Century of Books Challenge Update

Well, we did it! On the 17th March we completed the group challenge of, between us, reading a book published every year since 1920.

I know many of us also took up the challenge to do this on a personal basis. So, how's it going?

Tell us here how you are doing. How many years have you filled in so far? And let us all know when you reach a milestone, so we can all celebrate with you. A hundred years may seem a lot to do alone, but it is actually achievable when you consider that 2 books a week would do it with time to spare.

Let's get turning those pages. 🙂

To start the ball rolling, I've already read 27/100 - here's where you'll find me https://www.librarything.com/topic/303742

I actually have one for 1920. Must have been an accident:) I have nothing for 1930, 1940, 1960 or 1970. If time began in the year 2000 then I'm batting a thousand!

>3 Carol420: lol!

I'm concentrating my century on Mystery & Suspense books, I've also done 27 years so far.

My Century of Books seems to jump all over the place but I felt as if I was concentrating mostly on the early decades. Yet when I tallied it up except for the 30s & 70s I am reading pretty evenly through the decades.
Were I to read my favorite century, I would probably be reading the 18th Century. I seem to favor books from that era or at least those seem to be the ones that remain on my shelves after being read.

My Century of Books looks like this:
1920s: 5
1930s: 15
1940s: 8
1950s: 5
1960s: 6
1970s: 11
1980s: 6
1990s: 8
2000s: 7
2010s: 10

I have read 84 books with 3 of them being from prior to 1920. I have yet to cover 33 years. (and catch up on a lot of work around the old homestead) lol

I've covered 23 years having read 35 books so far this year.I am just level with the minimum 2 books a week for the challenge,but I expect to fall behind very soon.I have lots of books for other challenges so am likely to continue duplicating years. I would be very happy if I reach 75 years covered by the end of the year.Otherwise I will have to cheat a little ,reading short stories or childrens picture books! So many of the books for my science fiction challenges are 600,700,800 pages long and take a lot of reading :0(
Perhaps I'll need to intersperse them with old romances,they are only 189 pages long! lol.

>6 dustydigger:;
"Perhaps I'll need to intersperse them with old romances,they are only 189 pages long! lol."

Though not deliberately, that is precisely what I have done Dusty. I have been ill so much of this year and often times that is the only genre that suits and doesn't over tax my little grey cells. ;-)

>5 rainpebble: Good going, rainpebble!

Just logged my 30th year, :)

>8 Sergeirocks:,
Sergei, that is really awesome as well! You know there is a lot of year left. The only reason my numbers are up there is because that is practically all I have done this year. But I am beginning to feel better & not having to spend so much time in bed so I won't be keeping up that pace.
I have sure enjoyed this challenge & hope to go after the 1800s next year. Good luch with the rest of your 'years'.
:-)

>9 rainpebble: Good to hear you're on the mend, rainpebble, :)

Wow, that's awesome! I see that I filled in some 1980's, and I intend to start the multi-month read on the 2019 Category challenge of re-reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy. So that will be the 1950's for me.

And I still fully intend to read the 1970's books mentioned earlier, The Crystal Cave and The Day of the Jackal as new for me (I know! I can't believe I never read Mary Stewart, either!!) while "Jackal" is one of my all time favorite books.

I'll also be able to fill in some 1920's and 1930's with a couple of Agatha Christie's.

So this challenge is good - I'm finding some good reasons to read books I either need to read or re-read and this challenge helps me stay focused.

So, to break it down (and even if I've only read one book in the decade, I'm feeling pretty victorious):

1920's - covered
1930's - covered
1940's - covered
1950's - covered
1960's - Susan Cooper
1970's - covered
1980's - covered
1990's - covered
2000's - covered
2010's - covered

Yes, some of these will take a few more months to complete my personal challenge, but when I say that my goal is to read 45 books a year, many people stare at me agog with amazement that I'm actually reading that many books!

Ed. with update to 1970's and addition to the paragraph above. Found that the re-read of Joseph Campbell fits in with the 1940's.

Ed. Ed. Covered 1930's with Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Ed. Ed. Ed. Was not able to read a Susan Cooper in the waning days of 2019, so alas, I am not completely covered. But I did enjoy this challenge, read and re-read some great books, and discovered ones I might not have read otherwise. So yay!

>11 threadnsong: The Mary Stewart Arthur/Merlin saga was one of my favorite trilogies. I should re-read it.

>11 threadnsong:, >13 JulieLill:,

Ditto on the Stewart Arthurian / Merlin Saga! I first read The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills in 1974 when I was expecting my 3rd & last. A lovely way to dream through a pregnancy. I am adding them to my TBR with the added bonus of them already being on my shelves.
:-)
Thank you for bringing back more beloved books to my mind.

>13 JulieLill: >11 threadnsong: I own this trilogy and keep meaning to read it.

Grrrhh! I am not progressing as well as I hoped.25 years covered whilst reading 44 books in all, but not one of my last 5 books was a new year,all duplicates. :0(
I am reading a couple now that will apply,but its going to take reading 3 different years a week for a while to catch up.
I did say last month I would be happy to reach a realistic coverage of 75 years,but I'm not!!! I never want to fail in a challenge,it annoys and upsets me! lol.
Gotta dig in. :0)

>16 dustydigger:,
Best of luck with your personal Century of Books, dustydigger! I admire your pluck.
I have made the misQ of even triplicating some years as I read first & then log the book into the year. :-( But at least we are reading the books we really want to, eh? I have read a lot of books this year but still have a lot of years to fill in. Thankfully there is a lot of year left in which to read, right?
hugs,

I'm one-third of the way through, finished my 34th book today, :)

>18 Sergeirocks: 👏👏👏

>19 Andrew-theQM: I thank you! ☺️

>19 Andrew-theQM: Ahead of me I think. I need to check mine but believe I am up to 30 years read.

So it turns out that a book I read as a SFFKit challenge, Fritz Leiber's Swords and Deviltry, fills out the 1970's challenge. But!

I started The Crystal Cave >13 JulieLill: >14 rainpebble: >15 Andrew-theQM: this weekend and I just totally have to finish it. My life touchstone for when I started this book was the morning after my first high school party the night before (the one where you grab someplace to sleep in the host's house while his parents are out of town and the house is loaded with 20+ of your classmates. THAT party!) and I was totally entranced by it. But it wasn't my book so I put it back after a few chapters and headed home. What a cool story of reading its enchantment during your pregnancy, rainpebble! I'll stay posted on it here.

And, another major milestone for me is finally, finally finishing the first volume of Tolkien's History of Middle Earth series! I finished Volume One and will post my review soon. But one down, a bunch more to go, but heck, at least I'm finishing a bucket list reading goal. Its publication date is 1984 and the front page that lists this series still reads "The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two" (in preparation) and "The Lays of Beleriand" (in preparation).

Accompanying this milestone for me is a pilgramage trip to New York City to see the Tolkien exhibit at the Morgan Museum early last month. It was extraordinary, and was about a third of the size of the exhibit last year in Oxford. It encompassed family photos, first written drafts (including THAT page where Tolkien changed the names in "The Hobbit" to Gandalf and Thorin just as the Company encounters Beorn), his maps (gi-normous) to help him plot out where the journeys were happening, just all kinds of cool stuff. Colored pen doodles on newspaper. Distance reckoning for Hobbits to tie in with how far can a Hobbit walk in a day. What also struck me was the number of different languages spoken during the exhibit, showing the far reach of this man's work and world.

Another milestone reached - 40 years done. Finding some really enjoyable books...

Like Sergei,I have reached 40 years covered - but have read 77 books in all,so thats a bit annoying! lol.

>24 Sergeirocks: >25 dustydigger:



40??? Is that your ages? :) I know it's not your birthdays but I thought this was soooo very true.

Good job both of you!

I’ve covered 42 of the years so far. >24 Sergeirocks: >25 dustydigger: >26 Carol420:

>27 Andrew-theQM:



I know it's not your age!...could be you anniversary...you just can't find number images that don't want to tack birthday or anniversary to it. Oh well, I tried:) Congratulations.

I might do more years of I just deleted the 2000's and 2010,s

>28 Carol420: Thanks I know what you mean but still not finished all the 2000s. 1940s and the 1960s is currently forming the biggest challenge.

>29 Andrew-theQM: Georgette Heyer has a couple of 40s books, plus several 30s and a couple of 50s.

>29 Andrew-theQM: And there's always Agatha Christie to fill in gaps...she churned out a book almost every year between 1920 and her death in 1976.

>30 Sergeirocks: >31 kac522: Thanks for the great suggestions. Think I need to target these decades next month. Will do some research with these authors.

Have just completed my first full decade, the 2010's, and am almost halfway through the century. Hopefully, well on track.

>33 Sergeirocks:


Congratulations little merrkat. Good job!

Six months gone,47 years achieved out of 88 reads.This month was particularly bad,only 6 years added out of 16 reads! :0(. I am going to have to achieve 10 years a month,out of normally about 12 books read,pretty impossible with all the other challenges I have in progress.Can only do my best.
Oh well,I'll keep supporting the whole group challenge. I have actually a lot of boks read for some years which I didnt add once we achieved the complete 100 years.I will maybe add some of them for the group achievement. Not sure just how many have been added so far(too lazy and busy to count them all! lol) but I will try each Sunday to add a few new titles. Its Andrew I feel sorry for though,as he has to add all these titles to the list. Its a marathon ,so thank you Andrew for your hard work! :0)

>35 dustydigger: But 47 is nearly halfway there Dusty, with only half the year gone. You could still get there, or as near as makes no difference... Don't give up the fight, :)

Have reached the halfway mark 😀

>37 Sergeirocks:



Fill this cup with tea and get started on the other half. Good work!

I've just finished my 60th book, 👍😉.

>39 Sergeirocks:



Congratulations. 60 more you get the gold!

I have now reached 71 books read.I have been making real efforts on the first 50 years.1920-1969,and have completed 42/50 of those years,with 3 more in progress.By October I should start to make inroads on later years,which are a bit patchy for now.,though post 2000 is complete
still to read 1920-1969
1920s - 1923
1930s - 1935,1936,1937,1939
1940s - Complete!
1950s - Complete!
1960s - 1966,1967,1968,
I am plodding through the dullest most boring book of the year,Dr Dolittle's Post Office for 1923. I have wondered why I never bothered reading the Hugh Lofting books as a child but I can see now! lol.Dull,dull,dull.Read for hours (well feels like it) and am still only 35% through!.....(sigh) Will probably take another week.Grrr.

>41 dustydigger: When you start marking your progress in percentages...it's time to quit. Throw in the towel. Give up the ghost. That's Plenty. That'll do. bi sàmhach ( I quit in Scot Gaelic).

>41 dustydigger: and >42 Carol420: Agreed! Enough! Fini! I read the original "Dr. Doolittle" when I was 7 having loved the movie and animals, and I found the whole thing quite dull. Glad it wasn't just me being 7.

Thanks go to LibraryCin for reminding me that I have the full set of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" series on my shelves that is just begging for a re-read. So that will help fill up my 1930's. And the slog thru Joseph Campbell paid off for the 1940's decade.

Hint: I'm feeling lucky if I pick a book within a decade. I so envy my fellow readers who can put through a dozen books a month! August yielded 2 books, with 2 more started, so I'm hoping to finish 4 or 5 in September. But this challenge has been great and fascinating to pay such close attention to when a book was published.

>43 threadnsong: I finally finished Dr Dolittle this week after weeks of effort. It was extremely long for a kid's book about setting up a postal service in Africa,with birds as postmen! lol.
It did improve a little after a couple of hundred pages(!) and I came to admire the kindhearted doctor's passionate interest in animals and his thirst for knowledge,so it wasnt a total loss! But I doubt I'll read more of the series :0)
When choosing books the best source for me is Wikipedia,which covers literature year by year.
For instance,here is 1932. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_in_literature

I have posted a lot of childrens books for this challenge due to time pressures,as I also do lots of other challenges but having now finished some other challenges and am making good progress with this one. !920s to 1950s are now completed,but I still have to post the 40s and 50s.
Still to cover:
1960s - 1966,1967,1968
1970s : 1972,1973,1976,1979
1980s : 1981,1983,1985.1986,1989
1990s : 1993,1996,1998,1999
2000s : 2000,2001,2005,2008
20 books in total

Down to the last twelve, 😀.

>47 Sergeirocks:



A Little "Encourage Mint" for my favorite meerkat! You are doing fantastic,

I’ve now got it down to the last 20. Like >46 dustydigger: it’s the 40s and 50s where most books are needed.

Strangely enough,I actually found it easier to locate books for the earlier decades. You can find classics for early decades etc online,or reserve at the library. But most lighter reads,crime,UF an romance etc from the 90s etc have disappeared from the shelves. To economie the libraries tended to buy paperbacks,and they tend to fall to bits after a few years,and are never replaced eg Kay Hooper,Iris Johansen,Tami Hoag,Catherine Coulter,Karen Robards and the like.All the secondhand bookshops have closed down,and Amazon is now a complete ripoff. £8 for a kindle version of one of Hooper's Bishop series? And what happened to all those 1p books,which with £2.80 postage was at least fairly affordable for books i really wanted. i would have liked to reread some of them,but no such luck. I dont seem to fancy most of the books of the 90s,and 2000s!
But,I have made massive progress since my post above #46 end of September. I finished my big 80 book challenge on WWEnd,and have made great strides on the Century challenge,adding 14 titles in 6 weeks.At one point in the summer I was barely adding 5 books a month! lol. I now have only six books to read to get to the finish line :0).
still to read:
1990s : 1998,1999
2000s : 2000,2001,2005,2008

>50 dustydigger: That’s great. For some reason our library has transferred a lot of those classic books to a stack in the bowels of the building you can’t enter! You have to reserve them so they can dig them out and don’t even mention the librarian who asked who Daphne Du Maurier was. Had not heard of her. 😱😳😡 Mind boggles. Had big problems getting hold of some of Isaac Asimov books.

Some books on Amazon even second hand in only fair condition are costing £6 plus! Total rip off!

>48 Carol420: Thanks, Carol, 😀

>51 Andrew-theQM: ''Some books on Amazon even second hand in only fair condition are costing £6 plus! Total rip off!''
Yeah,the days of 1 penny books has really gone,Andrew. As far as I can tell,raising the free postage to orders over £20,and putting up the book costs are just ways of trying to herd us towards joining Amazon Prime.They already put all the bookshops out of business. how can you have a university town without even one secondhand bookshop,only Waterstones for new books.Even W H Smiths has gone!!!
As for library stocks,Sunderland library is in a dire condition. They moved out of the purpose built library building,almost 1760 sq metres,back into 1 room of the old Museum building,a magnificent....wait for it.....187 sq metres,one tenth of the old place. Two computers jammed into the corners,two desks for students who want to study,one small mat for kids to sit on before a pathetic number of junior books in the corner.The kids used to have a fantastic space,and a lot of books. Back in 2014 they even had a fancy mural costing £50,000 put up on the wall. There was a total refurbishment of the library then,half a million in all,new carpets,computers increased from 12 to 18 (always in full use),free wifi for phones and tablets,all the bells and whistles..Within 18 months they were turfed out to one room at the end of the museum. I call it the broom cupboard,its so small. I gave up visiting entirely because I read mostly SF,fantasy and UF,and now the stock is all squashed,along with horror,into 2 bays,a total of 8 shelves.Previously it was 64 shelves. The council are being shifty about what happened to all the books both in the library and the stacks,saying some were sold to the public,some sent to schools,and maybe others could possibly go on sale sometime in the future.
Most of the branches have been closed down,and ''community led'' places are going to replace them in some locations. How sad that the country that introduced public libraries to the world in 1870 has been reduced to this.
Sunderland has seen a dire reduction of 35% in library visits by children in the last few years.Its a nightmare for the future never mind now.
.....Oops,sorry,I galloped off in all directions on my hobbyhorse,but it does make me furious! :0(

And with Monk's Hood by Ellis Peters, 4.5★s, that's my Century completed. 😀🎉

>54 Sergeirocks:



A job well done...but I expected nothing less.

>55 Carol420: Thanks, Carol, 😀

>42 Carol420:;
Carol, I have given up the ghost as well.

I am still missing the years 1951 and 1959. But I have loved this challenge and am hoping that we are able to do something as inspiring for 2020.

Cheers to all who were able to complete our Century of Books Challenge!

>57 rainpebble: >42 Carol420: Finished one today so still got four books to go and five days to get them read. 😬 For 1951 I read Foundation by Isaac Asimov and for 1959 Endurance : Shackleton’s Incredible Journey by Alfred Langsing.

Thanks for playing along 😊 👏👍

I am currently working on an idea for a challenge for 2020 which I hope to post details on tomorrow to see what people think about it.

>57 rainpebble: In my book, two off is as good as, 😀.