Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

I'll turn 65 in 2029. Between my 60th and 65th birthdays, I want to read a(t least one) book/year from 1900 - 2029, that is, the 65 years preceding and the 65 years following my birth year.

I'd like to do deep dives into some favorite authors (and discover new favorites), so I will duplicate authors in my list. I plan to get ideas from some "Best Books of the 20th Century" lists. One I've got my eye on is Larry McCaffery's "20th Century's Greatest Hits," which leans to modernist/experimental works from Joyce and Stein through Faulkner and Burroughs and on to Gaddis and David Foster Wallis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Ce...

1900 - 1949

1900s 3/10 completed
✔️1900 - Jerome: Three Men on the Bummel
✔️1901 - Wells: The First Men in the Moon
1902 -
✔️1903 - Wodehouse: Tales of St. Austin's
1904 -
1905 -
1906 -
1907 -
1908 -
1909 -

1910s 4/10 completed
1910 -
1911 -
1912 -
✔️1913 - Proust: Swann's Way (1913)
✔️1914 - Joyce: Dubliners
✔️1915 - Wodehouse: Something Fresh
1916 -
1917 -
1918 -
✔️1919 - Proust: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

1920s 5/10 completed
✔️1920 - Proust: The Guermantes Way
1921 -
✔️1922 - Joyce: Ulysses: The 1922 Text
...and Proust: Sodom and Gomorrah
✔️1923 - Stevens: Harmonium
...and Proust The Prisoner
1924 -
✔️1925 - Wodehouse: Sam the Sudden
1926 -
✔️1927 - Wilder: The Bridge of San Luis Rey
1928 -
1929 -

1930s 3/10 completed
1930 -
1931 -
1932 -
1933 -
1934 -
1935 -
✔️1936 - Wodehouse: Young Men in Spats
✔️1937 - Emar: Ten
1938 -
✔️1939 - Flann O'Brien: At Swim-Two-Birds

1940s 4/10 completed
1940 -
1941 -
✔️1942 - Queneau: Pierrot Mon Ami (1942)
1943 -
1944 -
1945 -
✔️1946 - Wodehouse: Uncle Dynamite (1946)
1947 -
✔️1948 - Wodehouse: Spring Fever
✔️1949 - Paul Bowles: The Sheltering Sky

1950 - 1999

1950s 9/10 completed
✔️1950 - Highsmith: Strangers on a Train (1950)
✔️1951 - Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye
✔️1952 - Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea
✔️1953 - Rulfo: The Burning Plain and Other Stories
...and Bessette: Lili is Crying
...and Eliot: Four Quartets
1954 -
✔️1955 - Nabokov: Lolita
✔️1956 - Baldwin: Giovanni’s Room
...and Ginsberg: Howl and Other Poems
✔️1957 - Wodehouse: Something Fishy
...and Agee: A Death in the Family
✔️1958 - Achebe: Things Fall Apart
✔️1959 - Burroughs: Naked Lunch

1960s 8/10 completed
1960 -
✔️1961 - Dennis: Little Me: The Intimate Memoirs of that Great Star of Stage, Screen and Television, Belle Poitrine
✔️1962 - Tanizaki: The Maids
✔️1963 - Le Carré: The Spy Who Came In from the Cold
...and Baldwin: The Fire Next Time
✔️1964 - O'Hara: Lunch Poems
✔️1965 - Dickey: Buckdancer's Choice
...and Foucault: Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
✔️1966 - Capote: In Cold Blood
✔️1967 - O'Brien: The Third Policeman
...and Bly: The Light Around the Body
1968 -
✔️1969 - Herbert: Dune Messiah
...and Bishop: North and South

1970s 4/10 completed
1970 -
1971 -
✔️1972 - Williams: Augustus
1973 -
✔️1974 - Dillard: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)
✔️1975 - Foucault: I, Pierre Rivière, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother...: A Case of Parricide in the 19th Century
1976 -
1977 -
1978 -
✔️1979 - Belben: Dreaming of Dead People

1980s 6/10 completed
1980 -
✔️1981 - Rushdie: Midnight's Children
✔️1982 - Roemer: On a Woman's Madness
1983 -
✔️1984 - Ducornet: The Stain
✔️1985 - Krasznahorkai: Satantango
✔️1986 - Diana Wynne Jones: Howl’s Moving Castle
1987 -
✔️1988 - Markson: Wittgenstein's Mistress
1989 -

1990s 9/10 completed
✔️1990 - Jordan: The Great Hunt
✔️1991 - Jordan: The Dragon Reborn
✔️1992 - Tartt: The Secret History
✔️1993 - Tawada: The Bridegroom Was a Dog
1994 -
✔️1995 - Pratchett: Maskerade
✔️1996 - Shepherd: Angel, Interrupted
...and Acker: Pussy, King of the Pirates
✔️1997 - Sedaris: Naked
✔️1998 - G.R.R. Martin: A Clash of Kings
✔️1999 - Smith: Other Stories and Other Stories

2000 - 2029

2000s 9/10 completed
✔️2000 - Fosse: Morning and Evening
✔️2001 - Wodehouse: P. G. Wodehouse In His Own Words
2002 -
✔️2003 - Pratchett: The Wee Free Men
✔️2004 - Pratchett: A Hat Full of Sky
✔️2005 - Ali Smith: The Accidental
✔️2006 - Meyer: While We Were Dreaming
✔️2007 - McEwan: On Chesil Beach
✔️2008 - Gaiman: Coraline
✔️2009 - Murnane: Barley Patch

2010s 10/10 completed
✔️2010 - Ali Smith: Girl Meets Boy
✔️2011 - Ferrante: My Brilliant Friend
✔️2012 - Bechdel: Are You My Mother? A Comic Drama
✔️2013 - Pratchett: Raising Steam
/and/ Joy Williams: Ninety-Nine Stories of God
✔️2014 - Ali Smith: How to be Both
✔️2015 - Pratchett: The Shepherd's Crown
✔️2016 - Ali Smith: Autumn
✔️2017 - Ali Smith: Winter
✔️2018 - Orange: There There
✔️2019 - Ali Smith: Spring

2020s 6/10 completed
✔️2020 - Aiden Thomas: Cemetery Boys
✔️2021 - Krasznahorkai: Herscht 07769
✔️2022 - Tokarczuk: The Empusium
✔️2023 - Myers: Cuddy
✔️2024 - Millar: Ava Anna Ada
✔️2025 - Equi: Out of the Blank
2026 -
2027 -
2028 -
2029 -

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Just filling in what I've read since my birthday in August, I've taken care of most of the 21st century so far. My planned decade challenge for 2025 will knock out the 1950s.

It looks like I'll need to spend some time in the first half of the 20th century. Maybe some Woolf, Faulkner, and Forster for a start? I've nearly finished reading all of P.G. Wodehouse. After I've read some new-to-me books, I can fill in a lot of these early years with re-reads of Wodehouse.

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Hi JP. Since I read only about 60 books a year, that seems like an ambitious challenge! Feel free to visit Terry’s Personal Challenge, which has been a multi year century challenge (and then some if you scroll down). You will find the list that I have read so far and see the ones which I found to be five star books. I also list number of pages. I started off really concentrating on this challenge, but have only been filling it in somewhat incidentally in recent years. Quite a few of the years have multiple books that I have read since starting the challenge. Nevertheless, the years are slowly being ticked off one by one. Good luck! You have some great reading ahead!

Thanks, Terry! Your list is fantastic! We seem to read many of the same authors, but you have some that are new to me.

I now wish I had put each decade in its own post, so I could celebrate mini-victories along the way.