Earlier this month I read a post at Savidge Reads where Simon was lamenting the fact that out of the books on his recent arrivals shelf very few of them had been published prior to last year and even fewer earlier than 2001. My own reading tends to go in phases, but I think lately I've been reading a lot of very recently published books (even if they happen to be historical fiction set in earlier eras). It's nice to think you're reading from a variety of periods, which made me wonder just how I was doing this year. Last year Simon T. did a similar survey, but he chose favorites from each decade beginning in the 1800s. I wonder if I've even read enough variety to choose favorites? Maybe I should just content myself to see which decades I can even fill in--starting with books I've read this year and working backwards.
- 1800s
- 1810s
- 1820s
- 1830s
- 1840s
- 1850s - The Dead secret, Wilkie Collins
- 1860s - Wives and Daughters, Elizabeth Gaskell & Therese Raquin, Emile Zola
- 1870s - Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
- 1880s - Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
- 1890s - Victoria, Knut Hamsun
- 1900s - A Room with a View, E.M. Forster & A Man of Property, John Galsworthy
- 1910s - The Return of the Soldier, Rebecca West
- 1920s - The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton & Greenery Street, Denis Mackail
- 1930s - Dance Night, Dawn Powell
- 1940s - Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig
- 1950s - Frost at Morning, Richmal Crompton & The Tortoise and the Hare, Elizabeth Jenkins
- 1960s - Cover Her Face, P.D. James
- 1970s - The Honours Board, Patricia Hansford Johnson
- 1980s - The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
- 1990s - Ferris Beach, Jill McCorkle
- 2000s - The Crimson Rooms, Katharine McMahon
So my list is made up entirely of books read in the last two years (last year I started keeping a more detailed Excel spreadsheet in addition to my reading journal that only lists titles, authors and when I finished reading each book). Although all the books on the list are books I've enjoyed I might tweak it if I was choosing favorites that I've read in the past (would need to think harder and longer to create a favorites list). I'm surprised I managed to go that far back, as glancing at the books on just this year's list, only two books I've read this year (three if you count Anna Karenina, which I did on my list--very optimistic of me) were published before the 20th century. Nearly all my reads are 21st or 20th century and heavy on the latter part of the 20th century.
As long as I am reading good books that I enjoy, I don't necessarily mind when they were written, but it is nice to know you are reading books published prior to the 20th century occasionally. Maybe it's time to pull out 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, edited by Peter Boxall, to get a few ideas. (My copy by the way is the earlier edition, not the more multicultural later list--not sure that was ever published in the US?). I wouldn't mind setting myself the task of choosing a book or two from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and maybe even a pre-1700s title to read before the end of the year.
So, as with my dozen or so other personal reading projects that I have going on, I'll keep this in mind, too!
Edited: As you might have noticed I've done a tiny bit of blog maintenance. For a long while now I've wanted to use tabs on my page but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Actually I think this is a fairly new feature, so I've added a few and will be adding more as I have time to work on it. I'd like to clean things up a bit--do my sidebars look too busy? I don't always like too much change, so I might not give it a total facelift, but a little editing might be nice. And I've noticed that some bloggers respond to each and every comment individually--I just list names and leave my answers in one long comment. Is this hard to read, or does it matter? I'm not sure how often people come back and read responses (I like to go back and read responses to comments I leave but it might take me a day or two). I think there is a way to make it easier to respond to individual comments--I just need to mess around a little in Typepad to figure out how.
Also, I'm nearly finished with three books and I hope to get through all of them before the end of the weekend (am already looking forward to it), but I was thinking how much I would like to pick up a new book--and what I have in mind is something thriller-ish. Preferably a contemporary setting, but in any case not a historical (pre-20th century anyway) time period. Something a little dark and gritty and underworld-ish. Not sure why I want something like this in particular, but when the mood hits, I just go with it. I have pulled from my bookshelves a Georges Simenon mystery (Lock 14), a spy thriller by Stella Rimington (Secret Asset), and a novel by Michael Robotham (The Night Ferry). As always I want something un-putdownable, and while a crime novel probably will fit the bill, it doesn't necessarily have to be. I'll have another look at my shelves as I am sure there must be more to choose from. Any ideas?
First, though, I need to choose an essay to read for this week. I've looked the last couple of nights through the two anthologies I am mostly reading from, but nothing has caught my fancy. Some weeks everything appeals, but I this week I am just not in the mood for what I am seeing. I'd like a travel essay, but there don't seem to be any. I have lots of short story collections, but not so many essay collections, but I'm off to see if something grabs me. Maybe I am being too picky? I'll let you know tomorrow what I've found.