A Century of Books: How Am I Doing? August 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 this month below. If you want to see the details, see my Century of Books page.

I read a lot fewer books in August than usual because first, I was traveling, and second, I got sick.

• 1925-1934: entries needed for 1928, 1929, 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 July 31, I have read the following books:

• The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky from 1866 (too early to count for this project)
• Envy by Yuri Olesha from 1927
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston from 1937
• A Chelsea Concerto by Frances Faviell from 1959
• The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos from 1962
• Broken by Karin Slaughter from 2010
• The Raging Storm by Ann Cleeves from 2023
• The Witching Tide by Margaret Meyer from 2023
• The Bee Sting by Paul Murray from 2023
• The House of Doors by Tan Twan Eng from 2023