Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

I finally completed my 100 Years Before Me challenge, and in a moment of abject craziness, I have decided to continue the journey one book at a time to the present day. So, I was born in 1951. My last book for the 100 Years was Lie Down in Darkness, which was written that year. I will pick up with 1952 and we will see if I can complete this one in less than the eight years it took to do the first.

1952 - Mere Christianity - or - All Our Yesterdays
1953 - The Sleeping Beauty - or - Go Tell It on the Mountain
1954 - Charlotte Fairlie -or- The Dawning of the Day
1955 - Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life -or- A World of Love
1956 - Palace Walk -or- My Dog Tulip
1957 - Justine -or- Franny and Zooey
1958 - Anna and Her Daughters, A Glass of Blessings -or- The Travels of Jamie McPheeters
1959 - Advise and Consent -or- Mrs. Bridge

Life was mostly about home, Mama, Daddy, my sisters and brother, Grandma, Grandpa, uncles, aunts, cousins; but also about school and discovering you have two identities in many ways, the one your family dictates and the one you build on your own.

1960 - The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë
1961 - The Edge of Sadness -or- Stephen Morris
✔1962 - Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury November 2025 4✶
1963 - Way Station -or- The Shoes of the Fisherman
✔1964 - If Morning Ever Comes by Anne Tyler January 2026 4✶
1965 - The Boarding-House -or- The Source -or- The Orchard Keeper
✔1966 - Don't Look Now and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier February 2026 - 4✶
1967 - I Heard the Owl Call My Name -or- The Road
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner -or- The Johnstown Flood
1969 - The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford -or- Travels with My Aunt

And, I'm not a little girl anymore. I graduated high school in 1969.

1970 - Lightning Bug -or- Bless the Beasts and Children
1971 - Ancestors: A Family History -or- Tramp for the Lord
1972 - Only a Novel: The Double Life of Jane Austen -or- The Devastating Boys
1973 - Flags in the Dust -or- Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment
1974 - Pilgrim at Tinker Creek -or- Return the Innocent Earth
1975 - The Cadillac Cowboys -or- The Peacock Spring
1976 - Galveston -or- A River Runs Through It
1977 - Myself When Young, Parson's House -or- Elbow Room
1978 - Conversations With Amber -or- Missing Person
1979 - Five for Sorrow, Ten for Joy, Recapitulation -or- One Corpse Too Many

These were the golden years. I was young, excited about life, in college, disco was king and I could dance. Had my first major heartbreak, which is necessary so that you can find out what love really is and isn't.

1980 - Black Mountain Breakdown -or- The Executioner's Song
1981 - The Book of Lights -or- Mornings on Horseback
1982 - An Unsuitable Attachment -or- The Barefoot Brigade
1983 - The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake -or- Ironweed
1984 - Last One Home -or- Hotel du Lac
✔1985 - Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym September 2025 4✶
1986 - A Maine Hamlet -or- Roman Hasford
1987 - Moon Tiger
1988 - Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation -or-Loving And Giving
1989 - A Virtuous Woman -or- Peachtree Road

I left home for another state in 1979 and married in 1980, so this is the most transitional decade for me. Life was about discovery and building your dreams. We worked hard and loved hard. I found Matt and Home. Wouldn't change a thing.

✔1990 - The Gift of Asher Lev October 2025 5✶
1991 - Coromandel Sea Change -or- Joe
1992 - A Place of Greater Safety -or- The Holy Thief
1993 - Nobody's Fool -or- The Same River Twice: A Memoir
1994 - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle -or- A Poetry Handbook
1995 - Summer in February -or- Enigma
✔1996 - Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life – The Definitive Biography Revealing the Turbulent Obsession Behind an Iconic American Realist Painter by Richard Meryman - February 2026 4.5✶
1997 - The Sound of One Hand Clapping
1998 - The Next Step in the Dance -or- The Sleeping Partner
1999 - The Caxley Chronicles -or- Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History

✔2000 - The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood - September 2025 5✶
2001 - A Trust Betrayed, A Conspiracy of Paper -or- In the Fall
✔2002 - Family Matters by [[author:Rohinton Mistry|3539] January 2026 - 5✶
2003 - The Great Fire
2004 - About Grace -or- Old Filth
2005 - William Maxwell: A Literary Life -or- The Collected Short Stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow
2006 - Firefly Cloak -or- Abide with Me
✔2007 - The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy March 2026 3✶
✔2008 - Home by Marilynne Robinson November 2025 5✶
2009 - Bird in Hand

2010 - Foster -or- The Name of the Nearest River
2011 - My Brilliant Friend, Doc -or- Emily, Alone
✔2012 - A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy January 2026 - 4✶
2013 - Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, Yonder -or- The Bookman’s Tale
2014 - Medicine Walk -or- Above the Waterfall
2015 - The Girl Who Wrote in Silk, Epitaph -or- The Sympathizer
2016 - At the Edge of the Orchard -or- Everybody's Fool
2017 - In the Distance, The Man Who Could Be King -or- The River of Kings
✔2018 - The Sentence is Death by Anthony Horowitz September 2025 - 4✶
2019 - Tidelands, This Is Happiness -or- This Tender Land

✔2020 - Jack by Marilynne Robinson December 2025 - 3✶
✔2021 - A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders March 2026 - 5✶
2022 - How Strange a Season -or- French Braid
2023 - The Trackers -or- The Caretaker
✔2024 - Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson - 3✶
✔2025 - The Correspondent by Virginia Evans - August 2025 - 5✶

This sounds like fun, Sara! I'll be watching to see how you are getting along -- throughout the next eight years!!! haha! I'm sure you can do it, and I'm also sure that you will be adding to my TBR list along the way! Read some good ones! :)

Thanks, Terris. This might fall under "glutton for punishment" but I am hoping it will fill in somewhat with other books I am reading. I probably need it, because I tend to read older and not newer books. None of my up-coming Trollope's will fit here. 😬

Sara wrote: "Thanks, Terris. This might fall under "glutton for punishment" but I am hoping it will fill in somewhat with other books I am reading. I probably need it, because I tend to read older and not newer..."

Lol! ;)

This is awesome Sara!! I still would love to do the original challenge and of course this one just makes sense!! You’ll totally rock it!! It will be fun watching you fill these in and adding to my tbr as Terris says!!

I don't think this one will take as long as the first. You ought to set up the first one, Lori and see how many slots you have already filled this year. I'm betting you would be surprised. It would be great fun to watch you do it!

I would try to feel sorry for you and Terris, but you guys have swelled my TBR beyond control, so I'm thinking tit-for-tat.

Good luck, Sara! I am getting close to finishing my Personal 20th Century Challenge. I found that I can fill in multiple books for some years, but there are still a half dozen or so stubborn years. Next year, I plan to be more intentional about completing my challenge. The end is in sight. 2026 is my goal. Feel free to peruse my list by year for inspiration, but you may find that you have already read many of the books I chose.

Ok, Sara, I thought about setting it up and plugging in what I’ve read this year. I’m good at listening to friends’ advice so I think I should and will. At least at the beginning it will be easy to fill in spots with the way I’ve been reading this year!

Terry wrote: "Good luck, Sara! I am getting close to finishing my Personal 20th Century Challenge. I found that I can fill in multiple books for some years, but there are still a half dozen or so stubborn years...."

I will definitely take a look at your list, Terry. Congratulations on the progress, BTW. I also find that some years there are dozens of good books to choose from, and some years you have to beat the bushes to find one. Maybe that is because I have already read many of the books for those years...who knows?

Bob gave us a wonderful resource that I use a lot now:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/popula...

Just plug in your year. Between this and Wikipedia's yearly lists, I can usually find something worthwhile.

Lori wrote: "Ok, Sara, I thought about setting it up and plugging in what I’ve read this year. I’m good at listening to friends’ advice so I think I should and will. At least at the beginning it will be easy to..."

Do it!

I'm going to enjoy following this, Sara! I like that you've added personal milestones--it's so interesting to think about where we were in our lives when these books came out. And with a five-star already added, you're off and running.

I didn't think it would be a cheat to add one book I read this month but before I posted the challenge. It was such a great read and the book I could have entered from yesterday was such a lousy one. I just wanted to step off on the right foot.

Good luck with your new challenge Sara!

I haven’t heard of The Correspondent. I’ll have to look for it.

Oh, do, Janelle. It is a wonderful book.

Fabulous choice, Sara! Highly recommend it Janelle!

Wishing you the best of luck in your new challenge, Sara. I have The Correspondent waiting to be read next week. I've heard so many good things about it.

I'll be watching for your review, Connie. Cannot imagine anyone seriously disliking it, and I predict you will love it.

Hi Sara, I love this idea. The books for my birth year (1993) are Nobody’s Fool and Same River Twice: A Memoir — I’ll be particularly looking forward to your thoughts about those ones. Hope the challenge is going well!

Thank you, Claire. I'm looking forward to both of those! I saw that you set up a challenge as well. So happy for that and looking forward to following your progress. Have fun.

Amazing choices, Sara. I'm equally excited for you to read the few I've read and the ones I haven't read yet! (I will throw out there that if you decide on A River Runs Through It, I would love to buddy read.)

Terrific, Kathleen. I'll look for a copy and we can count on doing it next year!

Connie wrote: "Wishing you the best of luck in your new challenge, Sara. I have The Correspondent waiting to be read next week. I've heard so many good things about it."

I'm reading "The Correspondent" now, and Sara's right -- I am loving it! :)

Ooh, I might like The Correspondent, too. It sounds amazing.

No surprise, Terris.

You absolutely should read it, Terry. I am so seldom enthusiastic about contemporary fiction, but this is beautifully done.

I just ordered it!

Sara wrote: "Terrific, Kathleen. I'll look for a copy and we can count on doing it next year!"

Yay! Thanks, Sara.

Adding my Authors' Oeuvres challenge here as well. For 2026 there are six authors I would like to either finish or make significant progress on.

Charles Dickens
Thomas Hardy
Edith Wharton
Anthony Trollope
Dorothy Whipple
Elizabeth Taylor

Charles Dickens
I have two novels I have not read and one I would like to revisit since it was read in my early youth.

Barnaby Rudge
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Pickwick Papers

Thomas Hardy
I have three novels by Hardy that I have never read, and while I have read dozens of his short stories and poems, I would like to do a comprehensive reading there.

Two on a Tower
The Hand of Ethelberta
A Laodician: A Story of Today
Poems
Short Stories

Anthony Trollope
Long way to go to have read all of Trollope!

The Prime Minister
The Duke's Children
The Way We Live Now
He Knew He Was Right
Orley Farm
Rachel Ray
Dr. Wortle's School
Lady Anna
The Claverings
Castle Richmond
The Belton Estate
Cousin Henry
Ayala's Angel
The Three Clerks
The Short Stories of Anthony Trollope
Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

Edith Wharton
Six novels yet to complete and one work of non-fiction on writing. I also have two biographies of Wharton on my shelf.

The Fruit of the Tree
The Mother's Recompense
Hudson River Bracketed
The Gods Arrive
The Marne
Fast and Loose: A novelette
The Writing of Fiction

Edith Wharton : An Extraordinary Life - an Illustrated Biography byEleanor Dwight
Edith Wharton: A Biography by R.W.B. Lewis

Dorothy Whipple
Five novels and two short story collections

High Wages
Greenbanks
Because of the Lockwoods
They Knew Mr. Knight
Young Anne
The Closed Door and Other Stories
Every Good Deed and Other Stories

Elizabeth Taylor
Two novels and two short story collections. I am going to miss her!

Palladian
The Sleeping Beauty
The Devastating Boys
A Dedicated Man, And Other Stories

Oh my, you do set yourself up with a lot to accomplish! I don’t have the discipline to stick to just a handful of authors. I can only take them one at a time, only here and there. I lack the perseverance that you have and which I admire!

While I was recently on Updike and Potok swings, right now I want to read more from Larry McMurtry, John Irving and (a contemporary novelist) John Boyne, probably only one or two each in the next year. But there are other backlist book authors that will sneak in. Dickens, for sure. Maybe Michener if I am up for another 1000 pager. Wells. Kesey. Stegner, for sure. Baldwin. Capote. Backman. Didion. Tan. I need to add more women to this list! Drabble. O’Brien. Cather. Spark. I might like to sample Taylor and Whipple from your lists.

Sara, I love your Authors Oeuvres! I hope you don't mind if I do something similar? Back in 2019, I read all of George Eliot's work in observance of her 200th birthday. (I hope I didn't miss anything major. I really had to search for some.) It made for an excellent reading year & I keep thinking I should do it again for another female author - or even two. Almost one-hundred years ago, 1926, gave us Harper Lee and Margaret Laurence among others. I'll do a bit of research & see what's out there for them.

You have already made tremendous progress on your six authors, Sara, and they are such classic and important artists! It will be fun to follow you discovering their lesser-known works.

I also like Terry and Annette's ideas. I can see myself completing a few more modern authors eventually--I'd like to consider Morrison and Baldwin. But next year I'm focusing on Atwood, though I won't come close to finishing her works. We all love a lot of prolific authors, don't we!

Terry wrote: "Oh my, you do set yourself up with a lot to accomplish! I don’t have the discipline to stick to just a handful of authors. I can only take them one at a time, only here and there. I lack the persev..."

I started making myself lists and checking them off because I would literally forget that I meant to read more of certain authors and get to the end of the year and not have read anything at all by them. I have been whittling at these six for a while now.

I love your list. A few of them I have already exhausted, but I am seriously thinking it is time to re-read a few, like Amy Tan. I have discovered so many great female writers who I have to catch up on beginning from scratch. Stevenson, Godden, Arnow, Young. I just didn't want to lose Whipple and Taylor in the shuffle.

Annette wrote: "Sara, I love your Authors Oeuvres! I hope you don't mind if I do something similar? Back in 2019, I read all of George Eliot's work in observance of her 200th birthday. (I hope I didn't miss anythi..."

I would love to watch you doing something similar, Annette. I also read (hopefully) all of Eliot's work and re-read the ones I had read so long ago. I should have done the same for Austen this year, but I just couldn't fit it in. Unfortunately, Harper Lee is a one-book wonder, but Margaret Laurence is a marvelous choice!

Someday when I have the time, I would like to see how many great authors I have actually read everything from. I'm betting there are a few books for each of the greats that I just never got to.

Kathleen wrote: "You have already made tremendous progress on your six authors, Sara, and they are such classic and important artists! It will be fun to follow you discovering their lesser-known works.

I also like..."

My Atwood list would be very short, because I used to buy her books and read them as she wrote them. I did that with Anita Shreve and Amy Tan, as well. I wish I had done that with a lot more of the modern writers. I am trying to concentrate a bit more on 20th Century instead of 19th now. I can never get around to all the books I want to read, but it would be very nice to feel you had put a dent in some of the great ones. I have at least learned to abandon modern books that just don't have any appeal for me, even when others think they must be read.

Yes, Sara, the Harper Lee list would be very short so I'll do a Margaret Laurence binge next year. My library has quite a few of her works. Yay!

As far as other authors, I kind of pick at them at a rate of a book per year. I will not finish very many authors' works this way but some progress is better than none!

That is primarily how I read as well, Annette. In the end, it is a crap shoot for how many you can finish and which ones will be the great choices. I have stumbled across so many good books that never made a list that I am satisfied to just whittle away at what I can.

The Trollope list makes me laugh. Not much of a chance I ever finish it.

Google says Trollope wrote 47 novels PLUS short stories, biographies, travel books, plays, essays, etc. That he was very prolific is a massive understatement!

How daunting is that!?! I have read 14 of his novels--and I was feeling pretty good about that until 22 minutes ago. LOL.