A Century of Books: How Am I Doing? July Report

In January, I foolishly decided to join Simon Thomas’s Century of Book Challenge, even though I knew that reading 100 books, one for each year in a century, from 1925-2024, would be tough because last year I only read 169. So, how am I doing?

Here are the holes in my project with the books listed for April below. If you want to see the details, see my Century of Books page.

• 1925-1934: entries needed for 1927-29 and 1931
• 1935-1944: entries needed for 1939 and 1944
• 1945-1954: entries needed for 1945, 1948, 1949, and 1950
• 1955-1964: entries needed for all years except 1956, 1958, 1959, and 1962
• 1965-1974: entries needed for 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1973
• 1975-1984: entries needed for all years except 1975, 1976, and 1978
• 1985-1994: entries needed for all years except 1987, 1992, and 1988
• 1995–2004: entries needed for all years except 1998, 1999, and 2004
• 2005-2014: entries needed for all years except 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2014
• 2015-2024: complete!

Since June 26 I read the following books:

• These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer from 1926
• The Listening House by Mabel Seeley from 1938
• Miss Granby’s Secret by Eleanor Farjeon from 1940
• Village Story by Celia Buckmaster from 1951
• The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West from 1956
• The Heather Blazing by Colm Toíbín from 1992
• The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett from 1998
• The Time of Women by Elena Chizhova from 2009
• Memorial by Bryan Washington from 2020
• Glory by Noviolet Bulawayo (DNF) from 2022
• Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein from 2022
• In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas from 2023

I’m on vacation this week and next, so I haven’t been making much progress lately.