Time Challenge

Time Challenge

Reading diversely also requires temporal diversity. This is a list arbitrarily starting at 1800 with novels privileged. 

This is not a serious challenge since I don't tend to enjoy older novels as much and so forcing myself to read older novels for the bragging rights really doesn't make sense.

Years are filled in with the first instance of a book from the published year that is on my list (started in 2006). Serialized novels are placed at the first year in print. Books after / are non fiction.

Books with * are books I read before I had my meticulous “books I've read” list and so are based upon memory. Thanks to my mother's policy that I read only classics as a child, many of those are older books.They include only books I distinctly remember reading or owning. All others for which the act of reading is forgotten, were omitted. For instance, Peter Pan (though the plot and characters are familiar) has not been included...

I also neglected to try to remember books pre-1800...it took enough time to make this list without also trying to tease out which of Shakespeare's plays I've actually read and which I've only read abridged or just 'talked' about so much that I feel like I know 'em.

 Pre-1800

18^th century BCE: Epic of Gilgamesh

8th-9th century BCE: Illiad, Odyssey - Homer

5^th century BCE: Oedipus the King-Sophocles

1200s: The Tain

c.1240: Egil's Saga

1300s: Inferno-Dante

1580s: How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing-Michel de Montaigne

1604: Dr. Faustus-Christopher Marlowe

1605: Don Quixote-Cervantes

1610: The Tempest-Shakespeare

1634: Journey into Mohawk Country- Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert

1637: Discourse on Method-Descartes

1640-1715: Wailing Ghosts- Pu Songling

1688: Oronooko-Aphra Behn

1726: Gulliver's Travels-Jonathan Swift

1789: Songs of Innocence- William Blake

1790: Charlotte Temple-Susanna Rowson

1794: Songs of Experience-William Blake

1800-1809

1800: Logik-Immanuel Kant

1801: Belinda-Maria Edgeworth

1802:

1803:

1804:

1805:

1806:

1807:The Age of Reason-Thomas Paine*

1808: Milton-William Blake*

1809:

1810-1819

1810: Lady of the Lake- Walter Scott*

1811: Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen*

1812:

1813: Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen*

1814: Mansfield Park- Jane Austen*

1815:

1816:

1817: Persuasion-Jane Austen*

1818: Ozymandias-Percy Bysshe Shelley

1819: Ivanhoe-Sir Scott Walter*

1820-1829

1820: King's Bride-ETA Hoffman

1821:

1822:

1823: Frankenstein-Mary Shelley*

1824:

1825:

1826: The Last of the Mohicans-James Fenimore Cooper*

1827:

1828:

1829:

1830-1839

1830:

1831: The Hunchback of Notre Dame- Victor Hugo*

1832:

1833:

1834:

1835:

1836: Atheist's Mass-Honoré de Balzac

1837: Twice-told Tales-Nathaniel Hawthorne*

1838: Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens*

1839:The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allen Poe*

1840-1849

1840: The Old Curiosity Shop-Charles Dickens*

1841:

1842:

1843: A Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens*

1844: Count of Monte Cristo-Alexander Dumas*

1845:

1846:

1847: Agnes Grey-Anne Brontë

1848: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall-Anne Brontë*

1849:

1850-1859

1850: Musui's Story-Katsu Kokichi

1851: Moby Dick-Herman Melville* /A History of the Recent Developments in Spiritual Manifestations, in the City of Philadelphia

1852: Bleak House-Charles Dickens*

1853: Bartleby, the Scrivener- Herman Melville*

1854: Walden-Thoreau*

1855: Leaves of Grass- Walt Whitman*

1856:

1857: The Professor-Charlotte Bronte*

1858: Love and Youth-Ivan Turgenev

1859: A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens*

1860-1869

1860: Trail of the Serpent-Mary Elizabeth Braddon

1861: Great Expectations-Charles Dickens*

1862: Les Misérables-Victor Hugo*

1863: Cantares gallegos- Rosalía de Castro

1864: Notes from Underground-Fyodor Dostoevsky*

1865: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll*

1866: Jo's Boys-Louisa May Alcott*/Traffic-John Ruskin

1867: Das Kapital- Karl Marx

1868: The Idiot-Fyodor Dostoevsky*

1869: War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy*

1870-1879

1870: Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea-Jules Verne*

1871:Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There - Lewis Carroll*

1872:

1873: Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy*

1874: Far From the Madding Crowd- Thomas Hardy

1875:

1876: Tom Sawyer-Mark Twain*

1877: Black Beauty-Anna Sewell*

1878: The Leavenworth Case-Anne Katherine Green/Mycenae-Schliemann

1879: A Doll's House- Henry Ibsen

1880-1889

1880: Story of an African Farm-Olive Schreiner

1881:The Portrait of a Lady-Henry James&

1882:

1883: Treasure Island-Robert Louis Stevenson*

1884: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn-Mark Twain*

1885: Germinal-Émile Zola/Tiryns-Schliemann

1886: Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoevsky*

1887: God and the State-Mikhail Bakunin

1888:

1889:A Marriage Proposal - Anton Chekhov

1890-1899

1890: Picture of Dorian Gray-Oscar Wilde

1891: Tess of the d'Urbervilles-Thomas Hardy

1892: Yellow Wallpaper-Charlotte Perkins Gilman

1893:

1894: The Jungle Book-Rudyard Kipling*

1895: Time Machine-HG Wells*

1896: Tom Sawyer, Detective-Mark Twain*

1897: Dracula-Bram Stoker*

1898: War of the Worlds-HG Wells*

1899: The Awakening-Kate Chopin

1900-1909

1900: Lieutenant Gustl-Arthur Schnitzler

1901: Teahouse Detective- Emmuska Orczy

1902: The Immoralist-André Gide

1903: The Story of My Life-Helen Keller*

1904:Master of the World- H.G. Wells

1905: House of Mirth-Edith Wharton*

1906: Beneath the Wheel-Herman Hesse/The Prehistoric Tombs of Knossos-Arthur Evans

1907:

1908: Anne of Green Gables-Lucy Maud Montgomery*

1909: Phantom of the Opera-Gaston Leroux*

1910-1919

1910: Roast Beef, Medium Rare-Edna Ferber

1911:Ethan Frome -Edith Wharton*

1912: The Judgement-Franz Kafka

1913: O Pioneers!-Willa Cather

1914: Maurice-EM Foster/Architecture-N. D'Anvers

1915: Herland-Charlotte Gilman

1916: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man-James Joyce*

1917: Professor Knatschke-Hansi

1918: My Antonia-Willa Cather*

1919: In the Penal Colony-Franz Kafka

1920-1929

1920: This Side of Paradise-F. Scott Fitzgerald

1921: Sour Grapes- William Carlos Williams

1922: The Castle-Franz Kafka

1923: Whose Body?-Dorothy Sayers

1924: We-Yevgeny Zamyatin

1925: Mrs. Dalloway-Virginia Woolf

1926: Life of a Stupid Man-Ryunosuke Akutagawa

1927: To the Lighthouse-Virginia Woolf

1928: Orlando-Virginia Woolf

1929: Passing-Nella Larsen

1930-1939

1930: As I Lay Dying-William Faulkner

1931: The Good Earth-Pearl S. Buck

1932: Brave New World-Aldous Huxley

1933: Farmer Boy-Laura Ingalls Wilder*

1934: Tropic of Cancer-Henry Miller

1935: Little House on the Praire-Laura Ingalls Wilder*

1936: The Lady Vanishes-Ethel Lina White/Speak, Memory-Vladimir Nabokov

1937: Death on the Nile-Agatha Christie

1938: Anthem-Ayn Rand

1939: The Enchanter-Vladimir Nabakov

1940-1949

1940: Darkness at Noon-Arthur Koestler

1941: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight-Vladimir Nabokov/Greek Walls-RL Scranton

1942: The Man Who Lived Underground-Richard Wright

1943: Madonna in a Fur Coat-Ali Sabahattin

1944: Time Must Have a Stop-Aldous Huxley

1945: Hideout-Egon Hostovský

1946: The Reluctant Widow-Georgette Heyer

1947: Evenings-Gerard Reve

1948: Confessions of a Mask-Yukio Mishima/The Communist Manifesto-Marx & Engels

1949: A Step Towards Gomorrah-Bachmann

1950-1959

1950: Midwich Cuckoos-John Wyndham

1951: Duplicate Death-Georgette Heyer

1952: Zorba the Greek-Nikos Kazantzakis

1953: Mr. Peter's Connections-Arthur Miller*

1954: Under the Net-Iris Murdoch

1955: Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov*

1956: The Fall-Albert Camus

1957:On the Road-Jack Kerorauc

1958: Things Fall Apart-Chinua Achebe

1959: Naked Lunch-William Burroughs

1960-1969

1960: Dawn-Elie Wiesel

1961: Mother Night-Kurt Vonnegut

1962: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-Ken Kesey/Structure of Scientific Revolutions-Thomas Kuhn

1963: The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath/The Fire Next Time-James Baldwin

1964: Queen's Play-Dorothy Dunnett/Autobiography of Malcolm X

1965: The Hostage-Brenden Behan

1966: Time of Angels-Iris Murdoch/The Druids-Nora Chadwick

1967: The Joke-Milan Kundera/World that was Ours-Hilda Bernstein

1968: Welcome to the Monkey House-Kurt Vonnegut

1969: Slaughterhouse Five-Kurt Vonnegut

1970-1979

1970: Terra Incognita-Vladimir Nabokov/Henri Bergson-Herbert Wildon Carr

1971: In a Free State-V.S. Naipaul/Edward Lhuyd-Frank Emery

1972: Surfacing-Margaret Atwood

1973: A Russian Beauty-Vladimir Nabokov/Warfleets of Antiquity-Richard Bruce Nelson

1974: Winter in the Blood-James Welch/ Conundrum-Jan Morris

1975: Shedding-Verena Stefan

1976: The Woman Warrior-Maxine Hong Kingston/History of Sexuality-Michel Foucault

1977: Farewell Party-Milan Kundera

1978: Broken April-Ismail Kadare/Time and Tradition-Bruce Trigger

1979: Book of Laughter and Forgetting-Milan Kundera/Laboratory Life-Bruno LaTour

1980-1989

1980: The Defense-Vladimir Nabokov

1981: Hotel Hampshire-John Irving/Culture Contact and Culture Change-Peter Wells

1982: Annie on my Mind-Nancy Garden/ Genesis-Eduardo Galeano

1983: One Day of Life-Manlio Argueta/Rhodes in the Bronze Age-Chris Mee

1984: Unbearable Lightness of Being-Milan Kundera/Ancient Athenian Building Methods-John Camp

1985: White Noise-Don DeLillo/Art and Culture of Early Greece-Jeffrey Hurwitt

1986: Ghosts-Paul Auster/Mycenaean Decorated Pottery-P. Mountjoy

1987: Bonfire of the Vanities-Tom Wolfe

1988: Cat's Eye-Margaret Atwood

1989: Geek Love-Katharine Dunn

1990-1999

1990: The Things They Carried-Tim O'Brien/ A Natural History of the Senses-Diane Ackerman

1991: German Requium-Philip Kerr

1992: Ishmael-Daniel Quinn/Xuventude e Politica en Galicia-Sabucedo et. al.

1993: Green Knight-Iris Murdoch/Looking Around-Witold Rybczynski

1994: Funny Boy-Shyam Selvadurai/Whispers-Ronald K. Siegel

1995: Wind Up Bird Chronicle-Haruki Murakami/Women Lawyers-Mona Harrington

1996: Alias, Grace-Margaret Atwood/Archaeology of Greece-William Biers

1997: Blood and Chocolate-Nicole Klause/My Gender Workbook-Kate Bernstein

1998: Poisonwood Bible-Barbara Kingsolver/Professor and the Madman-Simon Winchester

1999: Hard Love-Ellen Wittlinger/Cycladic Art-J. Lesley Fitton