Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

My Pulitzer Challenge has been inspired by the 9 winners I read this year. I was quite surprised by that number and thought I might as well make a go of trying to read the entire list. Knowing this will take a while and that I won't get that many in a year again, maybe, who knows? But it will be fun trying!

Beginning this challenge for 2022 I have read 17 total Pulitzers.

Pulitzer Winners Book List

1918 - His Family by Ernest Poole
1919 - The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
☑️1921 - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 3-19-21 my 4 star review
1922 - Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
1923 - One of Ours by Willa Cather
1924 - The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
1925 - So Big by Edna Ferber
1926 - Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
1927 - Early Autumn: A Story of a Lady by Lewis Bromfield
1928 - The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
1929 - Scarlet Sister Mary by Julia Peterkin
1930 - Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story by Oliver La Farge
1931 - Years of Grace by Margaret Ayer Barnes
☑️1932 - The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck 9-3-21 my 4 star review
1933 - The Store by Thomas S. Stribling
☑️1934 - Lamb in His Bosom by Caroline Miller finished 2-13-24 5 stars
1935 - Now in November by Josephine Winslow Johnson
1936 - Honey in the Horn by Harold L. Davis
☑️1937 - Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 1-23-21 my 5 star review
1938 - The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand
☑️1939 - The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings 8-30-24 5 stars
1940 - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
1942 - In This Our Life by Ellen Glasgow
1943 - Dragon's Teeth by Upton Sinclair
1944 - Journey in the Dark by Martin Flavin
1945 - A Bell for Adano by John Hersey
☑️1947 - All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren 9-26-22 my 5 star review
1948 - Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949 - Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
☑️1950 - The Way West by A.B. Guthrie Jr. 5-13-21 my 5 star review
☑️1951 - The Town by Conrad Richter 9-4-22 my 5 star review
1952 - The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
☑️1953 - The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 10-2-24 4 stars
1955 - A Fable by William Faulkner
1956 - Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
☑️1958 - A Death in the Family by James Agee 12-7-20 my 5 star review
1959 - The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960 - Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
☑️1961 - To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 10-21-24 5 stars
1962 - The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963 - The Reivers by William Faulkner
1965 - The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966 - The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967 - The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968 - The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969 - House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970 - The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
☑️1972 - Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner 5-10-21 my 5 star review
☑️1973 -The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty 5-23-21 my 4 star review
1975 - The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976 - Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1978 - Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979 - The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980 - The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1981 -A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1982 - Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983 - The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984 - Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985 - Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
☑️1986 - Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry 6-13-21 my 5 star review
1987 - A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
☑️1988 - Beloved by Toni Morrison 3-28-17
☑️1989 - Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler finished 8-18-24
1990 - The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1991 - Rabbit at Rest by John Updike
1992 - A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993 - A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain: Stories by Robert Olen Butler
1994 - The Shipping News by E. Annie Prolux
1995 - The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1996 - Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997 - Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998 - American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999 - The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000 - Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001 -The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
☑️2002 -Empire Falls by Richard Russo 10-16-20 my 5 star review
2003 - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004 - The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005 - Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
☑️2006 - March by Geraldine Brooks 6-30-14 need to reread
☑️2007 - The Road by Cormac McCarthy 8-13-20 my 5 star review
2008 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
☑️2009 - Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 12-30-21 my 4 star review
2010 - Tinkers by Paul Harding
2011 - A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
2013 - The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
☑️2014 -The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 1-3-14
☑️2015 - All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 7-17-15
2016 - The Sympathizer by Nguyen
☑️2017 - The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead 9-28-16 my 3 star review
2018 - Less by Andrew Sean Greer
2019 - The Overstory Powell
☑️2020 - The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead 10-9-20 my 3 star review
2021 The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich

Other challenges that interest me:

1) Book Riot's Must Read Classics By Women
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...

2) Birth Year Challenge - read a book for each year beginning with the year of your birth -

3) Specific Authors:

Jane Austen - reading all of them in order

Charles Dickens

Wendell Berry

4) Series to complete

Poldark

Barchester Series - Anthony Trollope

Jane Austen Novels

☑️Sense and Sensibility (1811) - read 11-19-21 my review

☑️Pride and Prejudice (1813) read 10-22-23 5 stars

☑️Mansfield Park (1814) read 1-21-24 5 stars

Emma (1815)

☑️Persuasion (1817 posthumously) read 4-17-22 my 5 star review

☑️Northanger Abbey (1817 posthumously) read 3-2018 4 stars

Sanditon (1817 unfinished)

Poldark Series by Winston Graham

☑️Ross Poldark (1945) complete 1-28-22 my 4 star review

☑️Demelza (1946) complete 2-20-22 my 4 star review

☑️Jeremy Poldark (1950) complete 4-26-22 my 5 star review

☑️Warleggan (1953) complete 6-4-22 my 4 star review

☑️The Black Moon (1973) completed 10-28-22 my 4 star review

☑️The Four Swans (1976) finished 4-10-23 5 stars

☑️The Angry Tide (1977) finished 3-28-24 5 stars

☑️The Stranger from the Sea (1981) finished 4-9-24 4 stars

☑️The Miller's Dance (1982) finished 1-23-25 4 stars

☑️The Loving Cup (1984) finished 2-20-25 5 stars

The Twisted Sword (1990)

Bella Poldark (2002)

Chronicles of Barsetshire Series by Anthony Trollope

☑️The Warden (1855) my review

☑️Barchester Towers (1857) my review

☑️Doctor Thorne (1858) finished 3-5-23 5 stars

☑️Framely Parsonage (1860) finished 6-28-24 5 stars

☑️The Small House at Allington (1862) finished 8-28-25 4 stars

The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867)


Palliser Novels

Can You Forgive Her? (1864)

Phineas Finn (1869)

The Eustace Diamonds (1873)

Phineas Redux (1874)

The Prime Minister (1876)

The Duke's Children (1879)

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I have loved my Pulitzer challenge, Lori. For the most part the reads have all been excellent. A few didn't make the grade, but that isn't unusual to not love them all with that number of books. It has taken me longer than I thought it would, and I suspect I will still be working on it in 2023.

Your second list of challenges was interesting. I am doing a "100 Years Before Me" challenge. Started it in 2017 and still 21 books away from a finish.

You are going to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Poldark series. Every book is a masterpiece. I was so sad when I reached the end and I have been tempted more than once to start all over again. I really need a clone!

Anyway, happy reading for 2022 and beyond. You have some great plans.

Sara, I cannot wait to start the Poldark series. I'm staring at the first 2 right now and thinking about where they go in the stack that begins tomorrow! HA!

I do already have several Pulitzers planned for this year: The Yearling, All the King's Men, The Town, The Old Man and the Sea for starters. I think it will be a great challenge and I'm sure some of the titles will take me out of my comfort zone. I'll cross those when I get there.

I love the name of your Birth year challenge. That's perfect! I guess I was thinking to start in 1972 and go to the present day which would get me quite a few years of classics in there. But 100 years before would be even more! Well, hmm.....
When you did yours, did you plan out the reads or place them as a year came along? I suppose it could go either way. I will probably research for the ones I really want to read and see how it progresses! Thanks so much for your input and encouragement! I feel like I bit off a lot here, but understand and plan for it to take a long time!

When you start Poldark, he will consume your life. lol.

I put a tentative read in for every year when I started the challenge, but I changed them out as I read something unexpected that fit the year. It has been a long trek, but quite fun, and I read some books I probably would have missed in those earlier years. My start was 1851, which gave me a lot of older books to draw from. If you started in 1872, that would still give you quite a deep reach into the past. I like your idea too, though, and maybe when I have finished this challenge I will take on my birthdate to the present. That would mean I had covered 170 years. :)

Lori wrote: "Sara, I cannot wait to start the Poldark series. I'm staring at the first 2 right now and thinking about where they go in the stack that begins tomorrow! ..."

I'm hoping to read the series in 2022 also.

Oh that's wonderful to hear Katy! I am so looking forward to it. I have already seen the Masterpiece series and expect the books to be so much better!

Updates on my personal challenges that I started this time last year:

Pultizer challenge - added 2 with All the King's Men and The Town both 5 star reads. Total read for the challenge 19 - so a LONG way to go.

My Poldark series challenge - I completed the first 5 books with 7 more to go. These are such fun to revisit Cornwall and these characters.

Jane Austen challenge - only one this year with Persuasion which was a reread and I upped my rating from 4 to 5 stars!

Sadly I did not get to any Anthony Trollope's this year. I will do my best to change that next year.

The Pulitzer challenge goes on forever, Lori, but there are some marvelous reads in there! Poldark is terrific. Jane Austen and Trollope are going to make 2023 special!

Sara wrote: "The Pulitzer challenge goes on forever, Lori, but there are some marvelous reads in there! Poldark is terrific. Jane Austen and Trollope are going to make 2023 special!"

I’m trying to organize a bit for next year but won’t worry if it doesn’t pan out. I definitely need to get to Doctor Thorne at least and another Austen. All in all looking forward to another great year of reading and hope many of them we can share!

I'm also planning to read Dr. Thorne next year, Lori! Hope we both get to it. It seems to be a favorite :)

I think I read Poldark one after the other, nothing else got a look in! I’m glad you’re enjoying them Lori :)