Like any other reader out there who is on social media, I have done my fair share of moaning about how social media has kept me from reading. Now that I’ve spent countless hours updating my Goodreads page to include every book I have since 1994 I can tell you that my moaning may be misplaced. Here are a few of my observations:

Prior to social media the quality of my reading was hit or miss

As I plugged in all of my book data one thing became clear, back in the days before I found my social media family of like minded readers, my book choices missed their mark more than they hit. Some years, 2005 comes to mind, just seemed to be nothing but a seemingly endless stream of 2- and 3-star books. It was kind of depressing to see how much time I wasted on boring, lackluster, totally forgettable books. The only light during this period was the publication of Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust. She was key to me finding books I actually liked. In particular she turned me on to Ward Just and Barbara Pym, just to name two.

A book group helped

For a while after 2005 I was in a monthly book club where people just brought in books they had been reading and talked about them and then we swapped. Over time we got to know whose interests  were similar and I got recommendations that were better than just pulling books off the library shelf at random and hoping for the best. My ratings were much perkier during the book club period.

2009 was a watershed year

Sometime in the summer of 2009 I discovered book blogs. It seems a little weird that I had been blogging (sometimes about books) for three years before I discovered actual book blogs. It’s possible I had found a few prior to that, but it was around then that I found Savidge Reads and Stuck in a Book. I don’t remember which one I found first, but those two Simons and their blogrolls turned me on to a whole world I didn’t know existed. It was at this point where I really started to find books I liked. Not surprisingly it was also about this time that I stopped taking recommendations from people IRL because I didn’t know their tastes as well as I knew the tastes of the bloggers I followed. This was also the year that I discovered many firsts: My first sensation novel (The Woman in White), my first Persephone (Cheerful Weather for the Wedding), my first Europa (Queen of the Tambourine), my first Bloomsbury Edition (Henrietta’s War), and my first NYRB Classic (Manservant and Maidservant).  The Wilkie Collins was the only one that was an unqualified success at the time, but the others were enticing enough that they set me on a much better path to a world of books that were “up my alley” as it were.

social media does not seem to be a culprit

If you look at the chart below, the only thing that seems to be clear is that I tend to have a good year followed by a not-so-good year. I started blogging in 2006 which was  a banner year for books. I started focusing mainly on books in 2009 which was another banner year. I started on Twitter in 2013 which was my bannerist year of all time. I’m not sure when I started on Facebook so I can’t really make any judgments about that.

What does it all mean?

The biggest takeaway from all this is that social media has definitely provided me with reading recommendations from trusted sources that would have been unavailable to me in real life. No question about it. I also think the competitive nature of social media has helped me up my game in terms of quantity. It’s true that sometimes I do spend too much time staring at a screen, but overall it hasn’t really negatively impacted the amount of reading I do. A net gain for sure.

And let’s get real, people

Just think how much grayer my life would be (and I am not talking about Persephones) if I didn’t have you all to interact with. If we all lived in a little reading village where we could get together for cocoa and book talk that would be great. But we don’t, so virtual reality works out pretty damn well. At least it has for me.

I made really good progress in January against both my goal of reading 100 books for the year and of reading books only from my TBR for the A Century of Books Challenge. I would love it if I could keep this pace up for the year. There really is no reason I couldn’t, except for TV, the internet, and laziness. I read 12 books total, 11 of them counting towards ACOB.

A Son at the Front – Edith Wharton 
This Wharton is perhaps the most neglected Wharton I have come across. Although it is back in print, it is not one you are likely to find very easily (unless you want it on Kindle). John Campton, a successful American portrait artist living in France tries to keep his son George out of the war. Very much worth reading.

The Boss Dog by M.F.K. Fisher
Americans in Provence in the 1950s or so, a village dog, I feel like I should have loved this book. But there was something about the writing style that not only put me off the book but made the 118 pages seem like an eternity. Each of the chapters is its own little vignette that all just felt like they were trying to be amusing and charming.

The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
Given its title, not terribly surprising that this is one of Graham Greene’s thrillers. The agent in question, only identified as ‘D’, is in England to buy coal to support his side in his country’s civil war. Almost from the moment he lands in England he is hampered in his task by ‘L’ who wants to keep D from getting the contract for coal and get it for himself instead. I liked the story quite a bit for its 1930s setting and logistical detail, not to mention D’s ability to escape complicated and sometimes harrowing circumstances. I never did believe in the love interest Greene inserts into the tale. It seemed a little lazy and superficial. Like I said a good book, and I love some of Greene’s other books immensely, but this one just proved to me how much better Eric Ambler is at this kind of thing.

Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff and Vernon Bartlett 
I am a huge fan of Sherriff’s two very different books The Hopkin’s Manuscript and A Fortnight in September. Finding this novelization of Sherriff’s play of the same name was quite a surprise when I came across a few years ago. (I think it was at King Books in Detroit when I was on my Booktopia road trip with Savidge Reads.) It’s a good, if fairly standard World War I story, that was  well worth reading but didn’t knock my socks off.

In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
Being a bit of a Paul Auster fan I was excited both by the fact that this is a dystopian novel and that I had an audio recording of it read by none other than Vanessa Redgrave. I was entranced right from the start. But then I realized the Redgrave recording was an (unmarked!) abridged version. What a tragedy. Her reading was marvelous. So I set the recording aside and picked up the actual book. I kind of loved it. It was sad and beautiful. Sometime in the near future, Anna Blume, trying to live through the insanely poor, hardscrabble, almost MadMax-like life in a volatile, unnamed city tells her tale through one long letter written to a friend who is elsewhere away from violence and chaos. Before I knew what was going on in the books, I thought it was set in a Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust.  It wasn’t, but it sure seems like Auster’s intentions were to write an allegory–or would it be a metaphor?–in any case I think he did. High marks for this one. If you think you may not like Auster, I think this shortish novel might be a good place to start. (Although now that I think of it there may have been one or two slang references to female anatomy that seemed a little jarring and unnecessary. But it is still a fantastic book.) 

The Bride’s House by Dawn Powell
I’ve had several Dawn Powell novels for quite some time. I feel absolutely proud of myself for finally reading one of them. This one, published in 1929, takes place in rural Ohio and tells the story of Sophie who is a beauty who is torn between two men. That makes it sound superficial, which it isn’t. Powell really is a fine writer who must have shocked audiences when this was published. Aside from the period trappings it feels pretty modern.

The Unlit Lamp by Radclyffe Hall
This novel doesn’t have the same crazy writing style of the far more compelling The Well of Loneliness but it could have used more rigorous editing for sure. I can like some good old fashioned unfulfilled lives morphing into life long complacency, but I really wanted this one to have a happy ending.  It didn’t, maybe not tragic, but not happy. One has to put aside what could be perceived as child sexual predation–although I don’t think it got phsyical (if ever) until Joan is older. It seems less creepy in 1924 than it does today. Maybe. I love many of the reviews on Goodreads by people who enjoyed it more than I did.

Slide Rule – Nevil Shute 
I always knew that Nevil Shute had an engineering background, but until I read this memoir I didn’t realize just how involved he was in aviation prior to giving it up to focus full time on being an author. For instance he was an engineer for Britain’s air ship (aka blimp) program and intimately involved in its development. This was fascinating on so many levels, not the least of which was the fact that these early airship designs were really conceived of as ships with dining rooms, saloons, and cabins, etc. After that program was shut down, he co-founded an airplane manufacturing company Airspeed Ltd in 1931.  At first I thought it was going to be a tale of a well-intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to make airplanes, but it wasn’t. They produced numerous types of aircraft and it lasted for 20 years until it merged with de Havilland. Shute left the company sometime in the late 1930s and it made him enough money to not have to work for about 10 years if he had decided to. Although Slide Rule does cover Shute’s novel-writing efforts (which he did in his spare time), this really is a memoir of an engineer. I loved the book and was only disappointed that it didn’t chronicle the next 20 years of his life which was full of WWII, emigrating to Australia, and becoming one of the world’s best selling authors.

Passage of Arms  – Eric Ambler
I. Love. This. Book. Amblerian perfection. American couple steaming their way across the world stumble into an arms smuggling plot. One of the things I loved about the story was how we see the deal from inception to completion from some really disparate points of view. It starts in the jungle where a clerk who dreams of owning a bus transportation company comes a cross an abandoned rebel arms dump and he fashions a plan to sell the arms so that he can buy his first bus. Then we see the efforts of the middle man he has enlisted to try and sell them. And then come the American dupes. All told with ample amounts of glorious officefilaic and logistical detail. And did I mention a steam ship making ports of call in southeast Asia.

Vera – Elizabeth von Arnim 
I started off loving this book. Older, recent widower Everard, meets and consoles the much younger Lucy who has just lost her father. They fall in love and get married and he instantly becomes controlling and abusive. I don’t really agree that this is “darkly comic”. It think it is just plain tragedy and fairly superficially told at that. This is the book that has sealed the fate of von Arnim for me. I loved The Enchanted April, but her other books have left me bored or annoyed. So I got rid of the rest of her titles on my TBR.

To the Land of Cattails by Aharon Appelfeld
A Jewish mother and her son make their way back to her eastern European homeland as Nazism is on the rise. They unknowingly stumble into the mass deportation of Jews. Interesting and poignant in many ways, but overall, as a reading experience it was just okay.

ACOB progress

1921 – Vera – Elizabeth von Arnim
1922 – A Son at the Front – Edith Wharton
1924 – The Unlit Lamp by Radclyffe Hall
1929 – The Bride’s House by Dawn Powell
1930 – Journey’s End by R.C. Sherriff and Vernon Bartlett
1939 – The Confidential Agent by Graham Greene
1954 – Slide Rule – Nevil Shute
1959 – Passage of Arms  – Eric Ambler
1986 – To the Land of Cattails by Aharon Appelfeld
1987 – In the Country of Last Things by Paul Auster
1990 – The Boss Dog by M.F.K. Fisher

Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
Lately I’ve been watching a lot of Seinfeld reruns. I’ve seen most episodes multiple times. But after a period of a few years of not seeing any episodes I now find them perhaps even funnier than before and on top  of that I now feel nostalgic for the 1990s. Seeing the group of four friends and all the socializing and informal pop-ins makes me hanker for my easy-breezy 20s. So when I saw the book at Politics and Prose, and not in the market for any new fiction given my ACOB goals, it seemed like this clearly enjoyable, easy-to-read, bit of fluff wouldn’t make much of a dent in my reading time. I was right on all counts. I enjoyed it for some of its behind the scenes gossip and much of it made me laugh out loud reminiscing about episodes and how they were received at the time they first aired. It was also interesting to read about how the show first came to be and how it almost didn’t survive it’s pilot episode. The second part of the book  kind of breaks down a bit and turns into a lot of disparate anecdotes that felt like the author was stretching for material. But still a very fun read. [I’m not counting this one toward ACOB because it was not part of my TBR and because there are too many other books from 2016 to from which to choose.]

 

Regular readers will know that the first two months of my year of books from Heywood Hill bookshop in Mayfair were absolute hits (see here and here). They were so good I was beginning to think they were living in my head. I wondered if they could keep it up. On the whole I would say yes, they did keep it up. However…

 

 

[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.]

My biggest challenge for this less-than-a-decade, decade is that I’ve got a lot of 2016 and 2017 stuff that I want to read I don’t know how in the world I am going to choose.

2010

Conversations with Beethoven – Sanford Friedman
My Animal Life – Maggie Gee
The Midnight Promise – Zane Lovitt
Eva Sleeps – Francesca Melandri

2011

The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress – Beryl Bainbridge
Everything Happens Today – Jesse Browner
At the End of a Dull Day – Massimo Carlotto
The Adults – Alison Espach
The Love of My Youth – Mary Gordon
Rodin’s Debutante – Ward Just
Wish You Were Here – Graham Greene

2012

Winter Journal – Paul Auster
Aftermath – Rachel Cusk
The Lola Quartet – Emily St. John Mandel
The Flame Alphabet – Ben Marcus
Jack Holmes and His Friend – Edmund White

The Ben Marcus volume was recommended by a bookseller at Three Lives in New York when I mentioned I liked a dystopia like Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Meanwhile The Lola Quartet seems like a non-dystopic Mandel. 

2013

The Automobile Club of Egypt – Alaa al Aswany
Maggie and Me – Damian Barr
Harvest – Jim Crace
Last Friends – Jane Gardam
The Last Banquet – Jonathan Grimwood
The World is a Wedding – Wendy Jones
Sight Reading – Daphne Kalotay
The Perfume Collector – Kathleen Tessaro
All the Birds, Singing – Evie Wyld

2014

The Boston Girl – Anita Diamant
The Pope’s Daughter – Dario Fo
A Paris Apartment – Michelle Gable
Arctic Summer – Damon Galgut
American Romantic – Ward Just
The Golden Age – Joan London
The Children Act – Ian McEwan
The Dismal Science – Peter Mountford
The Pathless Sky – Chaitali Sen
The Meaning of Maggie – Megan Jean Soavern
Nora Webster – Colm Toibin

A Paris Apartment sounds like it will be a total delight for me, but there is also a chance that it is twee, pandering, dross. 

2015

The Distant Marvels – Chantel Acevedo
The Seventh Function of Language – Laurent Binet
The Green Road – Anne Enright
The Vienna Melody – Ernst Lothar
Girl at War – Sara Novic
The Gardens of Consolation – Parisa Reza
Checkpoint – Jean-Christophe Rufin
Skyfaring – Mark Vanhoenacker

I feel like Girl at War was one of those that was ubiquitous in the blogsphere and I still have read it. Same thing with The Green Road. I think that one was up for a prize. Skyfaring seems like a total pleasure read for me. Non-fiction about the life of a commercial airline pilot.

2016

A Doubter’s Almanac – Ethan Canin
Transit – Rachel Cusk
Weekend – Jane Eaton Hamilton
Rain – Melissa Harrison
Hot Milk – Deborah Levy
This Must Be the Place – Maggie O’Farrell
Commonwealth – Ann Patchett
A Very English Scandal – John Preston
The Woman on the Stairs – Bernhard Schlink
All That Man Is – David Szalay
Do Not Say We Have Nothing – Madeleine Thien
The Arrangement – Ashley Warlick
Our Young Man – Edmund White
The Natural Way of Things – Charlotte Wood

The choice for 2016 is just plain insane. Why I haven’t already read the O’Farrell and Patchett I don’t know. I’m very drawn to the Schlink and I  am just dying to devour (and savor) the slim Harrison.

2017

Difficult Women – Roxane Gay
Midwinter Break – Bernard MacLaverty
The Crossing – Andrew Miller
Elmet – Fiona Mozley
Welcome to Lagos – Chibundu Onuzo
George and Lizzie – Nancy Pearl
Sympathy – Olivia Sudjic
Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore – Matthew Sullivan
The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman – Denis Theriault
When the English Fall – David Williams

The Williams is high on my list as is Mozley, and MacLaverty. This is the year I am second most likely to read more than one. Even if I am behind on the challenge.

The whole list

TBR Chron

[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.]

2000

The Goodbye Kiss – Massimo Carlotto
The Copenhagen Papers – Michael Frayn
The Pleasure of Their Company – Doris Grumbach
Greene on Capri – Shirley Hazzard
The Foundation Pit – Andrey Platonov

Massimo Carlotto’s hardboiled noir mysteries total page-turning quick reads so The Goodbye Kiss could really float to the top if I am in the mood for something escapist. I really like his books despite how sexist they are. In June we are going to be on boat near Capri so I am kind of tempted to read Greene on Capri. 

2001

The Sweetest Dream – Doris Lessing
The Jewish Husband – Lia Levi
A House Unlocked – Penelope Lively
The African Safari Papers – Robert Sedlack
Love in a Dark Time – Colm Toibin
Kyoto – Kate Walbert

I think the Toibin is non-fiction, but I won’t hold that against it.

2002

The Book of Illusions – Paul Auster
Land’s End – Michael Cunningham
Fragrant Harbour – John Lanchester

2003

Oracle Night – Paul Auster
The Lucky Ones – Rachel Cusk
The Sea House -Esther Freud
How the Light Gets In – M.J. Hyland
Timoleon Vieta Come Home – Dan Rhodes

I loved one Dan Rhodes (Marry Me) and DNF’d another one so I’m not sure how I feel about trying this one. Also ambivalent about the Freud, I thought Mr. Mac and Me was just okay.

2004

The Red Queen – Margaret Drabble
Utu – Caryl Ferey
The Second Death of Unica Aveyano – Ernesto Mestre-Reed

I have plenty of other Drabbles and other two are total wild cards to me and are very enticing.

2005

Margherita Dolce Vita – Stefano Benni
Poisonville – Massimo Carlotto
Pearl – Mary Gordon
Making it Up – Penelope Lively

Love Lively. Really like Carlotto. Okay with Gordon. Don’t know anything about Benni.

2006

The Elegance of the Hedgehog – Muriel Barbery
Arlington Park – Rachel Cusk
The Sea Lady – Margaret Drabble
Amazing Disgrace – James Hamilton-Paterson
Forgetfulness – Ward Just
In the Country of Men – Hisham Matar
Moffie – Andre Carl van der Merwe
Washing Dishes in the Hotel Paradise – Eduardo Beigrano Rawson
Gomorrah – Roberto Saviano
The Night Watch – Sarah Waters

Crazy how some years have so many things to choose from. And this one has more diversity than other years: South Africa, Uruguay, Libya, Italy, France, US, UK…

2007

The Road Home – Rose Tremain
Lions at Lamb House – Edwin M. Yoder

I want to like the Yoder but since it has a Henry James theme I am worried about the tediousness factor. 

2008

The Rehearsal – Eleanor Catton
Zulu – Caryl Ferey
Rancid Pansies – James Hamilton-Paterson
The Sorrows of an American – Siri Hustvedt
Alfred and Emily – Doris Lessing
Anathem – Neal Stephenson

I will have to really be comfortable with my progress to pick up Anathem. It’s huge. Also big, but not quite huge is Zulu. 

2009

The Bradshaw Variation – Rachel Cusk
The Man in the Wooden Hat – Jane Gardam
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet – Reif Larsen

I read Old Filth so long ago I almost feel like I need to re-read it before picking up The Man in the Wooden Hat. But that probably won’t happen.

The whole list

TBR Chron

[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.]

1990

The Boss Dog – M.F.K. Fisher

I’ve already started this one. It is very short and about southern France, but for some reason I don’t find it very compelling. It’s taking me much longer to read than it should.

1991

Long Ago in France – M.F.K. Fisher
Coming into the Endzone – Doris Grumbach
City of the Mind – Penelope Lively

Based  on my note for 1990, I’m not sure how I will feel about Long Ago in France. Plus let’s be real, this is the first Penelope Lively on my list. It’s bound to get read.

1992

English Music – Peter Ackroyd
Arcadia – Jim Crace
Black Dogs – Ian McEwan

I so loved Jim Crace’s novel Being Dead. I really need to read something else by him. I have one or two others on the list in addition to this one. 

1993

Saving Agnes – Rachel Cusk
The Furies – Janet Hobhouse
In a Country of Mothers – A.M. Homes
The Green Knight – Iris Murdoch

Pretty sure Saving Agnes is going to get the nod. I’ve got a stockpile of Cusks that I am very interested in reading. I think this is the earliest of them. The A.M. Homes would be second choice.

1994

None to Accompany Me – Nadine Gordimer
Notes of a Crocodile – Qiu Miaojin

1995

The Blue Flower – Penelope Fitzgerald
The Book of Knowledge – Doris Grumbach
Total Chaos – Jean-Claude Izzo
Love, Again – Doris Lessing
How Long Has This Been Going On? – Ethan Mordden

1996

A Life in the Day – Doris Grumbach
The Beauty of Men – Andrew Holleran
The Debt to Pleasure – John Lanchester
At Eighty-Two – May Sarton

1997

Dog Day – Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett
Mendel’s Dwarf – Simon Mawer
Four Letter’s of Love – Niall Williams

I thought Mawer’s novel The Glass Room was such a fine book that I was surprised to read Trapeze which seemed kind of lazy and superficial in comparison. I will be interested to see which end of the spectrum Mendel’s Dwarf falls on.

1998

Quarantine – Jim Crace
The House Gun – Nadine Gordimer
Spiderweb – Penelope Lively
Storm Tide – Marge Piercy

An embarrassment of riches for 1988. 

1999

Atomised – Michel Houellebecq
The Blackwater Lightship – Colm Toibin

I think Atomised will be a bit outside my comfort zone so more likely to read the Toibin, unless I am so far ahead of schedule that I don’t mind going more slowly.

The whole list

TBR Chron

[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.]

1980

The Hidden Target – Helen MacInnes
Recovering – May Sarton

An intelligent spy novel or a journal of a beloved author recovering from a mastectomy? Not to be flip, but both of these tug at me equally. It’s going to come down my mood at the time.

1981

The Missing Person – Doris Grumbach
To the Islands – Randolph Stow

1982

A Soldier’s Legacy – Heinrich Boll
At Freddie’s – Penelope Fitzgerald
Monsignor Quixote – Graham Greene
A Pale View of the Hills – Kazuo Ishiguro
The True Deceiver – Tove Jansson
Anger – May Sarton
Sleepwalking – Meg Wolitzer

So much here to tempt. An early Wolitzer, a late Greene. Penelope Fitzgerald is never a bad idea. I’ve read two Tove Jansson short story collections, one of which I really liked and one which left me ambivalent. I am curious to see what she does in a novel. I blow hot and cold on Ishiguro. Well, I actually don’t feel that strongly, I blow warm and cool on Ishiguro. I’ve tried reading  A Pale View of the Hills previously and didn’t make it very far. If this edition was so pleasant to the touch and the eye I probably would have gotten rid of it a long time ago. Given my other choices, it also seems unlikely it’s going to get read this year.

1983

A Place on Earth – Wendell Berry
The Philosopher’s Pupil – Iris Murdoch

Back in my planning school days I read some of Berry’s non-fiction. For some unknown reason I am not drawn very strongly to this novel. Maybe because that is no how he made his name (at least with me) and so I feel like it can’t be any good. On the other hand a giant, late, Murdoch has me a bit ambivalent.

1984

Watson’s Apology – Beryl Bainbridge
The Ladies – Doris Grumbach
Good Daughters – Mary Hocking
The Busconductor Hines – James Kelman
Testing the Current – William McPherrson
At Seventy – May Sarton

At some point I have to read some Bainbridge. I’ve just assumed I would like her and buy of cheap editions when I find them, but I don’t think I have every read any of them. I really need to figure out if she is someone I would like. I love the title The Busconductor Hines and the book is totally unknown to me.

1985

Quinx – Lawrence Durrell
The Tenth Man – Graham Greene
Indifferent Heroes– Mary Hocking
Last Call – Harry Mulisch
The Good Apprentice – Iris Murdoch

Durrell’s Quinx if the last novel in a five-book series. There is no way I can read it until I read the other four. But I don’t own the other four. 

1986

To the Land of Cattails – Aharon Appelfeld
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks – Robertson Davies
Innocence – Penelope Fitzgerald
Welcome Strangers – Mary Hocking

1987

In the Country of Last Things – Paul Auster
The Book and the Brotherhood – Iris Murdoch
Civil to Strangers – Barbara Pym

I’ve already started reading In the Country of Last Things so I guess that answers that. I’ve also listened to the amazing Vanessa Redgrave reading the book, but I was following along with the book and the recording is abridged so that is kind of annoying. Redgrave is so good, I wish to heck she had read the whole book. 

1988

The Lyre of Orpheus – Robertson Davies
The Beginning of Spring – Penelope Fitzgerald
The Captain and the Enemy – Graham Greene
Beirut, Beirut – Sonallah Ibrahim
Mother London – Michael Moorcock
After the Stroke – May Sarton

Given that there are so many wonderful repeat authors on my TBR I am getting a little bored with some of their names at this point in my cataloging effort. Based on that and that alone, I think I will go for Beirut, Beirut or Mother London.

1989

Jigsaw – Sybille Bedford
A Natural Curiosity – Margaret Drabble
The Other Side – Mary Gordon
Jack – A.M. Homes
The Message to the Planet – Iris Murdoch
Damascus Nights – Rafik Schami

Probably going to be Damascus Nights. It is one of the books I bought by authors from countries on President Pumpkinhead’s no admittance list. Asshole.

The whole list

TBR Chron

[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.]

The 1970s are going to be weird for me. On the one hand there are tried and true authors, but on the other are books I have never heard of and know nothing about. There are no obvious choices.

1970

Children Are Civilians Too – Heinrich Boll
The Hopeful Traveller – Mary Hocking
Houses – Borislav Pekic
Last Things – C.P. Snow

1971

A Meaningful Life – L.J. Davis
The Climbing Frame – Mary Hocking
Message from Malaga – Helen MacInnes
Mawrdew Czgowchwz – James McCourt
Equal Danger – Leonardo Sciascia
Unforgiving Years – Victor Serge
Not to Disturb – Muriel Spark

I’ll never be able to discuss the James McCourt novel. That’s a lot of consonants.

1972

The Acolyte – Thea Astley
No Name in the Street – James Baldwin
Short Letter, Long Farewell – Peter Handke
Upstairs Downstairs – John Hawkesworth
The Bridge of Beyond – Simone Schwarz-Bart
The Malcontents – C.P. Snow
Augustus – John Williams

I almost didn’t put the John Hawkesworth on this list as it’s a novelization of the 1970s Upstairs Downstairs and didn’t seem like a “real” book to me but more of a novelty item. The Baldwin almost didn’t make the list because it is a collection of essays rather than a novel. I love the title Short Letter, Long Farewell.

1973

The Dressmaker – Beryl Bainbridge
The Black Prince – Iris Murdoch
The Siege of Swayne Castle – R.C. Sherriff
The Hothouse by the East River – Muriel Spark
Other Men’s Daughters – Richard Stern

When I purchased Other Men’s Daughters recently I had  a lot of people chime in on Twitter that it was an excellent book.

1974

Doctor Frigo – Eric Ambler
The Snare of the Hunter – Helen MacInnes
In Their Wisdom – C.P. Snow

This perfect storm of authors I like with no other wild cards to choose from. It also represents the last bit of each of their writing output for Ambler (only 2 more books to be published and  Snow (only 1 more). MacInnes had a bit more steam left with 5 more yet to be published.

1975

The Realms of Gold – Margaret Drabble
First Love, Last Rights – Ian McEwan
The Odd Angry Shot – William Nagle

This is going to be a tough choice between the Drabble and McEwan but I think the fact that this is McEwans first novel may tilt the month in his favorite. 

1976

The Spring – Kerstin Ekman
Agent in Place – Helen MacInnes
A World of Light – May Sarton

1977

The Dark Lady – Louis Auchincloss

It’s going to be hard to choose for 1977. Which will it be…?

1978

Injury Time – Beryl Bainbridge
God on the Rocks – Jane Gardam
Prelude to Terror – Helen MacInnes
The High Cost of Living – Marge Piercy
A Reckoning – May Sarton
The Moro Affair – Leonardo Sciascia
Fields of Fire – James Webb
The Volunteers – Raymond Williams

1979

Pig Earth – John Berger
The Safety Net – Heinrich Boll
Slow Homecoming – Peter Handke
Territorial Rights – Muriel Spark

For the whole list,

TBR Chron

[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.]

1960

Eating People is Wrong – Malcolm Bradbury
The Lovely Ambition – Mary Ellen Chase
Trustee from the Toolroom – Nevil Shute
Butcher’s Crossing – John Williams

I really loved John Williams’ novel Stoner so I’ve owned Butcher’s Crossing for ages. The thing is ,because it is a Western of sorts I haven’t been able to bring myself to read it. I’ve heard people say it is great but I haven’t been able to get over the Western part. I should choose it for 1960 but I could also see myself going for the Nevil Shute which I know I will enjoy.

1961

The Judas Tree – A.J. Cronin
The Fringe Dwellers – Nene Gare
Everything Flows – Vasily Grossman
Sunlight on a Broken Column – Attia Hosain
The Chateau – William Maxwell
A Trip into Town – Michael Rubin
The Winter of Our Discontent – John Steinbeck
In a Summer Season – Elizabeth Taylor
Dawn – Elie Wiesel

I think William Maxwell is best known for his short stories. I remember a  friend in 1995 telling me  I should read his stories. So over the years I’ve purchased a few of his anthologies and I haven’t even read a first line. I also bought this novel of his The Chateau. It had a nice cover and I am still holding onto this notion that I have had since 1995 that William Maxwell is someone I should read. This might be his year.

1962

That’s How it Was – Maureen Duffy
An Unofficial Rose – Iris Murdoch
Morte d’Urban – J.F. Powers
Day – Elie Wiesel

I’m completely ambivalent about all of these titles except for Day. I used to really love Iris Murdoch but I am not sure that I still do. And the Murdochs I have on my TBR are all a little thick. I also have a sense that I prefer early Murdoch.

1963

Cobbler’s Dream – Monica Dickens
Careful, He Might Hear You – Sumner Locke Elliott
The Guilt Merchants – Ronald Harwood
A Day in Late September – Merle Miller
Let’s Kill Uncle – Rohan O’Grady
Joanna and Ulysses – May Sarton

Merle Miller is an author I only know about because of Nancy Pearl’s first book Book Lust. I’ve read two or three of his novels and liked them and had fun uncovering his work while browsing used book shops. I think I have been saving them for a rainy day. As for Sarton’s Joanna and Ulysses, which is about a woman meeting a mistreated donkey. I love Sarton, but I am not sure how I feel about that. 

1964

The Rector – Louis Auchincloss
Hard Rain Falling – Don Carpenter
Kate and Emma – Monica Dickens
The Hand of Mary Constable – Paul Gallico
The Sparrow – Mary Hocking
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age – Bohumil Hrabel
Corridors of Power – C.P. Snow
The Soul of Kindness – Elizabeth Taylor

This is one of those years where I could go several different directions and probably be happy, but I really have been wanting to read another Auchincloss lately. I totally enjoyed The Book Class and The Partners and don’t know why I haven’t ever come across anyone who has read him. 

1965

My Dog Tulip – J.R. Ackerly
The Garden of the Finzi-Continis – Giorgio Bassani
The Millstone – Margaret Drabble
The Comedians – Graham Greene
The Young Spaniard – Mary Hocking
The Double Image – Helen MacInnes
The Red and the Green – Iris Murdoch
The River Between – Ngugi Wa Thiongo

I saw the movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis when I was taking Italian language classes way back in college. Since I am taking Italian again, might be fitting to read the book finally. But I must admit that My Dog Tulip is kind of calling my name.

1966

The Embezzler – Louis Auchincloss
The Railway Police – Hortense Calisher
The Room Upstairs – Monica Dickens

1967

Dirty Story – Eric Ambler
Towards the End of the Morning – Michael Frayn
A State of Change – Penelope Gilliatt
Ask No Question – Mary Hocking
A Flag on the Island – V.S. Naipaul
The Mimic Men – V.S. Naipaul
All the Little Live Things – Wallace Stegner

1968

A Compass Error – Sybille Bedford
Eva Trout – Elizabeth Bowen
The Landlord’s Daughter – Monica Dickens
A Very Private Life – Micheal Frayn
A Time of War – Mary Hocking
The Heritage – Frances Parkinson Keyes
Talk – Linda Rosenkrantz
To Each His Own – Leonardo Sciascia
The Sleep of Reason – C.P. Snow
Sarah’s Cottage – D.E. Stevenson

I think I am going to have to try and shoot for The Heritage by Frances Parkison Keyes. Sometimes I buy books for some combination of age, cover, and a vague sense that I might be finding the next best (old) thing or a new favorite author. I’ve done that with FPK and I think the time has come to figure out if I made a mistake or not.

1969

The Woman Destroyed – Simone de Beauvoir
A Pocketful of Rye – A.J. Cronin
Fat City – Leonard Gardner
Checkmate – Mary Hocking
The Road Through the Wall – Shirley Jackson
The Play Room – Olivia Manning
Memoirs of an Anti-Semite – Gregor von Rezzori
Seasons of Migration to the North – Tayeb Salih
The Poet and the Donkey – May Sarton

Huh. Another May Sarton donkey book? I have at least 3 Cronin’s on my shelves. I am going to have to read at least one of them. I have liked he two other novels of his that I have read. Olivia Manning is someone I have read but I may not have been in the mood for her. My problem is hat she has a series or two and I don’t know if this fits into tone of them.

The whole list

TBR Chron

 

I shouldn’t be surprised that my TBR is full of authors that I love, but it’s starting to feel a bit samey. Crompton, Dickens, Stevenson, Thirkell…I get it. Based on their ubiquity alone I think this is the decade I am going to force myself away from them. Of course this is how I feel at this moment just looking at the list. Who knows what order I will read everything. I might be in need of the old chestnuts. But for now, I am going to choose outside the box.

…I just finished annotating the list and realize that my cozy favorites start to fade out mid-decade and give way to grittier stuff–and more men.

[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.]

1950

Frost at Morning – Richmal Crompton
The Feast – Margaret Kennedy
The Sure Thing – Merle Miller
Shadow of a Man – May Sarton
Music in the Hills – D.E. Stevenson
Summer in the Country – Edith Templeton
Brat Farrar – Josephine Tey
County Chronicle – Angela Thirkell
The Lost Traveller – Antonia White

She might be familiar to many of you but Josephine Tey is an unknown quantity to me so she might get the nod. I’m not much of a mystery fan so we will she if does anything for me. I have a fair amount of Sarton on my TBR but much of that comes in the form of her journals in the 1970s and 1980s so an earlyish novel by her might be just the thing.

1951

The Loved and Envied – Enid Bagnold
New  York 22 – Ilka Chase
Lucy Carmichael – Margaret Kennedy
Merry Hall – Beverly Nichols
Shoulder the Sky – D.E. Stevenson

I have a few Margaret Kennedys (including another one in 1950) but have never read any of her books. I think the Virago crowd really like her so she may be my choice. I bought New York 22 because it has a fabulous cover. I’m not sure it is any good so I am tempted to read this one so I can move it along to a new home and get it off of my shelves. As much as I like the cover, I am not going to keep it as an object.

1952

The Village – Marghanita Laski
Martha Quest – Doris Lessing
The Gentlewoman – Laura Talbot
Happy Return – Angela Thirkell
Men at Arms – Evelyn Waugh
The Sugar House – Antonia White

The Lessing is the first of her so-called “Children of Violence” series. The fact that it is the first makes me think I should give it a whirl. Although I don’t think I own any of the other five.

1953

No More Meadows – Monica Dickens
Reflections on a Marine Venus – Lawrence Durrell
The Little Ark – Jan de Hartog
Troy Chimneys – Margaret Kennedy
Five – Doris Lessing
Laughter on the Stairs – Beverly Nichols
Ernesto – Umberto Saba
The Easter Party – Vita Sackville-West
The Gipsy in the Parlour – Margery Sharp
Five Windows – D.E. Stevenson
Jutland Cottage – Angela Thirkell
The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham

If I want a fun read that will take me about two seconds to finish, I would head straight for The Kraken Wakes. I’m also very tempted by Ernesto by Umberto Saba. It’s a gay novel written (and unfinished) in 1953 that wasn’t published until 1975, many years after his death in 1957. The Little Ark is a book I feel like I have had forever. It was purchased because the cover was nice but I have no idea if I will love or hate it. So it’s one of those books that needs to shit or get off the pot. (I need to come up with a better way of describing that kind of book.)

1954

Rowan Farm – Margot Benary-Isbert
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead – Barbara Comyns
The Cobweb – William Gibson
A Charmed Life – Mary McCarthy
The Wicked Pavilion – Dawn Powell
I Knew a Phoenix – May Sarton
Slide Rule – Nevil Shute
Sweet Thursday – John Steinbeck
What  Did it Mean? – Angela Thirkell
The  Flint Anchor – Sylvia Townsend Warner
Beyond the Glass – Antonia White

No need to go through this list. I’ve already read Slide Rule by Nevil Shute this year. It is an autobiography of his time as an aeronautical engineer but it might as well have been one of his novels.

1955

Memories of Arlington, VT – Dorothy Canfield
The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Doves of Venus – Olivia Manning
Faithful are the Wounds – May Sarton
Red Lights – Georges Simenon
Enter Sir Robert – Angela Thirkell

I think is either going to be a Sarton or Garcia Marquez year. Although that Simenon does have a forward by Anita Brookner…

1956

A Legacy – Sybille Bedford
Friends at Court – Henry Cecil
Every Eye – Isobel English
The Hunters – James Salter
Never Too Late – Angela Thirkell

I’m not sure what really prompted me to buy the James Salter novel late last year. I think it is a Korean War story. That seems very decade appropriate and a break from everything else on my list.

1957

On Leave – Daniel Anselme
Fire, burn! – John Dickson Carr
The Edge of Darkness – Mary Ellen Chase
Bitter Lemons – Lawrence Durrell
Esprit de Corps – Lawrence Durrell
The Day the Money Stopped – Brendan Gill

Is this the same Brendan Gill who wrote for The New Yorker? If only there was a way to find out. I love the title Bitter Lemons.

1958

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
The Northern Light – A.J. Cronin
The Ten Thousand Things – Maura Dermout
Man Overboard – Monica Dickens
Stiff Upper Lip – Lawrence Durrell
The Sundial – Shirley Jackson
A Ripple from the Storm – Doris Lessing
The Road to Wigan Pier – George Orwell
The Well – Sinclair Ross
Alfred and Guinevere – James Schuyler
Robinson – Muriel Spark
Engaged in Writing – Stephen Spender

Boy, 1958 is a tough one for me. I’m very attracted to the Achebe, Jackson, Orwell, and Ross. (That would make a great name for a law firm. I’m tempted to write a novel just so I can have the protagonist work at Achebe, Jackson, Orwell, and Ross. Although they could also be charted accounts who help him float the shares of his aviation manufacturing firm ala Slide Rule.)  Also, I lied earlier. I do have more of Lessing’s Children of Violence series, but A Ripple From the Storm is number 3 and I don’t have number 2. 

1959

All in a Lifetime – Walter Allen
Passage of Arms – Eric Ambler
Sorrow Laughs – Harry Bloom
Life and Fate – Vasily Grossman
The Letter from Spain – Frances Parkinson Keyes
Walkabout – James Vance Marshall
The Outward Urge – John Wyndham

Do’h, I’ve already read Passage of Arms this year. So I don’t need to comment on the rest, which is a good thing because I don’t really know much of anything about them.

The whole TBR list:

TBR Chron