GOODREADS Bookcrossers *New* Decade Challenge 2018

The Summary

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1 January – 31 December 2018
(Nearly) A Century in Ten Books

When 2018 still was fairly new, I signed up for the *New* Decade Challenge that a member of the GOODREADS Bookcrossers Group initiated. Meanwhile, the year has grown visibly old and I’m through with a book for each of the past ten decades – five written by women, five by men, five originally written in English, five in other languages. As usual, my list of completed reads is consciously diverse regarding genres and styles. It includes a holocaust memoir – The Pianist by Władysław Szpilman – and a semi(auto)biographical portrait of French-Polynesian life since the arrival of European discoverers – Island of Shattered Dreams by Chantal T. Spitz – as well as epistolary fiction from the pens of two en-NOBEL-ed writers, namely the French classic Vipers’ Tangle by François Mauriac and modern Chinese Frog by Mo Yan. The novels The World My Wilderness by Rose Macauley, The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch, The Door by Szabó Magda, and Open City by Teju Cole in very different ways and to varying degrees satisfied my need (not just longing) for intellectual challenge, but with Jalna by Mazo de la Roche and The Road to Gandolfo by Robert Ludlum there are two considerably lighter reads on my list, too.

And here’s my chronological list of books reviewed for this challenge:

1920-29: Mazo de la Roche: Jalna (1927)
1930-39: François Mauriac: Vipers' Tangle (1932), original French title: Le Nœud de vipères
1940-49: Władysław Szpilman: The Pianist (1946), original Polish title: Śmierć miasta 
1950-59: Rose Macaulay: The World My Wilderness (1950)
1960-69: Iris Murdoch: The Unicorn (1963
1970-79: Robert Ludlum: The Road to Gandolfo (1975)
1980-80: Szabó Magda: The Door (1986), original Hungarian title: Az ajtó
1990-99: Chantal T. Spitz: Island of Shattered Dreams (1991), original French title: L’île des rêves écrasés
2000-09: Mo Yan: Frog (2009), original Chinese title: 蛙
2010-18: Teju Cole: Open City (2011)