January Group Challenge, 2020

To start the new year of 2020, let’s read from a new area on the list. To accomplish this, use the spreadsheet or app to find your longest streak of unread books and break it up by reading a book somewhere in the middle. For those of us who are just starting out on the list, we’ll have lots of options. Those of you who have read a lot will presumably have a shorter streak to break up. Either way, think about why you haven’t read any books in that streak. Is it an era you don’t typically enjoy? Hard to acquire the books? Or are you making your way through the list in a way that means you just haven’t gotten there yet?

I keep my spreadsheet in chronological order, but use yours however works for you.

Enjoy and happy reading in 2020!

I have quite a few large gaps but the longest I could find covered 38 books. I will be reading Passing by Nella Larsen in January for this challenge.

I keep my spreadsheet in the order that arukiyomi had it, which is mostly chronological.

The largest gap on my list is the sixteen books between #1106 Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light by Ivan Klima, 1993, to #1121 Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster, 1994.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin is #1111, and also a book that I have owned since it came out in paperback. It's been sitting on the tbr pile too long! One of my goals this year is to read all of the tbr list books that I purchased last century. This book would fit the monthly challenge and my own goals.

I have several gaps of 5. The first of these is 341 to 345 on the app, and 343 is May Sinclair’s Life and Death of Harriet Frean so I’ll read that for the challenge.

I have several large gaps.

1-20 (20 books from the pre-1700s)

755-780 (26 books from the 1960s)

832-855 (24 books from the 1970s)

1162-1195 (34 books from 1990s-2000s)

This doesn't really surprise me as I've never liked books from the 1960s-70s. I know it's a generalization, but I often find them ultra-male with lame female characters if they exist at all. And I've been pretty disappointed in the newer books on the list as well. I don't see many of them standing the test of time the way books on this list from the earlier time periods do. I'm not sure yet which of these streaks I'll break up. Possibly the longest one with Fear and Trembling by Amelie Nothomb.

I have three gaps of 5

Gap 1: (1954-55) - very expensive and I haven't found them in the library

Gap 2: (1964) - actually, not read because they are harder to get

Gap 3: (2000) - These are books that came out when I started uni, I just reckon they weren't on my radar.
Bartleby and Co.
Celestial Harmonies
Nineteen Seventy Seven
Ignorance *on TBR pile
Small Remedies

As I have only started this year, I have more gaps than not! So I can choose pretty much anything. Half of a Yellow Sun and The Things They Carried are both sitting here from the library and will need to be returned soon. So looks like it is one of those.

I have a pretty even spread of the odd one or two across the board but and oddly vacant 40 spots around the late 700s in the list. Here’s what I have there on my shelves so I’ll be picking one of these:

• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold


• Cancer Ward


• The Godfather


• Portnoy’s Complaint


• Slaughterhouse Five


• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

On the list I have the longest gaps are among the newest books, and the list doesn't have the latest additions to the list (which are also mostly new books), so I should be doing some 2000s books...we'll see.

I have a gap of 19 books on the "2006 Removed books" spreadsheet. It runs from The Names through The Black Prince. Fortunately, the book I bought but did not get to read for the "Books that were also movies" challenge, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, is in that section, so I will read it for January.

As for why the gap: I was not reading important contemporary fiction in the 1970s (since I was in school), it's still not a period I love, and while I have worked to fill in gaps on the 2008 spreadsheet, I haven't been so systematic with the removed books.

I have a gap of 22 in the 1100's (combined list) and it's the older books, which I've sometimes had a more difficult time acquiring in my trading online. I will likely pick Anna Karenina or Martin Fierro, or try to get to both!

I didn't realize Martin Fierro was so short... so on to Anna Karenina after a short detour into The Name of the Rose!

I ended up reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien as I had plenty of gaps everywhere!

I have completed Passing by Nella Larsen. This was my first experience with this author and I am excited now to read her other book, Quicksand in the future.

Nella Larsen is definitely one of the gems on the list, I had never heard of her before.

I have finished Ignorance, a short 1001 book from Milan Kundera in big type. One to make you think, the themes of exile and homesickness are explored through the return to the Czech Republic of two people after the Velvet Revolution. Worth a read.