And here is the 1929 Club! I’m excited that the club is starting again, and in my beloved 1920s. Pop your links to your 1929 book reviews in the comments here, and I’ll put together a list during the week.
For those new – anything published in 1929 qualifies, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, whatever language it was published it etc. And your reviews can be on blogs, GoodReads, Instagram, wherever. If you don’t have anywhere to post a review, then feel free to put it in the comments.
Let’s see where the week takes us!
The Crime at Black Dudley by Margery Allingham
Madame Bibi Lophile
Harriet Devine
A Background for Caroline by Helen Ashton
Sarah
Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum
What Me Read
Typings
Paying Guests by E.F. Benson
Stuck in a Book
The Piccadilly Murder by Anthony Berkeley
Words and Peace
Staircase Wit
The Black Camel by Earl Derr Biggers
Literary Potpourri
The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen
What Me Read
The Dagwort Coombe Murder by Lynn Brock
Briefer Than Literal Statement
The Mendip Mystery by Lynn Brock
Briefer Than Literal Statement
The Courts of the Morning by John Buchan
Journey & Destination
Water Weed by Alice Campbell
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
Heavenali
Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working from Home
Craii de Curtea Veche by Mateiu Caragiale
Finding Time to Write
The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie
What Me Read
Journey & Destination
Read Warbler
Book Around the Corner
Les Enfants Terribles by Jean Cocteau
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
My Mother’s House by Colette
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
William by Richmal Crompton
Literary Potpourri
Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd C. Douglas
Becky’s Book Reviews
The Maracot Deep by Arthur Conan Doyle
Relevant Obscurity
Our African Winter by Arthur Conan Doyle
Briefer Than Literal Statement
The Patient in Room 18 by Mignon G. Eberhart
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
Evelyn Finds Herself by Josephine Elder
Staircase Wit
A House is Built by Barnard Eldershaw
ANZ LitLovers
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Words and Peace
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field
Becky’s Book Reviews
Staircase Wit
The Doctor Who Held Hands by Hulbert Footner
The Book Decoder
No Love by David Garnett
Stuck in a Book
Hill by Jean Giono
Stuck in a Book
Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
Pining for the West
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
The Book Decoder
A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Madame Bibi Lophile
Beauvallet by Georgette Heyer
Wicked Witch’s Blog
Staircase Wit
Becky’s Book Reviews
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Mr Kaggsy
What Me Read
Old Geezer Re-Reading
I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasienski
Kinship of All Species
Eve in Egypt by Stella Tennyson Jesse
Heavenali
Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
Perfect Retort
Let’s Read
Satan as Lightning by Basil King
The Dusty Bookcase
Passing by Nella Larsen
Becky’s Book Reviews
Brona’s Books
Bookish Beck
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
The Iron Man and the Tin Woman by Stephen Leacock
Stuck in a Book
Reporter by Meyer Levin
Neglected Books
The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft
Calmgrove
Mario and The Magician by Thomas Mann
Lizzy’s Literary Life
The Squire’s Daughter by F.M. Mayor
Madame Bibi Lophile
The Jumping-Off Place by Marian Hurd McNeely
Becky’s Book Reviews
Speedy Death by Gladys Mitchell
Staircase Wit
Stuck in a Book
Barbarian Stories by Naomi Mitchison
1st Reading
The Time of Indifference by Albert Moravia
1st Reading
The Luzhin Defense by Vladimir Nabokov
746 Books
David Golder by Irene Nemirovsky
Book Word
The Treasure House of Martin Hews by E. Phillips Oppenheim
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
Storm Bird by Mollie Panter-Downes
Stuck in a Book
Big Blonde by Dorothy Parker
JacquiWine’s Journal
Wolf Solvent by John Cowper Powys
Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings
The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen
Becky’s Book Reviews
Words and Peace
Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
Bookish Beck
Mr Ma and Son by Lao She
Literary Potpourri
Adventures in Reading, Running, and Working From Home
Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck
She Reads Novels
Some Prefer Nettles by Junchirō Tanizaki
Winston’s Dad
The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey
The Book Decoder
Cloth of Gold by Elswyth Thane
Staircase Wit
The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne
The Book Decoder
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur Upfield
A Hot Cup of Pleasure
The True Heart by Sylvia Townsend Warner
Madame Bibi Lophile
Fool Errant by Patricia Wentworth
She Reads Novels
I Thought of Daisy by Edmund Wilson
Stuck in a Book
Mr Mulliner Speaking by P.G. Wodehouse
Stuck in a Book
Summer Lightning by P.G. Wodehouse
Gallimaufry Book Studio
Leporella by Stefan Zweig
Lizzy’s Literary Life
Thanks for hosting once again Simon.
I read Passing by Nella Larsen
https://bronasbooks.com/2022/10/24/passing-nella-larsen-1929club/?wref=tp
Hi Simon,
I am so excited to participate in the #1929Club reading challenge. My entries will be either British and American mystery classics.
My first entry is Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett. This is my first Hammett read and probably the 3rd or 4th Noir. Still not used to the idea of a hardboiled mystery.
Here’s my review: https://thebookdecoder.com/2022/10/24/red-harvest-by-dashiell-hammett/
I’m kicking off with a guest post from my mom: William by Richmal Crompton, the tenth William book; my own picks later in the week, https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/guest-post-book-review-william-by-richmal-crompton-1929club/
I read Passing by Nella Larsen and thought it was brilliant. Irene was so prickly and so certain of the rightness of her choices. Clare was ambiguous. Why did she start spending time with Irene? What did she really want? And the ending was intriguing. For such a short book I found it felt huge, like it was twice as long.
Thanks for hosting this again! Here’s my review of Fool Errant by Patricia Wentworth:
https://shereadsnovels.com/2022/10/24/fool-errant-by-patricia-wentworth-1929club/
The first two books I read were Magnificent Obsession by Lloyd Douglas and The Roman Hat Mystery by Ellery Queen.
My review of Passing What a book and what an ending!
Hurrah! What a year – here we go! Some great books already htis week! :D
Thanks for the announcement. I already posted about the upcoming week earlier, see here.
I’m reading “Emil and the Detectives” by Erich Kästner. Looking forward to seeing what others have come up with.
And here is my review.
I posted a novella by Arthur Conan Doyle called, The Maracot Deep. Don’t go looking for Sherlock in this one. Instead, hold your nose for a deep sea dive!
https://relevantobscurity.com/2022/10/24/the-maracot-deep/
I love this year so much, that I might try to squeeze in another post with ‘previously read’. I mean, Emil and the Detectives was such a childhood favourite!!!
I have to take up your offer to post a 1929 review here as I am a reader without a blog! I am really enjoying all the reviews so far this week. Thanks everyone!
My book first published in 1929 is ”A Background for Caroline’ by Helen Ashton.
Rather intriguingly, the book is dedicated to ‘my mother, who wanted one book for herself’. Was Caroline based on Helen Ashton’s mother’s life in any way or just the sort of story she would have liked?
The introductory quote is …….’Mr Despondency’s daughter, whose name was Much Afraid’. This could well be applied to the eponymous Caroline Field, born in Bloomsbury in 1877, only child of her scholarly father and now absent younger mother, who ran off with another man when Caroline was only an infant. Many years later Caroline encounters her mother, but they find they have nothing to say to each other.
Caroline’s father’s shame following his wife’s infidelity means he withdraws from society and becomes a recluse. Thus, Caroline has a very solitary childhood though not an especially unhappy one as she finds delight in books and has a loving governess.
As a young woman, Caroline fails to fulfil her father’s aspirations for her to marry well and have a family of her own. She does have a suitor but does not reciprocate his romantic feelings. He then goes to Gallipoli to fight in the Boer War. When she learns he has died, she does weep for him. After this, she falls in love with an Irish rake who comes to help her father with his work. Sadly, she discovers, rather painfully, that he is shocked that she should think of him romantically as he has already mentally categorised her as destined for a spinster role in life.
During WWI Caroline finds some purpose in life by training as a nurse. She has an affair with a married American doctor. This is Caroline’s ‘growing up’ and it is a steep learning curve!
Her father dies towards the end of the war, and she has the funds to travel in Europe. In Italy she meets an elderly widower and, aged now 45, she marries and settles down to a peaceful life pursuing common interests with him in a cottage on the Dorset/ Devon border. There are lovely descriptions of the countryside through the seasons:
p220 ‘ Here Caroline learnt the procession of the seasons…..celandines, daisies, purple orchids and fat, pink apple blossom, to the cloth of gold buttercup fields of June, the rusty hawthorn and wild roses and elder blossom of green and white July, and the bleached reeds and scarlet berries of the autumn days.’ These are happy days and Caroline seems to have ‘found herself’ at last and developed her own identity. Sadly, this is not to last. She nurses her sick husband through his long illness and then he dies.
p253 ‘She had loved them both (her father and husband) and centred her whole being upon them in turn, and they were dead, and she had no one left to consider; she was cut off from everything to which she had attached herself and remained floating, like an idle weed, in a salt ocean of despair.’ (Hence the need for her to have a background to have an identity?)
However, happily, Caroline does find reasons to give her life meaning again. She knows that her husband left her all his wealth but wanted her to help his son (from his first marriage) and his fiancée establish their own life. She does this faithfully and is rewarded by a good relationship with her stepson and his young family. Nevertheless, she is not subsumed this time, she discovers she must be her own person, she has her own life and interests to pursue with her books and Martin her dog. She finally claims autonomy and her own opinions.
This story is long and progresses at a slow and steady pace. It is told in strict chronological order. It seems old fashioned even for 1929 but this feels appropriate given that Caroline is ‘old before her time as a result of her influences and temperament.
I really enjoyed this book. I loved the character development, and the way characters were drawn with sympathy and empathy. The descriptive passages were also delightful.
This is the first Helen Ashton novel that I have read (a library copy unfortunately, as it is one I think I would want to reread) but I am looking forward to reading the others in my tbr pile by her.
This sounds wonderful, thanks for sharing! I really must read more Ashton – she seems a really interesting writer.
Joining in for the first time: The Courts of the Morning by John Buchan. :)
https://journeydestination.org/2022/10/25/the-courts-of-the-morning-by-john-buchan-1929/
Thanks!
My second entry for #1929Club is The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey. This is the first Tey novel I have read and I loved it. :)
https://thebookdecoder.com/2022/10/25/the-man-in-the-queue-by-josephine-tey/
I really love Josephine Tey! My favorite is The Daughter of Time. (It’s one of my favorite mysteries ever.) I’m so glad you’re interested in reading more of her work!
Thank you for the recommendation. :) I am adding The Daughter of Time to my TBR.
Here is my review of Grand Hotel: https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022/10/25/review-2051-1929-club-classics-club-spin-grand-hotel/
Thanks for co-hosting another Club Week, Simon. They’re always such fun!
Here’s a link to my contribution, a review of Dorothy Parker’s short story Big Blonde:
https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2022/10/25/big-blonde-by-dorothy-parker-a-post-for-the-1929club/
I read two children’s books (so far): The Jumping Place by Marian Hurd McNeely and Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field.
wow, great list. And so far, I have only read one of these.
Here’s my first review, on The Sound and the Fury:
https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/10/25/book-review-the-sound-and-the-fury/
I’ll post 2 shorter ones tomorrow
Thanks so much for hosting this event
My first pick: Mr Ma and Son by Lao She
https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2022/10/26/book-review-mr-ma-and-son-by-lao-she-translated-by-william-dolby-1929club/
Expect David Golder by Irene Nevirovsky on Bookword on Thursday.
Caroline
I read two for this challenge, both great!
https://bookishbeck.wordpress.com/2022/10/26/the-1929club-passing-and-letters-to-a-young-poet/
And I added 2 short reviews today.
The Roman Hat Mystery, by Ellery Queen
The Piccadilly Murder, by Anthony Berkeley
Both are here: https://wordsandpeace.com/2022/10/26/my-top-8-books-for-the-1929-club/
Here’s my review of The Seven Dials Mystery: https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022/10/26/review-2052-1929-club-the-seven-dials-mystery/
Hello Simon
Here’s a review of The Treasure House of Martin Hews by E. Phillips Oppenheim
https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpress.com/2022/10/26/1929-club-the-treasure-house-of-martin-hews-by-e-phillips-oppenheim/
Hi Simon.
I reviewed The Dagwort Coombe Murder by Lynn Brock @ https://brieferthanliteralstatement.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-dagwort-coombe-murder-for-1929-club.html
I’m hoping to do the Mendip Mystery by the same author (real name Alister MacAllister) later this week.
Sorry, that wasn’t meant to post anonymously.
Hi Simon,
Here is the link to my review of Meyer Levin’s novel, Reporter:
https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=9302
My mom’s second pick: The Black Camel by Earl Derr Biggers
https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2022/10/27/guest-post-book-review-the-black-camel-by-earl-derr-biggers-1929club/
Hi Simon!
A returning participant here (fifth club for me). For 1929 I chose I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasienski. The story of a Parisian pandemic, it matches up with recent events in an interesting way. Reommended!
https://kinshipofallspecies.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/i-burn-paris-bruno-jasienski-1929/
other works considered: Platonov – The Pit, Robert Graves – Goodbye to All That, Taha Hussein – The Days Vol 1, Agnes Smedley – Daughter of the Earth, Egon Erwin Kisch, Franz Werfel, Albert Londres, Roberto Arlt, Caragiale, Stefan Zweig’s Buchmendel, John Rodker, Döblin, Axel Munthe, Giorgio de Chirico’s Hebdomeros, Vicki Baum, Nabokov, Wallace Thurman, Krzhizhanovsky, Faulkner.
My third entry is The Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne. I really loved the unexpected twist at the end.
https://thebookdecoder.com/2022/10/27/the-murder-on-the-enriqueta-by-molly-thynne/
I read H P Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror, a novelette-length story published in 1929 but set in 1928, one of several pieces by him I never got round to when I was in an HPL phase half a century ago! My review is here: https://wp.me/p2oNj1-6AP
Simon, here’s my review of The Last September by Elizabeth Bowen: https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022/10/27/review-2053-1929-club-the-last-september/
My review of Georgette Heyer’s Beauvallet.
Here’s my review of Cup of Gold by John Steinbeck:
https://shereadsnovels.com/2022/10/27/cup-of-gold-by-john-steinbeck-1929club/
I just posted on Grand Hotel here:
https://reesewarner.blogspot.com/2022/10/vicki-baums-grand-hotel-1929club.html
It includes links to a couple of other 1929 books I posted on in previous years.
Love the badge as always!
Another Water Weed from me! https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/book-review-alice-campbell-water-weed/
My second read:
https://journeydestination.org/2022/10/28/the-seven-dials-mystery-by-agatha-christie-1929/
Here’s my review of A High Wind in Jamaica: https://whatmeread.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/review-2054-1929-club-a-high-wind-in-jamaica/
This is my review of The Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie:
https://read-warbler.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-1929-club-seven-dials-mystery.html
Here are the Staircase Wit reviews of Cloth of Gold by Elswyth Thane
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/2022/10/cloth-of-gold-by-elswyth-thane-for.html
and
Hitty: Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field
http://perfectretort.blogspot.com/2022/10/hitty-her-first-hundred-years-by-rachel.html
Constance
https://harrietdevine.typepad.com – I’ve just reviewed The Crime at Black Dudley
The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey
https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpress.com/2022/10/28/1929-club-the-man-in-the-queue-by-josephine-tey/
My fourth and final entry to the #1929Club – The Doctor Who Held Hands by Hulbert Footner.
https://thebookdecoder.com/2022/10/29/the-doctor-who-held-hands-by-hulbert-footner/
Such an amazing list as always! I have been joining in by reading Summer Lightning, but I am not going to manage a post in time. However, with my laughter at Wodehouse’s classic Blandings antics I celebrate the lighter side of 1929.
I’ve just finished a Wodehouse, and he is definitely adding some delight to 1929!
Murder on the Enriqueta by Molly Thynne
https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/1929-club-the-murder-on-the-enriqueta-by-molly-thynne/
Hi Simon,
Hope I’m not too late – just two more from me.
The Mendip Mystery by Lynn Brock: https://brieferthanliteralstatement.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-mendip-mystery-by-lynn-brock-for.html
Our African Winter by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: https://brieferthanliteralstatement.blogspot.com/2022/10/our-african-winter-by-sir-arthur-conan.html
The last two reviews from Staircase Wit:
Evelyn Finds Herself by Josephine Elder
https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/2022/10/evelyn-finds-herself-by-josephine-elder.html
Really, an outstanding example of a school story
and
The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley
(I broke out an unopened box when I finished this one, which was a bit slow in the middle as you also observed)
https://perfectretort.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-poisoned-chocolates-case-by-anthony.html
Thanks for another fun week! I didn’t think 1929 had much scope until I started looking and there were one or two others in the attic I didn’t have time to look for.
Constance
My final reads:
The Barrakee Mystery by Arthur Upfield and The Patient in Room 18 by Mignon G. Eberhart
https://ahotcupofpleasureagain.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/1929-club-the-barrakee-mystery-by-arthur-upfield-and-the-patient-in-room-18-by/
Thanks for hosting.
A very late entry – Lao She’s “Mr Ma and Son” https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/book-review-lao-she-trans-william-dolby-mr-ma-and-son/
Phew, finished just in time. My book was A House is Built by collaborative writing duo Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw, writing under the nom de plume Barnard Eldershaw.
My review is here: https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/10/31/a-house-is-built-by-m-barnard-eldershaw/