09 May 2007

By the Decade



ZUI 3M's new reading challenge: By the Decade. The goal is to read one book from each of however-many consecutive decades. (Since I'm trying to read all of the Newbery Medal books, that will fill in nine decades - '20s through '00s - for me.) The complete set of rules can be found here; the Reader's Digest version goes like this:
1. There will be a prize--a book (winner's choice) from Amazon.com priced at $15.00 or less.
2. Your choice of how many books to read. The number you read affects your chance of winning the prize - read X books, and you will have X chances at winning.
3. Books read for other challenges are acceptable.
4. This is meant to be a fun challenge - don't let this one stress you out. Most readers could probably muster up at least 3 or 4 books for it without even trying. (See my comment above about Newbery books.)
5. Any book read from 1 January through 31 December 2007 will count for the challenge. However, you must sign up (by commenting on 3M's post) NLT midnight ET, 30 June 07. If you're later than that you can still participate, but you won't be eligible for the prize. Provide a tentative list (you can change it at any time).

So. My (very) tentative list is:
1840s - Martin Chuzzlewit, by Charles Dickens (1843-44)
1850s - Adam Bede, by George Eliot (1859)
1860s - The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins (1868)
1870s - The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain (1876)
1880s - The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888)
1890s - The White Company, by Arthur Conan Doyle (1891)
1900s - The First Men in the Moon, by H G Wells (1901)
1910s - A Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1912)
1920s - The Trumpeter of Krakow, by Eric P Kelly (1928)
1930s - The Land of Hidden Men, by Edgar Rice Burroughs (1932)
1940s - Adam of the Road, by Elizabeth Janet Gray (1942)
1950s - The Dreaming Suburb, by R F Delderfield (1958)
1960s - The Defiant Agents, by Andre Norton (1963)
1970s - The Dancing Dodo, by John Gardner (1978)
1980s - Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry (1989)
1990s - Holes, by Louis Sachar (1998)
2000s - The Sunrise Lands, by S M Stirling (2007)
(Red date - Have already read this year. Purple date - Have read before, but not this year.)

That's seventeen titles for seventeen decades, but as you can see, I'm already off to a good start....

H/T to Backcountry Muse.


Update 1402 9 May: Added the publication years for the books on my list.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with that.

Dave S. said...

Woo-hoo! I've read a book you haven't read! I've read a book you haven't read!

Ok, it's "Holes" and it's not exactly what you'd call "heavy reading," but still.

1morechapter said...

Welcome to the challenge. You've got a great list!