In Feb. 2024 I had this brilliant idea to read the top 15 bestselling books that were published 100 years ago. Here’s the link to the blog post I wrote about this endeavour at the time … It’s time to “UP” my reading game …

It was a great idea, and I did manage to read most of the books on this list. I also became quite ambitious and downloaded the Goodreads lists for the rest of the years of that decade. I was able to find copies for many of the books published in 1920-23 and then also for 1925. I owned some of the books, and because they were all now copyfree (after 100 years of publication) I was able to find copies online to download, either as ePub, mobi, or PDF editions. A number of these books on the lists had also been made into movies, so I managed to find copies of those as well, mainly for free on YouTube.

While I read books from the lists of 1920-23 and 1925 sporadically, I’d lost my enthusiasm, mainly because there were so many newly published books I wanted to read, either by borrowing them from the library or purchasing the print copies of those books by authors I know personally. So it’s not through a lack of reading material that I return to reading hundred-year-old bestsellers, but mainly due to a continuing interest in what was popular in 1926 and subsequent years. I discovered I only own three of the 15 books on this list, two are hardcover copies and one I had already read as a downloaded ePub (from when I was reading all the books written by L.M. Montgomery last year).

So here’s the link to the Bestsellers of 1926

And here are my own personal notes on each of the titles. (All links for the titles will take you to the listing for the book on Goodreads.)

1. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway (I own a hardcover copy) And there’s a 1957 movie version on YouTube.

2. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Hercule Poirot #4) by Agatha Christie (I downloaded an ePub copy) There are several made-for-TV versions of this book, and it has also been included in Poirot TV series.

3. Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh #1) by A.A. Milne (I own a hardcover copy) There are a number of videos on YouTube of Winnie-the-Pooh, but my favourite movie will always be the Disney animated version I grew up with in the late 50s/early 60s.

4. The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Classon (I have a downloaded PDF copy)

5. The Castle by Franz Kafka (I have a downloaded PDF copy)

6. The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery (already read recently – I have a downloaded ePub copy)

7. My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers (I have a downloaded PDF copy)

8. Art Through the Ages by Fred S. Kleiner et al (This book is now in it’s 12th edition, but I have a downloaded copy of the original Helen Gardner edited edition)

9. The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant (I have a downloaded copy)

10. The World of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (This is an illustrated hardcover copy. There are facsimile editions availalble so I will purchase a copy of this for my own library.)

11. The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (I have a downloaded copy)

12. Dream Story by Arthur Schnitzler (I have a downloaded copy)

13. Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner (I have an ePub version)

14. Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence (I have a downloaded PDF copy)

15. Lud-In-The-Mist by Hope Mirrlees (I have an ePub version)

So that’s the list for 1926. A few interesting books, some others that are a bit suspect … but I will attempt to read them anyway. Throughout the 20s though there seem to have always been at least one Agatha Christie novel and an L.M. Montgomery, either an Anne book or one of the author’s other books for adults. This makes sense as both of these authors were well into publishing their extensive output of novels at that time and generally published a book every year.