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.
- 1925-1934: complete!
- 1935-1944: entry needed for 1939
- 1945-1954: entries needed for 1948 and 1950
- 1955-1964: entries needed for 1955 and 1960
- 1965-1974: entry needed for 1973
- 1975-1984: entries needed for 1979, 1981, 1982, and 1983
- 1985-1994: entries needed for 1986, 1990, 1991, 1993, and 1994
- 1995–2004: entries needed for all years except 1998, 1999, and 2004
- 2005-2014: entries needed for 2005, 2006, and 2007
- 2015-2024: complete!
Since November 27, I read the following books. As we’re closing in on the end of the year, I decided to mark the ones that fill one of my holes in bold from now on. I was trying to fit in novellas for Novellas in November and some nonfiction in November, so I did poorly on this project in November. This month I tried to read mostly books for this project, but I read fewer books because of the holidays.
- Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey from 1928
- The Scapegoat by Daphne Du Maurier from 1957
- Levels of the Game by John McPhee from 1969
- A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters from 1977
- Cousin Rosamund by Rebecca West from 1985
- A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride from 2013
- The New Life by Tom Crewe from 2023
- The Winter Spirits by various authors from 2023
What? Me Read? 
Dean Street Press has the novel Clothes Pegs by Susan Scarlett that was first published in 1939, in case you’re interested!
I’ve already reviewed it a year or two ago, so it doesn’t count.
Ah… sorry! That’s the only book I have on my list that was published that year, I’m afraid. But you’re doing really well with this. I’m sure you’ll find something.
I will.
Three days left – you can do this! 😉
OMG! That made me laugh! I would have to read 24 books in three days! And that would be if I had a book in my possession for each of the missing 24 years! However, I hope to finish by the end of January. It wouldn’t be an insurmountable feat to finish by December 31 if not for the 1990s and 2000s, where I have a bunch of years left. Once I get down in the pile I have in my bedroom a bit, which might be finishing off the 70s and 80s, I’ll start looking around for books for the remaining years.