I knew I was going to break eventually. Ever since Simon first mentioned his A Century of Books reading project, I have been tempted to join. There is something so magnificently decadent about the scale of the project – the aim is to read and review a book published in every year of the century – that makes it irresistible to me. One hundred books for one hundred years! But I was scared of the commitment, of how it might constrain my generally scattered reading habits, and, most of all, of finding books from the 1970s onwards. Ironically, I’m now most excited about the final three decades of the century, since my concern lead (quite naturally for me) to lots of bookish research, reassuring me that there are plenty of exciting options for those years.
Since the beginning of the year, I’ve watched Simon and his disciples start in on their reading, all the while keeping track of my own books, looking at how many years I would be able to cross off my Century list were I participating. Now, I’m feeling confident enough that, without having to stretch my book choices too much, I can keep up. No, maybe I won’t be able to finish my Century off in one year but the world doesn’t end if I don’t. There is no need for me to change my reading habits in order to meet a deadline. I’ll happy muddle along, reading what I want from whatever decade or century, and if it happens to fill a gap on my list, well that will be lovely. I’m sure I’ll have a wild surplus for some years (not even two months into 2012, I’ve already read two books from 1936 and two from 1950) and have to stretch to cover some others, but I’m looking forward to it all.
So this is me, officially joining in. It is more than likely that I will feel the need to create book lists (that I will never end up using, as usual, but will have great fun compiling) as I go along, so please humour me when I do. You can find my page for the project here and I’ll be updating it every time I post a review. I’ve also added an ‘A Century of Books’ section to the blog’s sidebar for quick navigation, linking back to the project page and keeping tabs on my progress.
The Captive Reader 
Claire, what a lovely surprise! Very pleased to have you on board. Amusingly I’ve read two books from 1950 as well – we’ve both read Jane Austen; what’s you other one? Mine is Rose Macaulay’s The World My Wilderness, which I’ve yet to post about.
Ignore that question! Just been to the list, and found out that Jane Austen wasn’t your first 1950 choice 🙂
Nope, it wasn’t! When I have overlap, I’m just using whichever book I read first and, in this case, I came across Emily of Deep Valley a week or two before I sat down with Jane Austen.
I’m so excited to have finally signed on for this project!
I think that I, too, was most worried about what I would read from 1970 forward, but I found that Eva Ibbotson wrote in the 1980s. 🙂 I will look forward to any list you generate. The fun of lists is in the making and reading them –not the following. 😉 I’ve never tracked my reading by year before so it is proving to be an interesting exercise. So far, I have almost an equal amount before, during, and after the 20th century (the *after* was the most shocking to me since I don’t think of myself as reading much that is current).
Happy reading to you!
I might have to fall back on Eva Ibbotson, but, since I’ve already reviewed most of her books here, I’d like to try for more variety if I can. How many reviews of The Morning Gift from me can people really take? And I completely agree that the fun of lists comes from the research and pulling together rather than the following. Though I suppose I’d really need to try following one of my lists in order to properly judge how fun that is – something I’ve never yet done! I’ve been tracking the publication year for my books for a while now and I find it really fascinating, but it does show me that the 1970s-1990s are not an era I generally read much from!
Good luck in such an ambitious and fun project. You’ve got me thinking that I should just keep track of the book years myself, since I tend to be all over the place in my reading choices. I do keep a list of what I’ve read, but, tend to leave off the copyright dates. Like, duh?
Thanks for the encouragement, Penny! I’m really excited to take on this project.
As for keeping track of the publication years, it’s only something I’ve started doing very recently (since I started blogging) though I’ve been keeping detailed reading diaries since 2006. It is very interesting to look at the trends, since, like you, I’m all over the place with my reading choices, and to see what I cover and what eras I’ve completely skipped over.
I’d love to have a go, but I’m not disciplined enough. I make lists of things I want, then I go off at a tangent and read something totally different because it catches my interest… so I’ll just muddle along as usual!
That’s how I read too and how I intend to go about this project, for the most part. If I give it long enough, I figure I should naturally stumble across most of the years!
It’s lovely to find someone else to refer to for ideas on difficult years. I had two book that I wanted to include arrive at the library last week – Scenes of Childhood by Sylivia Townsend Warner and still Missing by Beth Gutcheon – only to find that they both date from 1981. But I’ll get there one day!
I’m really looking forward to getting ideas from other Century readers too! Just from looking through my wishlist, it seems I have a lot of years that I could cover five or six times over while there are some that will definitely be a challenge. Oh well, as you say, we’ll get there one day!
Fascinating concept! I would love to work through this challenge, but alas, I’ve started my own, somewhat the same… A Century of Canadian Women Writers. But, instead of publication date, I’m working with author birthdates, from 1874-1974. Those dates are loose, but based more or less on the fact that I haven’t found any authors younger than this I’d like to read 🙂 Good luck with your challenge!