The (Mostly) Dead Writers Society Reading Projects: Birthday Challenge & Authors in Residence

(Dead) Author Birthdays

This is a reading challenge associated with the (Mostly) Dead Writers Society on Goodreads; I decided to join it because it is as much an invitation to reconnect with the classics as it is one to walk down literary paths less traveled; so it ties in nicely with my own 2021 reading goals.  My individual master post and (M)DWS member thread is HERE.

Books read: in 2021

• January 2021: Zora Neale Hurston – Their Eyes Were Watching God √
  
• February 2021: Toni Morrison – Sula √
• March 2021:
  • (1) Gabriel García Márquez: El coronel no tiene quien le escriba (Nobody Writes to the Colonel, and Other Stories) √
  • (2) Olivia Manning: The Spoilt City (Fortunes of War / The Balkan Trilogy, part. 2) √
    
• April 2021:
  • (1) Charlotte Brontë: Villette √
  • (2) Terry Pratchett:
    • (a) Eric √
    • (b) Moving Pictures √
  • (3) Ngaio Marsh:
    • (a) Vintage Murder √
    • (b) Colour Scheme √
    • (c) Died in the Wool √
    • (d) Photo Finish √
    • (e) A Surfeit of Lampreys √
    • (f) Grave Mistake √
    • (g) Black Beech and Honeydew √
  • (4) Nella Larsen: Passing √
  • (5) John Mortimer: Murderers and Other Friends √
  • (6) William Shakespeare:
    • Richard II √
    • Twelfth Night √
• May 2021:
  • (1) Arthur Conan Doyle
    • (a) Sherlock Holmes Canon √
      • (aa) A Study in Scarlet √
      • (bb) The Sign of Four √
      • (cc) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes √
      • (dd) The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes √
      • (ee) The Hound of the Baskervilles √
      • (ff) The Return of Sherlock Holmes √
      • (gg) His Last Bow √
      • (hh) The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes √
    • (b) Sir Nigel √
  • (2) Nora Ephron: I Remember Nothing √
  • (3) Daphne Du Maurier: My Cousin Rachel √
• June 2021:
  • Dorothy L. Sayers
    • (a) Clouds of Witness √
    • (b) The Five Red Herrings √
• July 2021:
  • (1) Chester Himes: A Rage in Harlem √
  • (2) George Sand: Un hiver à Majorque √
  • (3) Gordon Daviot (Josephine Tey): Richard of Bordeaux √
• August 2021:
  • P.D. James: Devices and Desires √
• September 2021:
  • Agatha Christie
    • (a) Peril at End House √
    • (b) Midsummer Mysteries √
    • (c) Death on the Nile √
• October 2021:
  • (1) Katherine Mansfield: The Garden Party and Other Stories √
  • (2) Ursula K. Le Guin: The Lathe of Heaven √ 
• November 2021:
  • (1) Martha Gellhorn: Travels with Myself and Another √
  • (2) Beryl Bainbridge: According to Queeney √ 
  • (3) Nancy Mitford: Wigs on the Green √ 
• December 2021: Christina Rossetti: In the Bleak Midwinter √

Books read in 2022

• January 2022: Zora Neale Hurston – Dust Tracks on a Road √
  
• February 2022: Margaret Millar – An Air That Kills √
• March 2022:
  • Vita Sackville-West:
    • (a) All Passion Spent √
    • (b) Seducers in Ecuador √
      
    •  (c) Selected Writings √
      
    • (d) The Heir √
      
    • (e) Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West: Love Letters √
      • Side Read: Virginia Woolf: Orlando √
• April 2022:
  • (1) Vladimir Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight √
  • (2) Ian Rankin: Knots & Crosses √
  • (3) Ngaio Marsh:
    • (a) Artists in Crime √
    • (b) Death in a White Tie √
    • (c) Death at the Bar √
    • (d) Swing, Brother, Swing √
• June 2022:
  • Lilian Jackson Braun:
    • (a) The Cat Who Came to Breakfast √
    • (b) The Cat Who Blew the Whistle √
    • (c) The Cat Who Said Cheese √
    • (d) The Cat Who Tailed a Thief √
• July 2022:
  • Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Velvet Claws √

(Dead) Authors in Residence

Another (Mostly) Dead Writers Society challenge; although one that I decided to mostly sit out in the first quarter of 2021, as one of the two authors voted in for this period was Stella Gibbons, who I decided long ago, after having read Cold Comfort Farm, is most definitely NOT for me.  So my only bow to this challenge was revisiting of one of the classics by the other “Q1 / 2021” authors voted for by the group, Alexandre Dumas (père)’s Les trois mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers).  I am, however, very much looking forward to exploring / reconnecting with the works of both authors voted in as “authors in residence” for the remaining quarters of 2021.  In the context of the (M)DWS group, I am keeping track of my Authors in Residence reads in the same thread as my Author Birthday reads.

2021

First Quarter: Alexandre Dumas – Les trois mousquetaires (The Three Musketeers) √
First Quarter: Stella Gibbons (skipped)
Second Quarter: John Steinbeck
(a) Travels with Charley in Search of America √
(b) The Winter of Our Discontent √
(c) The Moon Is Down √
Second Quarter: Ursula Le Guin
(a) No Time to Spare √
(b) Lavinia √
(c) A Wizard of Earthsea √
Third Quarter: Virginia Woolf
(a) A Haunted House √
(b) Flush √
(c) The Waves – DNF
(d) The Voyage Out √
(e) Night and Day √
Third Quarter: Philip Roth – The Plot Against America √
Fourth Quarter: Mrs. Oliphant
(a) The Open Door √
(b) The Library Window √
Fourth Quarter: Isaac Asimov – skipped

2022

First Quarter: Vita Sackville-West
(a) All Passion Spent √
(b) Seducers in Ecuador √
(c) Selected Writings √
(d) The Heir √
(e) Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West: Love Letters √
      (f) Side Read: Virginia Woolf – Orlando √
First Quarter: James Baldwin – Giovanni’s Room √
Second Quarter: Robertson Davies – Fifth Business √
Second Quarter: Philip K. Dick
Third Quarter: Elizabeth Gaskell – Mary Barton √
Third Quarter: Rose Macauley
Fourth Quarter: Chinua Achebe
Fourth Quarter: Zora Neale Hurston