500 Great Books By Women discussion

The planned challenges for 2021 sound great! I’m going to prepare plans for the century and decade challenges. Not sure at this point if I’ll do one, the other, or both.

Draft plans:

Century
1910 - Ethan Frome, Summer (Wharton) / Night and Day (Woolf)
1920s - The Last September (own)
1930s - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
1940s - Nada (Andrea) (own)
1950s - Under the Net (own)
1960s - The Country Girls
1970s - Play it as it lays (Didion) / I Know why the caged bird sings / Song of Solomon (Morrison)
1980s - The Piano Teacher (own)
1990s - The Museum of Unconditional Surrender (own); A Thousand Acres, The Journalist and the Murderer, Black Water, Autobiography of Red
2000s - White Teeth (TO audio)

1950’s
The Summer People - Shirley Jackson - 1950
Some Tame Gazelle - Barbara Pym - 1950 (TO audio)
Our spoons came from woolworths - Comyns - 1950
The Sea Wall - Dumas - 1950
People in the Room - Norah Lange - 1950
*Daphne Du Maurier - My Cousin Rachel - 1951
*Flannery O'Connor - Wise Blood - 1952
The Sailor from Gibraltar - Duras - 1952
*Shirley Jackson - Life Among the Savages - 1953 (own)
*Bonjour Tristesse - 1954
The Ten Thousand Things - 1955 (own)
*Beast in View - Margaret Millar - 1955
*Dead Man's Folly (Christie) - 1956
*The Scapegoat - Du Maurier - 1957
Owls do Cry - Janet Frame - 1957
The Waiting Years - 1957
The 4:50 from Paddington (Christie) - 1957
*Fumiko Enchi - Masks - 1958 (own)
*Mad Shadows - Marie Claire-Blais - 1959

Books read:

Century challenge:
1910's - Summer 4*
1920's - Whose Body? 2*
1930's- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day 4*
1940's - The Impudent Ones 3*
1950's - Under the Net 4*
1960's - The Country Girls 3*
1970's - The Bluest Eye 4*
1980's - The Piano Teacher 3*
1990's - Black Water - 3*
2000's - White Teeth 4*

Decade challenge - 1950s
1950 - Some Tame Gazelle 4*
1951 - My Cousin Rachel 5*
1952 - Wise Blood 4*
1953 - Jane and Prudence 3*
1954 - Bonjour tristesse 4*
1955 - Beast In View 5*
1956 - Dead Man's Folly 3*
1957 - The Scapegoat 4.5*
1958 - Masks 4*
1959 - Cat Among the Pigeons 4*

Welcome to the challenges, Jen. I'm glad to see that the flexibility in next year's challenges compared to this one's is already doing you some favors.

An Enchi book - Masks- I haven’t heard of. Dang, I should have read it this year ;). Looks like a fun challenge, Jen. Good luck.

Aubrey wrote: "Welcome to the challenges, Jen. I'm glad to see that the flexibility in next year's challenges compared to this one's is already doing you some favors."

Oh I really enjoyed the bingo this year. I am four short of completing the full card, which I'm more than happy with! I read some great books, too.

This is such a great list! I'm also excited to read Masks, but am waiting for my library to get a copy. I'd also love to get to Life Among the Savages.

Some that I loved are: Song of Solomon, The Country Girls and White Teeth.

Enjoy the challenge, Jen. I look forward to following your reading.

Brina wrote: "An Enchi book - Masks- I haven’t heard of. Dang, I should have read it this year ;). Looks like a fun challenge, Jen. Good luck."

Brina I'd be happy to pass it along when I'm done with it. DM me if you are interested. Not sure where you are, I'm in eastern Canada.

Kathleen wrote: "This is such a great list! I'm also excited to read Masks, but am waiting for my library to get a copy. I'd also love to get to Life Among the Savages.

Some that I love..."

Thanks Kathleen, it's good to hear I've got some great reading ahead!

Jen that’s so sweet but my library has a copy. I’m in the Midwest US and who knows with shipping these days. Also I bought more books this year than in the last ten years combined and have nowhere to put new acquisitions other than cookbooks. Good luck with your reading.

Brina wrote: "An Enchi book - Masks- I haven’t heard of. Dang, I should have read it this year ;). Looks like a fun challenge, Jen. Good luck."

It was the first book of hers that I ever heard about.

I'll be using The Waiting Years for the challenge. It just occurred to me that I never read a Japanese female author in her own language...so far I have just read Murakami and light novels authored by men. When it comes to manga, though, most of it has been by female mangakas.

I do have a light novel written by a woman and it'd be great if I could get to it this upcoming year.

Signing off on 2021 to say how much I enjoyed both the century and decade (1950s) challenges. It was down to the wire as I finished my book for 1959 on the last day of the year. (Books read are tracked in post #2.)

I had a great time reading some old favourites and new discoveries, the most notable being Margaret Millar, a Canadian mid-century mystery writer whose Beast In View I enjoyed greatly.

Happy New Year fellow readers!