Decades 2010 Challenge

I like the Decades Challenge a lot, not least because I have managed to complete it the past two go-rounds. It also helps to remind me that the books coming out on a daily basis are not the only things worth reading. The older books may, in some ways, even be more worthy as they've stood the test of time in a way that the current publishing crop hasn't. And so I've made a not very comprehensive list of the books on my shelves that would fit each decade listed. I will be doing my very best to read at least one of the books listed from each decade from the 1900's to the 1990's. I could find an undiscovered gem, one that has long languished on the shelves unread and unappreciated. And that really, is why I love this challenge.

My potentials list:

1990’s The Folks That Live on the Hill by Kingsley Amis or Regeneration by Pat Barker or Wild Swans by Jung Chang

1980’s Arabian Nights and Days by Naguib Mahfouz, or A Far Cry From Kensington by Muriel Spark or And Ladies of the Club by Helen Hooven Santmyer

1970's The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner or Grendel by John Gardner or Ragtime by E. L. Doctrow or The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch or My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

1960’s The Golden Spur by Dawn Powell or Mr. Bridge by Evan Connell or One Fat Englishman by Kingsley Amis or Get Home Free by John Clellon Holmes

1950’s A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell or Bath Tangle by Georgette Heyer or The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa or Belles on Their Toes by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey or Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym or Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym or Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell or Lie Down in Darkness by William Styron

1940’s The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham or The Locust’s Have No King by Dawn Powell or Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House by Eric Hodgins or The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford

1930’s Remembering Laughter by Wallace Stegner, Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field or Swallow and Amazons by Arthur Ransome or Ali and Nino by Kurban Said or Mr. Popper’s Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater

1920’s The Bride’s House by Dawn Powell or Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos or the Emily books by L.M. Montgomery or The Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

1910’s Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham or The Reef by Edith Wharton or Seventeen by Booth Tarkington

1900’s The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit, The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy, The Touchstone by Edith Wharton

If you know of any outstanding book from any of these decades, feel free to add them in the comments as I'm sure I will forever be amending this list and I'd hate to miss out on your newly-discovered, older gems.