the video at the end of the post.

I’ve pared my books down to the bone. And still there are books stacked in places my husband would rather not see them. The result is that I get to have more shelves built. In our basement rec room there is a bookshelf built as part of a radiator enclosure that was here when we bought the house. So we are going have some shelves built on top of that.  It should net me about 23 more linear feet of shelf space. I can’t wait.

I said I would never do this again. Simon Thomas at Stuck in a Book has reissued his dastardly A Century of Books challenge. The first time (has he done it more than once?) the century was 1900 to 1999 and participants were to read 100 years of books in a year, one from each year. I made the stupid mistake last time of trying to read them in chronological order which really hindered my progress. And, as much as I read old books, getting through the first 20 years of the century was way more painful than I had thought prior to starting. This time around Simon has proposed that the century consist of 1919 through 2018. This twenty-year shift is just enough for me to make this a much attractive (and doable) challenge.

Although the first 20 years from the last time around had a few books that I truly enjoyed (and one that is an all time favorite), the overall memory of those 20 years still makes my stomach churn six years later.

1900 – Claudine at School by Collette (so boring)
1901 – Claudine in Paris by Collette (so boring)
1902 – The Immoralist by Andre Gide (kind of enjoyed)
1903 – The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers (really needed to be 100 pages shorter)
1904 – Peter Camenzind by Hermann Hesse (loved)
1905 – The Duel by Aleksandr Kuprin (kind of okay)
1906 – Young Torless by Robert Musil (really disliked)
1907 – The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad (why is he so hard to read?)
1908 – Love’s Shadow by Ada Leverson (enjoyed)
1909 – Martin Eden by Jack London (all-time favorite)
1910 – Clayhanger by Arnold Bennett (snooze)
1911 – Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm (man, I hated this book)
1912 – The Charwoman’s Daughter by James Stephens (fine)
1913 – T. Tembarom by Frances Hodgson Burnett (enjoyed)
1914 – Penrod by Booth Tarkington (snooze)
1915 – The Underdogs by Mariano Azuela (boring)
1916 – Under Fire by Henri Barbusse (unpleasant writing style)
1917 – Gone to Earth by Mary Webb (kind of liked)
1918 – Patricia Brent-Spinster by Herbert George Jenkins (loved)

I guess that only half the list makes me shudder in recollection.  But then there were 4 more that I only kind of enjoyed. I think the problem was that there are too many “esteemed” books on the list that I should have chucked instead of finished. This time I plan to set books aside and find something more enjoyable.

Like last time I am going to try and read mainly from my TBR pile, but the shift in dates, and the fact that my TBR is much bigger and more diverse this time around means, I hope, that I won’t run into so many problems finding enjoyable books. Last night I stayed up way too late combing the shelves to fill in my century. So far I like the way that list is shaping up and will post about it in the coming days.

In the meantime, I think this one challenge may encompass every urge I have this year for reading resolutions. Anyone who listened to the year end recap that Simon Savidge and I did on The Readers will know that I am anti-resolution this year, but my resolution to not have resolutions seems to be wavering. By participating in this one challenge, I think I can manage to

1. Read at least 100 books.
2. Greatly reducing my TBR pile.
3. Pick up the pace on my Brookner re-read–If I wanted to, all 12 of the remaining Brookners I have to re-read could be put on the list.
4. Follow whims–the addition of 2000-2018 really allows for room to read recent and diverse novels.
5. Get a complete accounting of my TBR–I’m going to make a list by year so that I know what I have to choose from, and if I have more than one book for a given year I can choose the most enjoyable one.

I do know this. I will fail. My hope is that this time I don’t let that keep me from reading or ruining my year. If it does…well, I can always blame Simon Thomas.