Birth Year Reading Challenge

I'm joining this great reading challenge. Go over to Hotchpotcafe and meet C.S. and J.G.

BIRTH YEAR READING CHALLENGE

What books were published the year you were born? This challenge encourages you to find out, and then read some of them. You might even draw some conclusions about what was going on in the literary world that year.

Wikipedia has lists of books by year published. Literary prize lists are a great source, and Googling “best books of _____” will also give you interesting results.

Ready to join? Leave a comment and a link to your post! (And we promise no one will make any snarky comments about your age.)

RULES

1. Join anytime between now and November 30, 2010. The challenge ends at midnight EST on December 31, 2010.

2. Books may come from your TBR pile or list, but they don’t have to.

3. Overlaps with other challenges are allowed and encouraged.

4. Change your list at any time.

5. Reviews and reactions are encouraged, but you don’t need to have a blog to participate.

6. All genres and formats are eligible. If it’s a book, you can count it.

7. One candle is awarded for each qualifying book you read. There is no limit on how few or how many candles you can earn.

PRIZES

When you meet your reading goal, we’ll let you select a book from our library – most likely a gently used trade paperback – and mail it to you. But keep reading because . . .

GRAND PRIZEOn January 1, 2011, the three readers who’ve earned the most candles will be entered into a drawing to win a collectible first edition/first printing copy of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2008.

Participating:

C.S. (host: not eligible for prizes) (see comments for list)

Hip Chick of Hip Chick's Home

Christina of Readers of Romance (see comments for list)

maryt/theteach of Work of the Poet

J.G. (host: not eligible for prizes)

Julie of My Book Retreat

Stephanie V of Hookin', Knittin' & Livin'

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Here's my list for my birth year*:

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith (Harper)

Strange Fruit by Lillian Smith (Reynal)

Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham (Doubleday)

Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge (Coward-McCann)

Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor (MacMillan)

The Green Years by A. J. Cronin (Little, Brown)

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

* 1944

I've already read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Razor's Edge but I really want to read the others.

I'm an adjucnt professor in the Continuing Education Department of a local community college. I teach literature to 3 classes of older women. We are reading all the time. I've been at it for 12 years. I may assign some of these to my classes in the Fall.

Thanks, Hip Chick, for introducing me to this challenge!