Yesterday I posted my List of Betterment, a list of fifty books I have been meaning to read. Putting them on a list will hopefully give me a better excuse to read them and keep them a bit closer to the top of my mind. I also have a goal of reading more of my backlisted NYRB Classics. While my larger List of Betterment is not a 2021 specific goal (though I hope to get through a few), this supplement of ten NYRB Classics is a 2021 goal. Here are the ten NYRB Classics backlist books I’ve been meaning to read for a while that I intend to read in 2021.
- The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim (1922) (thoughts here)
- A View of the Harbour, by Elizabeth Taylor (1947)
- The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford (1947)
- The Towers of Trebizond, by Rose Macaulay (1956)
- The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns (1959) (thoughts here)
- Morte D’urban, by J.F. Powers (1962)
- A Meaningful Life, by L.J. Davis (1971)
- Red Shift, by Alan Garner (1973) (thoughts here)
- The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, by D.G. Compton (1974)
- The Mangan Inheritance, by Brian Moore (1979)
This of course does not mean these are the only NYRB Classics I hope to read in 2021. They have got an exceptional slate of new releases coming. I’m currently reading Marshlands, by Anrdré Gide, and Richard Wollheim’s Germs: A Memoir of Childhood arrived recently and looks exceptional. They’ve got some more Robert Walker on the way (Little Snow Landscape), another double volume for Natalia Ginzburg (Family and Borghesia). There’s also a new edition for Anna Seghers (The Dead Girls’ Class Trip), Jean Stafford (Boston Adventure), and Victor Serge (Last Times), among many others.
I’m so excited! This is a promising list, I think, that will be a delight to finally get to! Are there any NYRB Classics you’ve been meaning to read but just haven’t jumped into yet?
Great list! I too have ‘An Enchanted April’ on mine, along with the memoir ‘An African in Greenland’ by Tété-Michel Kpomassie. After that, it’s Eve Babitz’s stories of L.A. in ‘Slow Days, Fast Company.’ And I never finished the Daphne du Maurier anthology, ‘Don’t Look Now,’ before I had to return it to the library, so I’ll need to finish that as well.
I have read the du Maurier collection but none of the others. Maybe they’ll be on one of my future lists!
I should say that I’ve been retweeting lists on Twitter. They all look so fun!
I’m pretty tempted to read the Brian Moore, there’s a whole readalong for his centenary and most of his books are out of print. Would be nice to grab this one.