A Century of Books Challenge

Although December is not one of my favorite months (too involved a story to tell you why), I do like looking through end-of-the-year lists, especially of books. One of my favorite book blogs is "Stuck in a Book". I love the fact that not one of the books listed on the blog comes from 2013. Not that there aren't good books published this last year (I'll be listing mine soon), but the list at Stuck in a Book is more personal favorites of the year. That's how I like to look at the "Best of" lists that come out at the end of the year.

I'd love to read all of the books on the list, but I decided to pick one: Phantoms on the Bookshelves by Jacques Bonnet. I've always been fascinated with people who have large book collections and this book looks like a delight.

the stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com challenge

I also decided to take up the "A Century of Books" challenge that Stuck in a Book issued to readers. The goal is to read a single book from each year of the 20th century. I'm going to try to do it in a year, but with all of the other reading interests I have it may take a little longer. So far here is my list for the years 1900 to 1010. See my complete list on the side panel "My Century of Books" page.

My Century of Books list (first decade):

1900     The Wallet of Kai Lung by Ernest Bramah
1901     The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud
1902     The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar
1903     Ideas of Good and Evil by W.B. Yeats
1904     Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton
1905     The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
1906     Botchan by Natsume Soseki
1907     Dead Love Has Chains by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
1908     Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
1909     Three Lives by Gertrude Stein
1910     Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman

Most of these titles I'll be reading in the e-book format, but a couple I already have in my library. My sources will be Gutenberg.org and OpenLibrary.org for the e-books and primarily the Iliad Bookshop for the p-books.

The wikipedia has a very nice page on events and book releases for each year of the century. It was fascinating to follow the links and read up on authors and titles. Difficult to decide which book to choose for some years, which is why there are two titles listed for 1905 and 1907.

Thanks to Stuck in a Book for the idea. Look for my reviews here of each title and we'll see if I'm up to the challenge!