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#2026 Personal Reading Challenge

Challenge #1 Old and New Novels

  1. A Harlot High and Low -1838
  2. Lost Illusions – 1843 – READ
  3. The Old Curiosity Shop – 1841
  4. The Power and the Glory -1940 – READ
  5. Our Man in Havana – 1958   – READ
  6. The Honary Consol – 1973
  7. Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter – 1977
  8. Trilogy – Jon Fosse (3 novellas) – 1968
  9. East of Eden- 1952
  10. Four Plays: Little Sheba-Picnic-Bus Stop-Top of the Stairs 1964
  11. Foucault’s Pendulum – 1988
  12. Shōgun – 1975 

 

Challenge #2 – Non-fiction

  1. 18th Century or Older – Age of Reason – Thomas Paine
  2. 19th Century – On Liberty – John Stuart Mill 
  3. 20th Century – Road to Serfdom – F.A. Hayek
  4. 21st Century – How Democracies Die – Levitsky and Ziblatt 
  5. Biography: Genre – Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America
  6. Memoir: Genre – Memoir – Off to the Side: A Memoir 
  7. Politics: Genre – The Election Game and How To Win It 
  8. Essays: Genre – New Gilded Age: The New Yorker – READING (pg 150/432)

 

Challenge #3 New Authors

  1. C.P.Snow – The Masters
  2. J.B. Priestly – The Good Companions
  3. Richard Phillips Feynman – The Pleasure of Finding Things Out 
  4. Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
  5. Javier Marías – Between Eternities  – READ

 

Challenge #4  Short Story Collections:  

1. Mark Helprin – The Pacific and Other Stories
2. Michael Chabon – The Best American Short Stories (2005)
3. Richard Bausch – The Fate of Others
4. Thomas McGuane – A Wooded Shore and Other Stories*
5. J.D. Salinger – Nine Stories
6. Ryunosuke Akutagawa – The Essential Akutagawa
7. Ted Chiang – Exhaltation
8. Stefan Zweig – The Collercted Stories of Stefan Zweig
9. Javier Marias – When I was Mortal
10. Edward D. Hoch – Hoch’s Ladies

 

Challenge #5 Decade Challenge

  1. 1960: Within the Walls – Giorgio Bassani
  2. 1961: The Making of the President – Theodore H. White
  3. 1962: The Red Hot Vacuum – T. Solotaroff 
  4. 1963: The Shoes of the Fisherman – M.L. West
  5. 1964: Herzog – S. Bellow
  6. 1965: Dune – F. Herbert
  7. 1966: The Soldier’s Art – A. Powell
  8. 1967: The Battle for Rome: September 1943–June 1944 – R. Katz
  9. 1968: The Selected Works – Cesare Pavese
  10. 1969: Slaughterhouse-Five – K. Vonnegut 

 

Challenge #7 – Series Books – Start, Continue, Complete

  1. Start: The Vatican Series:
  2. The Shoes of the Fisherman – 1963 – Morris West
  3. The Clowns of God – 1981 – Morris West
  4. Lazarus – 1990 – Morris West
  5. Continue: Disco World Series:
  6. The Light Fantastic – 1986 – T. Prachett
  7. Equal Rights – 1987 – Terry Pratchett
  8. Sorcery – 1988 – Terry Pratchett
  9. Complete: George Smiley Series: 
  10. The Looking Glass War: 1965 – John Le Carré
  11. Legacy of Spies – 2017 – – John Le Carré 

 

Challenge #8 – Travel the World

  1. The Great Railway Bazaar – P. Theroux – Asia – READ
  2. Impossible Country: Last Days of… – B. Hall – Yugoslavia
  3. In Search of Ireland – H. V. Morton – Ireland
  4. A Spy in Rome – Peter Tompkins – Italy
  5. Sovietistan: A Journey – E. Fatland – Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
  6. Is a River Alive? – R. Macfarlane
  7. Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe – A. Weymouth
  8. Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

 

Challenge #15 – Award Winners

  1. Baillie Gifford: Collected Diaries, 1978-1998 – H. Garner 
  2. Pulitzer: To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause – B. Nathans 
  3. National Book Critics Circle: Soldiers and Kings  – J. de Leon
  4. National Book Award Poetry: The Intentions of Thunder – P. Smith – READ
  5. Nobel Prize 1988 : Baltasar and Blimunda – J. Saramago

 

Challenge #20 – French Reading Balzac 

  1. Un Début dans la vie 
  2. La fille aux Yeux d’Or 
  3. César Birotteau 
  4. Le Colonel Chabert 
  5. Le Cabinet des Antiques 
  6. L’Auberge Rouge 
  7. La Rabouilleuse 
  8. Eugénie Grandet – 
  9. Eugénie Grandet  – READ
  10. Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes 
  11. La Peau de chagrin 

 

Challenge #22 – Personal Challenge – Crime Fiction

 

  1. The Looking Glass War – J. Le Carré (UK) 1965
  2. A Legacy of Spies – J. Le Carré (UK) 2017
  3. Maigret and the Headless Corpse – S. Maigret (Belgium) 1955
  4. The Labyrinth Makers – Anthony Price (UK) 1970
  5.  Journey to Fear – Eric Ambler (UK) 1940
  6.  Beat in the Shadows – Edogawa Ranpo (Japan) 1928
  7.  In a Lonely Place – Dorththy Hughes (USA) 1947
  8. The Night of the Hunter – Davis Grubb (USA) 1953
  9.  The Franchise Affair – Josephine They (UK) 1948
  10.  Cotton Comes to Harlem – C. Himes (USA) 19651.
  11. Bless Me, Ultima – R. Anaya (USA) 1972
  12. The Pledge – F. Dürrenmatt (Germany) 1959
  13. The Shape of Water – A. Camilleri (Italy) 2005
  14. Man Who Went Up in Smoke  – Sjöwall & Wahlöö (Sweden) 1966
  15. The Bat – Jo Nesbø (Norway) 1997
  16. Fearless Killers – Henning Mankell (Sweden) 1991
  17. In the Darkness – Karen Fossum (Norway) 1995
  18. No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency – A. McCall Smith (Scotland) 1981
  19. A Rage in Harlem – Chester Himes (USA) 1989
  20. A Red Death – Walter Mosely (USA) 1991