Just a quick warning to get those 1944 books off your shelves – starting next Monday, Karen and I will be running the reading challenge where we ask everybody across the blogosphere to grab one or more books published in the same year. This time, it’s 1944 – our first wartime year – and together we’ll hopefully build up an interesting picture of 1944.
Any sort of book is welcome – novel, non-fiction, short stories, poetry – and any country or language, so long as it was first published in 1944!
I’ve got zillions of unread books from the year, it seems, so I’ll have to see what most appeals…
Spent last week in a rented holiday cottage – found a copy of Enid Blyton’s ‘The Island of Adventure’ (first published 1944) on the bookshelf, which I read for the second time, about 55 years after my first read! Thought it very classist – the way the upper middle class adults and children spoke to the working class people would be considered highly politically incorrect today. Also found it very sexist – the boys get to participate in the excitement while the girls are left behind to worry. But I could see how it appealed to my 10 year old self.
1944—-Listening Valley–DEStevenson
THERE ARE NO WINDOWS by Norah Hoult 1944
THE BACHELOR by Stella Gibbons
Yeomans Hospital by Helen Ashton
House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair
Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault
The Headmistress by Angela Thirkell
and the one i will read AUNT AILSA by Jean Ross.
I think there might be an intriguing mix of books from this year, Simon – looking forward to it! :D
Yikes! I think I need a reminder about a month early. I need to get going and find something to read!
I think I’ll read Listening Valley by D.E. Stevenson for the third or fourth time. I love it so much. Or I might read Then There Were Five by Elizabeth Enright. I also love the Melendys so much!
Valley is my fave DES too.I have 2 copies.
That’s so fun to hear! I would gladly own two copies. :D
Oh, I loved those books by Elizabeth Enright. Not sure if I read Then There Were Five but I read and re-read The Saturdays and The Four Story Mistake endlessly as a child!
That’s so fun! I’ve only discovered Elizabeth Enright as an adult, but she is still delightful. The Four Story Mistake is my favorite by far.
I can only find 3 potential titles on my shelves. Will do my best to read one of them. Been meaning to re-read Fair Stood the Wind for France by HE Bates for years, and I have Gigi by Colette and Nada by Carmen Laforet too.
I am going to read the two Agatha Christie’s published in 1944. I was going to read Dangling Man by Saul Bellow (and maybe I still will) but Bellow’s writing is a little more work than I am willing to tackle right now.
I’ve got quite a collection of 1944 books sitting on the TBR stacks. Here are a few of the possibilities:
The Amethyst Spectacle by Frances Crane
The Opening Door by Helen Reilly
Arrow Pointing Nowhere by Elizabeth Daly
Dark Street Murders by Peter Cheyney
Pattern for Murder by Ione Sandberg Shriber
Friday’s Child by Georgette Heyer
Killing the Goose by Frances & Richard Lockridge
Sailor, Take Warning by Kelley Roos
Murder Enters the Picture by Willetta Ann Barber & R. F. Schabelitz
We’ll see what I can manage…
I didn’t have this marked on my calendar, so I might be late because I’m wholly immersed in Shadow Giller Prize reading just now, but there are some CanLit classics in my stack which would fit; I just need to choose quickly and get reading! Thanks for hosting!
I just piled up some books from 1944 to jump in. I’m kind of hoping to get at least one of
Karl Shapiro/V-Letter
John Hersey/A Bell for Adano
Quentin Reynolds/The Curtain Rises
and maybe a 1944 mystery, too.
A Bell for Adano is wonderful!
I just went on an Amazon bender and ordered THREE books published in 1944:
Cluny Brown by Margery Sharp
The Bachelor by Stella Gibbons
On Green Dolphin Street by Elizabeth Goudge
I’ve wanted to read all of them but put them off. I do own two other books published in 1944, The Portable Dorothy Parker (short stories, essays & poetry, tough to review); and The Green Years by A. J. Cronin. I was worried I wouldn’t like it so I needed backup reads. I have no willpower, last year I did the same thing for 1947 Club last year, it only took nine months to finish all three of them.
Damn, I was going to say I could do She Came To Stay because I was sure it was ’44, but I just looked it up and it’s a year too early :(