The 1938 Club

When Simon suggested, towards the end of last year, that we co-host a mini-project of reading books from a particular year, in this case 1924, I was delighted to join in. I don’t know that either of us foresaw how popular this would be, but loads of bloggers had great fun joining in. So we are reprising the event with a new year – 1938! The week concerned is 11th – 17th April and this time you have a reasonable amount of warning in which to start planning and reading.

I think this year might have been suggested by a number of participants (I’m sure Heavenali was one) and it’s a great choice. The thirties were an odd decade, full of fear and trembling and change in Europe, and 1938 in particular was a year where a cataclysmic event was brewing, which will no doubt be reflected in some of the works.

And there are some fabulous books to choose from! I’ve been ferreting through my stacks and I’ve come up with a number of possibles so far. Some would be new books which have been lurking on Mount TBR for a while:

Young Man with a Horn – Dorothy Baker
Enemies of Promise – Cyril Connolly
Antidote to Venom – Freeman Wills Crofts
The Gift – Nabokov

1938 unread

But there are quite a lot of possible re-reads too – for example, these ones, and I had no idea I’d read so many books published in 1938!!

Nausea – Jean-Paul Sartre
Out of the Silent Planet – C.S. Lewis
Homage to Catalonia – George Orwell
Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie
Death of the Heart – Elizabeth Bowen
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson
The Children Who Lived in a Barn – Eleanor Graham
Child of All Nations – Irmgard Keun

1938 read

There are no doubt many, many more and we’ll look forward to your suggestions in due course. So please do join in with The 1938 Club and let’s get more discussion and thoughts and ideas going. I’ll do a separate page here where I’ll link to other reviews and you can leave comments. So here goes with planning for The 1938 Club – get reading! 🙂