Half a Century of Books

Six months in, let’s assess where I am with A Century of Books. You may remember that at the three month point I had only read 22, and was a little behind.  Well, at halfway, I have read… 51!  Yes, ironically my Reader’s Block meant turning to Agatha Christie, and I can wolf those down in a couple of days, so she filled plenty of places in the century.

Let’s take a look decade by decade…

1914-1923: 6
1924-1933: 7
1934-1943: 6
1944-1953: 9
1954-1963: 4
1964-1973: 6
1974-1983: 5
1984-1993: 4
1994-2003: 1
2004-2013: 3

How are you getting on, if you’re doing the Century of Books?

7 thoughts on “Half a Century of Books

  • July 1, 2014 at 7:32 am
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    Here's my list: http://librofulltime.wordpress.com/about/a-century-of-books/ I've done 17 so far and am reading two at the moment if you count the scary Iris Murdoch "Sartre" one.

    1914-1923: 1
    1924-1933: 1
    1934-1943: 1
    1944-1953: 0
    1954-1963: 1
    1964-1973: 1
    1974-1983: 1
    1984-1993: 1
    1994-2003: 7
    2004-2013: 4

    so an interesting weighting there – but of course at the moment I'm just doing it "naturally" although I have gone out looking for early ones and downloaded some e-books (ones I wanted to read anyway – hooray). I have quite a few on the TBR at the moment:

    1914-1923: 4
    1924-1933: 1
    1934-1943: 3
    1944-1953: 4
    1954-1963: 0
    1964-1973: 0
    1974-1983: 4
    1984-1993: 3
    1994-2003: 1
    2004-2013: 4

    so I can see I'm doing really badly at the mid-century at the moment and when I've read all these, I might just have to start looking around for stuff I might want to read that might have been published then. I'm trying not to have more than one by each author, but I reckon I'm allowed Iris Murdoch's "Sattre" and one novel …

    I am enjoying it, though – and was thrilled when a random purchase of 4 books the other day yielded 3 new Century years!

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  • July 1, 2014 at 7:33 am
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    Oh gosh – typed "Sartre" incorrectly – if you can edit comments, please edit that one!

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  • July 1, 2014 at 12:26 pm
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    Well done Simon – and good old Agatha! I am *not* doing this challenge, but it has spurred me on to actually record the years of the books I read out of curiosity – it will be interesting to see the spread at the end of the year!

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  • July 1, 2014 at 2:11 pm
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    Good show! I'm at an even 50 now. What is currently a bit daunting is that I've only review 35 of those so far. Lots of brief reviews in my future, I suspect.

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  • July 3, 2014 at 1:14 pm
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    I have to count up and see where I am halfway through the year! Like Claire, I have a few read and unreviewed as yet, so once those are added in I should look a little better numerically! Enjoying my finds though, so all is good.

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  • July 4, 2014 at 1:41 am
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    I'm nicely at the hallway point, having reviewed 51 years' worth, with some waiting to be discussed. Like Claire, I suspect some of these will be very brief reviews…

    Some years have more than one representative, but I only count the first one in my total – the others are "bonus" reviews, as it were.

    I'm noticing a worrisome theme with a lot of blanks in the later decades (I'm doing 1900 to 1999 for my 100-year term). I had a good time with the early decades, and seem stuck in the 1960s, with loads of double-ups. It may be time for some more deliberate planning regarding filling in those not-so-popular years.

    Here's my breakdown so far:

    1900-1909: 10 (with 7 extra – wow! I was obviously finding this decade a thrill.)
    1910-1919: 4 (plus 1 extra)
    1920-1929: 4 (plus 1 extra)
    1930-1939: 5 (plus 1 extra)
    1940-1949: 9 (plus 6 extra – another good decade)
    1950-1959: 6 (plus 1 extra)
    1960-1969: 6 (plus 5 extra)
    1970-1979: 2
    1980-1989: 1
    1990-1999: 4 (plus 1 extra)

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