100 different books by 100 different authors – 1850 to 1949!

I realised some time ago that the way to finish a  project like this was to take my time; to focus on it when I want to and to put it to one side when I want to read other things. I’m reading the books I want to read. Sometimes I realise that a book I want to read will fill a year; and sometimes I think it’s time I filled another year and see if I can spot a book to fill a gap.

That’s why it’s been nearly a year and a half since my last 10% report; and it’s also why since looking at my list of possible books a few weeks ago I’ve read four of them and have several more sitting on my bedside table because I really want to read them soon!

I want to press on with this  100 Years of Books project, and maybe finish by the end of the year.

Now that I have read seventy books I really feel that the end is in sight and that this can be done.

But I say maybe because I know I’ll want to read other things, and I’m never going to tell myself that I can’t.

And I am never going to read a book just to fill a year; every book on the list is going to be one I wanted to read for its own sake.

I really want to see the final list one day – 100 years, 100 books and 100 authors!

Today though I just have my latest ten books – here they are:

* * * * * * *

1870 – Man and Wife by Wilkie Collins

‘The very best things were the points that were made about the absurdities of marriage laws and the inequity of men and women in marriage. They were powerfully made and they were utterly right. That is both this books greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The author seems over-bearing when he addresses the reader directly; and his wish to make his point sometimes bends his characters and their stories out of shape.’

1871 – Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy

‘Thomas Hardy wrote a good sensation novel; and it was lovely to read that story mixed with the things that Hardy did so well. That made it feel familiar and yet unlike any other book I’ve read. I’m glad though that he didn’t continue down that route, and that he went on to do the other things he began to do well in this book even better as his writing career progressed.’

1872 – The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart

‘I loved Clarice for her lovely mix of imagination and sensibleness; and I appreciated that she was good not for its own sake but because the world and the people around her cared for her and she cared for them and wanted them to be happy. I loved Olga for her vitality, her joie de vivre, and her gift for doing the unexpected. The story shows them both off so well, a dramatic conclusion bring the best out of both of them, and I was captivated from the first page to the last.’

1880 – A Strange Disappearance by Anna Katherine Green

‘Anna Katherine Green constructed a very cunning plot, and she wrote very well. The story could have been set in any of a number of periods, but her writing style and her handling of romance places it very firmly in the Victorian era. When I read ‘The Leavenworth Case’ I saw the influence of Wilkie Collins, and I see it again in this book.’

1890 – An Australian Girl by Catherine Martin

‘ ‘An Australian Girl’ is the story of Stella Courtland. She was beautiful, articulate, and sociable; and she loved the world around her and all the things she could do in that world just as much as she loved her books and intellectual pursuits. She was one of the youngest children of a large family, most of her siblings had scattered, and only the youngest were left at home with their widowed mother. Stella was ready to fly, but she would never flout the conventions of society’

1896 – Beauty’s Hour by Olivia Shakespear

‘The plot is well constructed, and the story moves along at a good pace. It makes its points well, and though some of them might feel obvious they were points that were definitely worth making clearly. It was fantastical, but there was enough truth in the characters and the situations to make it feel real and to make me believe that it might have happened. And the suspense, the atmosphere, was perfect.’

1908 – Crossriggs by Jane and Mary Findlater

‘The story was beautifully positioned between two different eras. Much of it feels wonderfully Victorian, but Alex is quite clearly a ‘New Woman’ caught up in small town life. The influences were clear. There are definite echoes of a particular Jane Austen novel in the characters and the relationships, and there were something in the style and in the drawing of the community that told me that the Findlater sisters must have read and loved Trollope too.’

1922 – Rough-Hewn by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

‘The story of each life was told quite beautifully, with sensitivity, with intelligence, with empathy, and without one single drop of sentimentality. There is no plot as such, but I was captivated by the unfolding of each life. I noticed that they were told rather differently. Neale’s story was told in a straightforward way, always from his point of view; while Marise’s story was often told through the accounts of people around her. That reflected the different nature of the stories, and while I found Neale’s story easier to read I was more anxious to follow Marise’s story.’

1931 – Saraband by Eliot Bliss

‘I saw the influence of Dorothy Richardson – a friend of the authors – on her writing; but I found Eliot Bliss’s style to be simpler and more accessible. Louie remembered and considered things; I was particularly taken with passages late in the book where she remembered stories her grandmother had told her about her youth, as the end of grandmother’s life was drawing near.’

1933 – Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge

‘ ‘Hostages to Fortune’ is one of those books, wisely rescued by the lovely Persephone Books, and it does some of the things I love most in a quiet book. It speaks to my sense of wonder that there are so many people in the world and that each and every one of them has a story of their own that might be told. It illuminates lives lived at a particular time, at a particular point in history so very well that I really do feel that these fictional characters lived and breathed, and that I have come understand how their lives were for them without ever intruding at all.’

* * * * * * *

The full list of what I’ve read is here and my first six 10% reports are  here, here, here, here , here and here.

My thoughts on the books that will represent 1892 and 1917 will be along quite soon.

And I’ll get back to my list once I’ve read a book for Elizabeth Goudge’s birthday, a book for Margaret Kennedy’s birthday,  a wonderful new book by an author whose first novel I fell in love with a few years ago ….

* * * * * * *

A few years ago, when I noticed that the centenary of one of my very favourite underappreciated lady authors was approaching, I hit upon the idea of throwing a party on that day. I did, and it worked beautifully. There were invitations, lots of guests took the trouble to find a book and post about it on the day, and I wrote a thank you letter to them all afterwards.

I always intended to celebrate more birthdays of favourite authors in the same way, but it never quite happened.

I couldn’t find the dates of birth of come of the authors I wanted. That ruled out Barbara Comyns, March Cost and Frances Vernon.

I found that the dates I could find didn’t spread out nicely over the year. February and December were terrible congested! Margery Sharp and Virginia Woolf shared a birthday!

And there was a certain amount of work involved. It wasn’t that didn’t love doing it – I did – but I was aware that it was absorbing time that I could have spent reading, and I was a little worried that I might be pushing others to read my particular favourites a little too much.

The idea drifted, but it never quite went away …

I decided that I would try to put together a birthday book to celebrate a number of my favourite authors over the course of the year. I looked at the authors whose books I had and really wanted to read or re-read, I did some searching; and I had to make some hard decisions, and accept that I couldn’t include every author deserving of a place, but I got there in the end.

* * * * * * *

A Birthday Book of Underappreciated Lady Authors

25th January – Margery Sharp

17th February – Dorothy Canfield Fisher

26th February – Dorothy Whipple

21st March – E H Young

23rd April – Margaret Kennedy

10th May – Monica Dickens

9th June – E M Delafield

17th June – G B Stern

3rd July – Elizabeth Taylor

23rd July – Elspeth Huxley

31st August – Elizabeth Von Arnim

17th September – Mary Stewart

18th October – Helen Ashton

10th November – Patricia Wentworth

10th December – Rumer Godden

21st December – Rebecca West

* * * * * * *

I know that some of my authors are less underappreciated than others, but all of them are authors who have written books that I love; and I want to read more of their work and I know that there are more people who would love them too, if only they knew that their books were out there.

I think that they all have books in print, and I’m sure used copies of  titles by each and every author out there at reasonable prices.

It would be lovely to have company if you’ve spotted an author you love too, or an author you’ve heard good things about and wanted to read.

Just know that this is going to be quiet. I’ll just put a note in the sidebar to say whose day is next and post on that day.

And that there will be other posts about these authors and their books throughout the year, because putting this thing together has had me thinking of so many books that I really don’t want to wait to read …

The last month of the year is here, and so it’s time to play a particular game:

“Take the first line of each month’s first post over the past year and see what it tells you about your blogging year.”

It’s an idea that started with The Indextrious Reader a few years ago, and I remember that that it really is an interesting way to look back at a year.

‘An English Calendar’ by Evelyn Dunbar

* * * * * * *

December

The Cat’s Cradle Book by Sylvia Townsend Warner

A few years ago I was lucky enough to come across what must have been the collection of a devoted admirer of Sylvia Townsend Warner in a secondhand bookshop.

November

The Fortunes of the Rougons by Émile Zola

I love Zola’s writing, I have meant to read more of his Rougon-Macquart series, but I hadn’t read anything for such a long time because I was wondering just how to set about it.

October

The Story of Finding the Book that I Had Always Thought Would be Just Out of Reach

Do you have a book like that?

September

Love by Elizabeth Von Arnim

I remember, many years ago, falling in love with Elizabeth Von Arnim’s writing as I read every one of her books that Virago republished.

August

Stanhope Forbes: Father of the Newlyn School

The last exhibition at Penlee House – ‘A Casket of Pearls’ – a celebration of its twentieth anniversary – was always going to be a difficult act to follow, but I take my hat off to whoever decided that Stanhope Forbes was the man for the job.

July

Sixes

It was Jo’s idea, six years ago now, and it’s become an annual event – mark the end of the first six months of the reading year by putting six books into each of six categories.

June

Together and Apart by Margaret Kennedy

I love Margaret Kennedy’s writing, but I didn’t rush to pick up this book because I wasn’t that taken with the subject matter.

May

The Saddest Day

Just after sunset on Saturday, my mother left this life.

April

An A to Z for a New Month

A is for ALEXANDRE DUMAS.

March

Danger Point – or, In The Balance, – by Patricia Wentworth

I realised that it was a long, long time since I had investigated a mystery with Miss Silver.

February

The Trespasser by Tana French

Ten years ago, a debut crime novel was published.

January

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser

The Quincunx is an enticing, entrancing recreation of a Victorian novel, written in such perfect period prose and holding so much that is typical of the Victorian novel that you might well believe that Charles Palliser had excavated it and not sat down to write late in the twentieth century.

* * * * * * *

And that’s it!

I can’t say that it’s exactly right, but it is an interesting snapshot.

Do have a go – it’s a lovely way to look back , and I’d love to see your results.

It was Jo’s idea, six years ago now, and it’s become an annual event – mark the end of the first six months of the reading year by putting six books into each of six categories.

It’s not quite as simple as that sounds, but working out what book might go where is a lovely way of looking back.

I’ve already spotted Helen and Margaret posting their lists, and I am sure that there are – and there will be – others out there.

As usual, I’ve tweaked the categories to suit my reading style, and to make sure that this is a celebration of books I’m happy to remember.

And in the case of my last six, happy to be reading right now or very soon.

Here are my six sixes:

Six book by authors I know will never let me down

Lise Lillywhite by Margery Sharp
Love by Elizabeth Von Arnim
Desperate Remedies by Thomas Hardy
Together and Apart by Margaret Kennedy
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Taylor

* * * * * * *

Six books holding stories of crime and intrigue

Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler
Danger Point by Patricia Wentworth
The Trespasser by Tana French
Six Green Bottles by Anne Hocking
Let the Dead Speak by Jane Casey
Mystery in the Channel by Freeman Wills Croft

* * * * * * *

Six books published in the last year or so

Winter: A Seasonal Anthology
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
The Unseeing by Anna Mazzola
Foxes Unearthed by Lucy Jones
Crimson and Bone by Marina Fiorato

* * * * * * *

Six books written by 20th century lady authors

A Place to Stand by Ann Bridge
Fidelity by Susan Glaspell
This Real Night by Rebecca West
The Priory by Dorothy Whipple
The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
Crossriggs by Jane and Mary Findlater

* * * * * * *

Six books that pulled me back into the past

The Quincunx by Charles Palliser
A Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The West Wind by Crosbie Garstin
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

* * * * * * *

Six books sitting on my bedside table

Marcella by Mary Augusta Ward
The Wild Air by Rebecca Mascull
A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney
The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

* * * * * * *

Just as I found a little time for the online bookish world, my trusty, long-serving, hard-working modem gave up the ghost and died, and so I have only my work breaks today and tomorrow and that isn’t nearly as time as I’d like.

I do hope my new modem arrives on schedule …

Fortunately I had enough time to spot a new Classics Club spin, and it wasn’t too difficult to pull together a list, because I only have twenty-something books left  ….

… and now here is that list.

1. The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox (1752)
2. Emmeline by Charlotte Turner Smith (1788)
3. A Simple Story by Elizabeth Inchbold (1791)
4. The Collegians by Gerald Griffin (1829)
5. Deerbrook by Harriet Martineau (1838)
6. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol (1842)
7. Vilette by Charlotte Bronte (1953)
8. Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov (1859)
9. Hester by Margaret Oliphant (1873)
10. A Struggle for Fame by Charlotte Riddell (1883)
11. La Regenta by Leopoldo Atlas (1886)
12. The Beth Book by Sarah Grand (1897)
13. Eline Vere by Louis Couperus (1889)
14. The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf (1915)
15. Kristin Lavransdattir by Sigrid Undset (1922)
16. Dusty Answer by Rosamond Lehmann (1927)
17. Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson (1937)
18. The World is Not Enough by Zoe Oldenbourg (1946)
19. The World My Wilderness by Rose Macaulay (1950)
20. A Game of Hide and Seek by Elizabeth Tayor (1951)

The numbers I’d most like to come up are 7, 10, 14 and 20.

The numbers I’m a little anxious about are 2, 12 and 18.

But there isn’t a book on my list I don’t want to read – it’s just that I want to read some of one day, rather than right now.

Though maybe I just need the right push …

 

Some people make year-end lists, but I prefer to pack a box of books as each year draws to a close. I have always loved lists – writing them, reading them, studying and analysing them – since I was a child; but I find it more interesting to  approach things a little differently.

I assemble a virtual box of books to remember my reading year. And I stick a virtual post-it note to each book, with my thoughts when I read it, to remind me why that book was in my box.

Some of them will be books that I can say quite objectively were the best books I read, but others are books that spoke to me for particular reasons, and books that did a particular thing rather well.

I try to finish with a box that holds a cross-section of what I’ve read, so that when I look at a box I know where I was in my life as a reader that year.

Books that I re-read aren’t there, because of course I know I will find them in the boxes of the years when I read them for the first time. And I only allow an author one book a year, because I have to draw a line somewhere.

Before I show you what is in my box, there are people I really must thank – authors past and present, publishers, sellers of books both new and used, fellow readers – who have all done their bit to make the contents of my box so very lovely.

And now – here are the books!

* * * * * * *

Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp

“She’s a girl who never does anything that’s exactly wrong; but she’s also a girl who never really does anything that is usual or expected. She simply follows her heart; oblivious to the strictures that hold most people back.One day she took herself out to tea at the Ritz; another day she stayed in bed, eating oranges, because she read in a magazine that it would give her vitality.”

Landfalls by Naomi J Williams

“I knew nothing at all about the history, I resisted looking it up, and I’m very glad that I did; I’m sure that I would have loved the book even if I had foreknowledge, but coming to this narrative as I did made it an enthralling voyage of discovery.”

The Ballroom by Anna Hope

“The plot is beautifully constructed and controlled. I was particularly taken with the way that the author gradually opened out different stories, with the way she set her story very firmly in its period, and that her story was always a very real human story set in a very real world. It would have been so easy to add a drop of melodrama or a dash of the gothic, but she didn’t and her story is so much better, and so much more distinctive for it.”

The Owl’s House by Crosbie Garstin

“I was swept away by their story; it was so very richly told and so very engaging. And Crosbie Garstin captured my part of Cornwall – the people, the places, the speech patterns, the way of life, everything – absolutely brilliantly. I couldn’t doubt for a moment that he loved his world, his story and the telling of it.”

Red Pottage by Mary Cholmondeley

“Oh, what a book this is! It has a wonderfully diverse cast of characters, it is full of drama and intrigue, it has plenty to say, and every single thing in it is so cleverly and vividly drawn that I found myself living and breathing the story.”

* * * * * * *

Honeycomb by Dorothy Richardson

“I have loved walking through life with Miriam Henderson, sharing in her perceptions and emotions, and appreciating that maturity and experience were helping her to form ideas and steadily grow as a woman in her world. And I have loved seeing Dorothy Richardson grow as a writer, honing her craft, and making each of the first three novels of this saga distinctive and yet still part of the same whole.”

The Midas Touch by Margaret Kennedy

“The story begins as a young man named Evan Jones arrives in England for the first time. He had been born in China, the son of Welsh missionaries, and since they died he had travelled the world, living off his wits and his charm. Now he was coming home, to see the place that his parents had always called home, and he was very taken with what he saw. He had no money, he had nowhere to go, but fortune favoured him again and he prospered.”

The Water Room by Christopher Fowler

“Arthur Bryant and John May met in London in November 1940. Both young men were assigned to the PCU – the Peculiar Crimes Unit – to deal with the strangest of crimes and, though they were young and had little experience, they found themselves pretty much running the place while so many resources and so many men were caught up in the war. Years later, when they were both quite elderly and much had changed they were still working together at the PCU.” 

The Warden by Anthony Trollope

“Most of all though I loved Septimus Harding. He loved his daughters, he loved the old men who were in his care, he loved the work he had been called to do, he appreciated all of the good things he had in his life; and when finally decided what was the right thing to do he proved to be as tenacious, in his own quiet way as his formidable son-in-law. The sequence of events, as he travelled to London and found his way to the people he needed to see – very much an innocent abroad – was beautifully judged and a joy to read.,”

The Song Collector by Natasha Solomons

“Fox was a wonderful narrator and I loved coming to know him as a young and an old man. He drew me into his story, he made me care about him and about what would happen, and I came to understand his hopes and his dreams, his loves and his fears. I saw his world and the people whose lives touched his so very clearly.”

* * * * * * *

The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney

“A short conversation inspires him to leave his job and to travel deep into the English countryside to Combe Hall; a lovely house that had been built in the 1600s, that was still a family home, and that housed a private library holding more than eighteen thousand books and three centuries of correspondence.”

Pendower by Marianne Filleul

“I’ve read many novels that consider the reformation at court, and in the light of the marriages of Henry VIII, but I don’t think I’ve read one before that considered its impact on the country.  Marianne Filleul caught the fear and the confusion perfectly, and presented the question in its simplest form. Should mass be said in Latin, that sounded beautiful was not understood, or should it be said in plain language for all to understand?”

Summer: A Wildlife Trust Anthology for the Changing Seasons

“There are so may highlights that it is almost impossible to pick favourites. I loved bat watching with Jacqueline Bain. I was taken by surprise by some lovely writing that I would never have guessed was by Charles Dickens. I was pleased to climb a hill in the Cotswolds with Vivienne Hambly; I was delighted that Jo Cartmell wrote of replacing her lawn with meadow flowers, reminding me that I have a plan a little like that for part of our garden …”

A Woman of Letters by March Cost

“The arc of the story was perfect. It moved from a manse in the Lowlands to a cottage in the Highlands, to London, to London society, across to continental Europe, and then back to London for the war years and thee years that followed. All of the times and places were beautifully evoked. The mixture of romance and intrigue worked beautifully; and is woven into the story so well that it is difficult to say very much without giving much too much away.”

Blood Symmetry by Kate Rhodes

“The writing was wonderful. I knew that this was crime novel, but it could have turned this story into anything it might have wanted to become. And it quickly became clear than the story would be both distinctive and meaningful.”

* * * * * * *

To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey

“Sophie was a young teacher, in love with the natural world, when she met Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester. He was intrigued by the young woman who was completely unflustered when she was caught up a tree; and she was captivated when he took the time and trouble to find and lead her to the nest of a hummingbird. I was very taken with them both as individuals, and I loved them as a couple. I have found many things to love in this novel, but it was this marriage that I loved most of all.”

Through Connemara in a Duchess Cart by Somerville & Ross

“When work, life, and other things conspire to keep me at home, surrounded by visitors, at the height of the season there is only one thing to do. I turn to my bookshelves and I look for a Virago Traveller, knowing that those books can take me on wonderful journeys in the best of company.”

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett

“This book caught me by surprise. I’ve read some of Ann Patchett’s work but it’s been a long time since our last encounter; because I’ve liked what I’ve well enough to want to read more, but not quite well enough for months and years to slip by before a book landed that I thought I really must read. I expected it to be good, of course I did; but I didn’t expect it to have such depth and yet be so easy to read, and I didn’t expect it to preoccupy my thoughts during the days I spent travelling through its pages.”

Tell it to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge

“The writing was perfectly controlled, and the skill of the author drew me right in and made me think so much of the situation of each woman. That control, that skill, and an extraordinary clarity made every story fascinating. It was the clarity that really struck me; I can only compare it to the feeling you have when you have new glasses and you see the world just that little more clearly than you did through the old pair.”

Saraband by Eliot Bliss

“Saraband is a beautifully wrought and sensitively told coming of age story, set in early 20th century London.Louie is a quiet and imaginative child, growing up in her grandmother’s house, surrounded by aunts and uncles. She loves being out in the world, and her story is scattered with her feelings about the world as the seasons change.”

* * * * * * *

Now tell me, what would you put in your box for 2016?

And what do you plan to read in 2017?