Showing posts with label Arthur Conan Doyle. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur Conan Doyle. Show all posts

Saturday, April 25, 2026

Penguin Green Tribands -- BOOK LIST

 


BOOK LIST

Penguin Green Tribands

The 400 vintage Penguin crime books in their ionic green triband covers make up my favorite book collection. 

Back in the darkest days of the pandemic lockdown, when bored out of my socks, I did a little bookish retail therapy. Thanks to eBay and Royal Mail, I found myself the new owner of a job lot of over 400 vintage Penguin mystery books. After arranging and rearranging them all over my living room floor for a few weeks, culling duplicates, and generally playing with them for a while, they had to sit in boxes until I could get shelves built for them. Now they are shelved in the little home office I call my growlery, where I go and growl at the world. The next step is to read them!

Early Penguin paperbacks were issued without illustrations on the cover, just a band of color at the top, the title on an off-white band in the middle, then another band of the same color at the bottom. Hence, "triband" editions. They were color coded. Green was for crime fiction – mysteries, thrillers, and, less commonly, true crime. These early Penguins were not sold in the United States (for copyright reasons I don't understand). You can now find them here used, but not often. Also, Penguin has more recently reissued some books with triband covers, along with triband coffee mugs that match the books. Those are cool in themselves, but not what I collect. I go for the vintage editions.

I don’t have nearly all the original green tribands, but I have about 415 of them, including duplicates. A few are first Penguin editions, most are Penguin reprints, all are pretty tattered. There are plenty of my favorites in the collection, like Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Raymond Chandler, etc. There are others I know of and haven’t read much of, or at all, like Margery Allingham and Simenon. And there are plenty that are brand new to me.

To inspire me to read all of my green tribands, and to keep track as I go, I decided to list them all here. Repeating author names every time seems crazy, so I only listed the name for the first book by the author and put that one in bold. I also tried to list them in publication order for each author, although some authors were so prolific they published more than one book in the same year. I haven't dived deep enough to know the exact date of publication, so if you see more than one book in the same year, I don't know which came first.

All these are on my shelves and most are still TBR for me. I've noted if I've read a book, even if I read it in a different edition. I also noted if the audiobook is available. If so, I may read it with my ears and save the triband further tattering. 

When possible, I've linked to the title (not usually the same Penguin edition) so you can read more about the book. A surprising number are available in a new edition or vintage copy, but several are out of print and hard to find. Some are available online but with no description of the story. I left out those links. Sometimes I had to link to the book under an alternate title. 

The Crime at Black Dudley (1929) by Margery Allingham

Mystery Mile (1930) ON LIBBY 

Look to the Lady (1931)

Police at the Funeral (1931)

Sweet Danger (1933)

Death of a Ghost (1934)

Flowers for the Judge (1936)

The Case of the Late Pig (1937)

Dancers in Mourning (1937)

The Fashion in Shrouds (1938) ON LIBBY

Mr. Campion & Others (short stories) (1939)

Traitor's Purse (1940)

Black Plumes (1940) ON LIBBY

Coroner's Pidgin (1945)

More Work for the Undertaker (1948)

Take Two at Bedtime (1949)

The Tiger in the Smoke (1952)

No Love Lost (short stories) (1954)

The Beckoning Lady (1955)

Hide My Eyes (1958)

Uncommon Danger (1937) by Eric Ambler

Cause for Alarm (1938)

Aphrodite Means Death (1951) by John Appleby

Ten Minute Alibi (1934) by Anthony Armstrong and Herbert Shaw

Mischief (1950) by Charlotte Armstrong

The Suva Harbour Mystery (Who Killed Netta Maul?) (1948) by Frank Arthur

Red is for Killing (1941) by George Bagby

Mr. Fortune, Please (1927) by H.C. Bailey

The Best We Can Do (1958) by Sybille Bedford

The Port of London Murders (1938) by Josephine Bell

Trent's Last Case (1913) by E.C. Bentley ON LIBBY


Trent's Own Case (1936)

Trent Intervenes (1938)

The Tongue-Tied Canary (1948) by Nicolas Bentley

The Floating Dutchman (1950)

Mr. Priestley's Problem (1927) by Anthony Berkeley

The Piccadilly Murder (1929)

Jumping Jenny (1933)

Trial and Error (1937)

Not to be Taken (1938)

My Name is Michael Sibley (1952) by John Bingham

Five Roundabouts to Heaven (1953)

A Scent of New-Mown Hay (1958) by John Blackburn

A Question of Proof (1935) by Nicholas Blake


The Case of the Abominable Snowman (1941)

See You at the Morgue (1941) by Lawrence Goldtree Blochman

Dead Lion (1949) by John Bonett

Dead Reckoning (1943) by Francis Bonnamy

A Rope of Sand (1944)

The King is Dead on Queen Street (1945)

A Bullet in the Ballet (1937) by Caryl Brahms

The Wooden Overcoat (1951) by Pamela Branch

Heads You Lose (1941) by Christianna Brand


Suddenly at His Residence (1946)

London Particular (1952)

Tour de Force (1955)

Case for Sergeant Beef (1947) by Leo Bruce

Three Bad Nights (1956) by Bruce Buckingham

The Case of the Second Chance (1938) by Christopher Bush

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) by James M. Cain FINISHED

Spider Web (1938) by Alice Campbell

Murder Included (1950) by Joanna Cannan

It Walks by Night (1930) by John Dickson Carr


The Waxworks Murder (1932)

Poison in Jest (1932)

Hag's Nook (1933)

The Mad Hatter Mystery (1933)

The Blind Barber (1934)

Death Watch (1935)

The Hollow Man (1935)

The Case of the Constant Suicides (1941)

The Emperor's Snuff-Box (1942)

Till Death do Us Part (1944)

He Who Whispers (1946)

Below Suspicion (1946)

Captain Cut-Throat (1955)

Patrick Butler for the Defense (1956)

Murder by Burial (1938) by Stanley Casson

The Big Sleep (1939) by Raymond Chandler 
FINISHED

Trouble is My Business (1939)

Farewell, My Lovely (1940) FINISHED

The High Window (1942) FINISHED

The Lady in the Lake (1943) FINISHED

The Little Sister (1949)

The Long Good-Bye (1953) FINISHED

Playback (1958)

The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) by G.K. Chesterton FINISHED

The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) FINISHED

Poison Ivy (1937) by Peter Chaney

Can Ladies Kill? (1938)

The Urgent Hangman (1938)

Dark Duet (1942)

The Riddle in the Sands (1903) by Erskine Childers ON LIBBY

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920) by Agatha Christie 
FINISHED

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (1926) FINISHED

The Big Four (1927) FINISHED

The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) FINISHED

Miss Marple and The Thirteen Problems (1928) FINISHED

The Seven Dials Mystery (1929) FINISHED

The Murder at the Vicarage (1930) FINISHED

Peril at End House (1931) FINISHED

The Sittaford Mystery (1931) FINISHED

Murder on the Orient Express (1933) FINISHED

Lord Edgware Dies (1933)

The Mysterious Mr. Quin (1933)

Parker Pyne Investigates (1934)

Murder in Mesopotamia (1935)

The ABC Murders (1936) FINISHED

Death on the Nile (1937)

Murder in the Mews (1937)

Ten Little N_______ (1939)

Murder Is Easy (1939)

The Labours of Hercules (1939)

The Body in the Library (1942) FINISHED

The Moving Finger (1942)

Death Comes as the End (1945)

Crooked House (1949) FINISHED

The Deadly Reaper (1956) by Clark Smith

Appointment in New Orleans (1950) by Tod Claymore

Reunion in Florida (1952)

Public Enemy (1953) by Hugh Clevely

The Death of a Millionaire (1925) by G.D.H. Cole and Margaret Cole

The Moonstone (1868) by Wilkie Collins 
FINISHED

The Dangerfield Talisman (1926) by J.J. Connington

Death at Swaythling Court (1926)

The Case with Nine Solutions (1928)

The Golden Box (1942) by Frances Crane

The Moving Toyshop (1946) by Edmund Crispin

Swan Song (1947)

Buried for Pleasure (1948)

Love Lies Bleeding (1948)

The Long Divorce (1951)

The Cask (1920) by Freeman Wills Crofts

The Pit-Prop Syndicate (1922)

The Groote Park Murder (1923)

Inspector French’s Greatest Case (1924)

The Cheyne Mystery (1926)

Inspector French and the Starvel Tragedy (1927)

The Sea Mystery (1928)

Sir John Magill’s Last Journey (1930)

Mystery in the Channel (1931)

The 12.30 from Croydon (1934)

Crime at Guildford (1935)

The Loss of the Jane Vosper (1936)

Fatal Venture (1939)

Golden Ashes (1940)

Post Mortem (1953) by Guy Cullingford

Conjurer’s Coffin (1954)

Framed for Hanging (1956)

Dead March in Three Keys (1940) by Peter Curtis (Norah Lofts)

The House without a Door (1942) by Elizabeth Daly


Evidence of Things Seen (1943)

The White Priory Murders (1934) by Carter Dickson (John Dickson Carr)

The Plague Court Murders (1934)

The Red Widow Murders (1935)

The Ten Teacups (1937)

The Judas Window (1938)

The Reader is Warned (1939)

And So to Murder (1940)

She Died a Lady (1943)

He Wouldn't Kill Patience (1944)

Shear the Black Sheep (1942) by David Dodge

Bullets for the Bridegroom (1944)

The Long Escape (1948)

The Lights of Skaro (1954)

To Catch A Thief (1952)

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (1894) by Arthur Conan Doyle FINISHED
 
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) FINISHED

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1921) FINISHED

The White Cockatoo (1933) by M.G. Eberhart

The Cases of Susan Dare (1934)

Speak No Evil (1941)

Darling Clementine (1955) by Dorothy Eden

The Horizontal Man (1946) by Helen Eustis

The Missing Link (1952) by Katharine Farrer

The Cretan Counterfeit (1954)

The Big Clock (1946) by Kenneth Fearing

Stealthy Terror (1918) by John Ferguson

The Man in the Dark (1928)

Death Comes to Perigord (1931)

Night in Glengyle (1933)

Remove the Bodies (1941) by Elizabeth Ferrars

Don't Monkey with Murder (1942)

Murder in Time (1953)

The Bandaged Nude (1950) by Robert Finnegan

Death and Mary Dazill (1941) by Mary Fitt

Requiem for Robert (1942)

Death and the Pleasant Voices (1946)

Payment Deferred (1926) by C.S. Forester

Plain Murder (1930)

Rex v. Anne Bickerton (1930) by Sydney Fowler

Reunion with Murder (1941) by Tomothy Fuller

The Widow LeRouge (1866) by Emile Gaboriau


The Mystery of Orcival (1867)

Murder on Leave (1946) by G.V. Galwey

The Lift and the Drop (1951)

The Case of the Howling Dog (1934) by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Case of the Sleepwalkers Niece (1936)

The Case of the Stuttering Bishop (1936)

The Case of the Lame Canary (1937)

The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe (1938)

The D.A. Holds a Candle (1938)

The Case of the Substitute Face (1938)

The Case of the Rolling Bones (1939)

The Case of The Perjured Parrot (1939)

The D.A. Draws a Circle (1939)

The Case of the Baited Hook (1940)

The Case of the Haunted Husband (1941)

The Case of the Careless Kitten (1942)

The Case of The Drowsy Mosquito (1943)

The Case of the Buried Clock (1943)

The Case of the Crooked Candle (1944)

The DA Calls A Turn (1944)

The Case of the Golddigger's Purse (1945)

The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife (1945)

The Case of the Borrowed Brunette (1946)

The Velvet Well (1946) by John Gearon

The Black Stage (1945) by Anthony Gilbert

Documents Marked "Secret" (1945) by John Gloag

The Leavenworth Case (1878) by Anna Katharine Green 
ON LIBBY

Reputation for a Song (1952) by Edward Grierson

The Thin Man (1934) by Dashiell Hammett FINISHED

Lady Killer (1957) by William Hardy

Tenant for Death (1937) by Cyril Hare


Death is No Sportsman (1938)

Suicide Excepted (1939)

Tragedy at Law (1942)

With a Bare Bodkin (1946)

An English Murder (1951)

That Yew Tree's Shade (1954)

He Should Have Died Hereafter (1957)

Cork on the Water (1951) by MacDonald Hastings

Cork in Bottle (1953)

Cork and the Serpent (1955)

Cork in the Doghouse (1957)

A Taste For Honey (1941) by Gerald Heard (H.F. Heard)

Fugitive from Murder (1940) by M.V. Heberden

Death in the Stocks (1935) by Georgette Heyer

Famous Trials III (1950) by James H. Hodge, Ed.


Famous Trials 4 (1954)

Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1945) by George Hopley

Raffles (1899) by E.W. Hornung ON LIBBY

Mr. Justice Raffles (1909)

Rogue Male (1939) by Geoffrey Household

The Murder of My Aunt (1936) by Richard Hull


The Ghost It Was (1936)

Excellent Intentions (1938)

Murder on Safari (1938) by Elspeth Huxley

Death at the President’s Lodging (1936) by Michael Innes


Hamlet, Revenge! (1937)

Stop Press (1939)

There Came Both Mist and Snow (1940)

The Secret Vanguard (1941)

Appleby on Ararat (1941)

The Weight of the Evidence (1943)

The Journeying Boy (1949)

A Private View (1952)

Man From the Sea (1955)

Old Hall, New Hall (1956)

Appleby Plays Chicken (1956)

A Pin to See the Peepshow (1934) by F. Tennyson Jesse

Death Takes Small Bites (1948) by George H. Johnston

Prelude to a Certain Midnight (1947) by Gerald Kersh

Carteret's Cure (1926) by Richard Keverne

William Cook Antique Dealer (1928)

The Sanfield Scandal (1929)

The Fleet Hall Inheritance (1931)

Missing From His Home (1932)

At the Blue Gates (1932)

He Laughed at Murder (1935)

The Three Taps (1927) by Ronald Knox

Murder on My Street (1958) by Edwin Lanham

Blood upon the Snow (1944) by Hilda Lawrence


Death of a Doll (1947)

Duet of Death (1949)

Uncle Silas (1864) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

A Kiss Before Dying (1953) by Ira Levin ON LIBBY

The Kiss of Death (1947) by Eleazar Lipsky

The Rasp (1924) by Philip MacDonald


X v. Rex (1933)

The Bad Seed (1954) by William March ON LIBBY

Famous Trials of Marshall Hall (1950) by Edward Marjoribanks, Ed.

A Man Lay Dead (1934) by Ngaio Marsh 
FINISHED

Enter a Murderer (1935)

The Nursing Home Murder (1935)

Death in Ecstasy (1936)

Vintage Murder (1937)

Death in a White Tie (1938) FINISHED

Artists in Crime (1938) FINISHED

Overture to Death (1939) FINISHED

Surfeit of Lampreys (1940)

Death at the Bar (1940) FINISHED

Death and the Dancing Footman (1941)

The House of the Arrow (1924) by A.E.W. Mason

An Oxford Tragedy (1933) by J.C. Masterman


The Case of the Four Friends (1956)

He Never Came Back (1954) by Helen McCloy

Deadly Weapon (1946) by Wade Miller

The Red House Mystery (1922) by A.A. Milne ON LIBBY

The Mystery of a Butcher's Shop (1929) by Gladys Mitchell

The Longer Bodies (1930)

Death at the Opera (1934)

Come Away, Death (1937)

Laurels are Poison (1942)

Tom Brown's Body (1949)

Faintley Speaking (1954)

Watson's Choice (1955)

Twelve Horses and the Hangman's Noose (1956)

The Twenty-Third Man (1957)

Spotted Hemlock (1958)

The King and the Corpse (1948) by Max Murray

The Right Honourable Corpse (1952)

The Doctor and the Corpse (1953)

Royal Bed for a Corpse (1955)

The Rod of Anger (1953) by Derrick Nabarro

The Nightwalkers (1947) by James Norman

The Mysterious Mickey Finn (1939) by Elliot Paul

Verdict of Twelve (1940) by Raymond Postgate


The Ledger is Kept (1953)

The Diehard (1956) by Jean Potts

Information Received (1933) by E.R. Punshon

Crossword Mystery (1934)

Mystery Villa (1934)

The Roman Hat Mystery (1929) by Ellery Queen ON LIBBY

The French Powder Mystery (1930) ON LIBBY

The Dutch Shoe Mystery (1931) ON LIBBY

The Greek Coffin Mystery (1932) ON LIBBY

The Siamese Twin Mystery (1933) ON LIBBY

The American Gun Mystery (1933) ON LIBBY

The Chinese Orange Mystery (1934) ON LIBBY

The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935) ON LIBBY

The Door Between (1937) ON LIBBY

The Four of Hearts (1938) ON LIBBY

The King is Dead (1952) ON LIBBY

Puzzle for Fiends (1946) by Patrick Quentin

The Follower (1950)

The Man in the Net (1956)

The Cambridge Murders (1945) by Dilwyn Rees (Glyn Daniel)

The House on Tollard Ridge (1929) by John Rhode

Trial by Fury (1941) by Craig Rice

The Circular Staircase (1908) by Mary Roberts Rinehart


The Yellow Room (1945)

The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu (1913) by Sax Rohmer

The Content Assignment (1954) by Holly Roth


The Sleeper (1955)

The Mask of Glass (1955)

Shadow of a Lady (1957)

Telling of Murder (1952) by Douglas Rutherford

Comes the Blind Fury (1953)

Night of the Horns (1961) by Douglas Sanderson

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1928) by Dorothy L. Sayers FINISHED

Documents in the Case (1930) 

A Crime in Holland and A Face for a Clue (1931) by Simenon

A Battle of Nerves and At the 'Gai-Moulin' (1931)

The Man from Everywhere and Newhaven-Dieppe (1931/1934)

In Two Latitudes (1932)

Maigret and the Burglar's Wife (1934)

The Murderer (1937)

Poisoned Relations (1938)

Havoc by Accident (1943)

Escape in Vain (1943)

To Any Lengths (1944)

On the Danger Line (1944)

Lost Moorings (1946)

The Hatter's Ghosts (1947)

Maigret's First Case (1949)

My Friend Maigret (1949)

Maigret in Montmartre (1951)

Maigret's Revolver (1952)

Maigret Sits it Out (1952)

Maigret's Mistake (1953)

The Speaking Eye (1955) by Clark Smith

Not Wanted on Voyage (1951)

The Evil of the Day (1955) by Thomas Sterling

Fer-de-Lance (1934) by Rex Stout FINISHED

The League of Frightened Men (1935) FINISHED

Red Threads (1939)

The Short Weekend (1953) by T.S. Strachan

The Missing Moneylender (1931) by W. Stanley Sykes

The Immaterial Murder Case (1945) by Julian Symons

The Man With My Face (1948) by Samuel W. Taylor

The Franchise Affair (1948) by Josephine Tey ON LIBBY


The Daughter of Time (1951) FINISHED

Docken Dead (1953) by John Trench

Dishonoured Bones (1954)

Man of Two Tribes (1956) by Arthur W. Upfield

The Battling Prophet (1956)

Department of Dead Ends (1949) by Roy Vickers

Murdering Mr. Velfrage (1950)

Don Among the Dead Men (1952) by C.E. Vulliamy

The Verdict of You All (1926) by Henry Wade

Policeman's Lot (1933)

Here Comes the Copper (1938)

Diamonds For Moscow (1953) by David Walker

The Four Just Men (1905) by Edgar Wallace

The Doors of Sleep (1955) by Thurman Warriner

The Invisible Man (1897) by H.G. Wells 
ON LIBBY

The Watersplash (1953) by Patricia Wentworth

The Wheel Spins (1933) by Ethel Lina White

Many Dimensions (1930) by Charles Williams





Tuesday, April 2, 2024

March 2024 -- MONTHLY WRAP UP

 


MONTHLY WRAP UP

March 2024

Thanks to an unexpected, unusual, but much appreciated lull in my workload, I read more books in March than I’ve ever read in one month as an adult. I now have a glimpse of what retirement might look like and am looking forward to it all the more!

See any here you’ve read and enjoyed, or want to?

Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope, the second book in the the Palliser Series, which I am reading this year as part of a group read on Instagram. 

Fay Weldon’s Love & Inheritance Trilogy: Habits of the House, Long Live the King, and The New Countess. The novels are set in London society at the turn of the 20th Century. They have strong Upstairs, Downstairs themes, which makes sense because Weldon wrote several episodes of Upstairs, Downstairs, including the first, prize-winning episode. She published these three books in 2012 and 2013, shortly after Downton Abbey captured the collective imagination, and there are many similarities! The trilogy was thoroughly entertaining, if light fare compared to Trollope.

An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David, Britain's foremost food writer. This is a collection of food, restaurant, and travel essays, many from newspaper columns and magazine assignments.

My Kind of Place by Susan Orlean is a collection of travel-inspired essays. This is one of my #TBR24in24 books. It reminded me that Orlean used to live here in Portland where she wrote for our weekly alternative paper, Willamette Week

The Way We Lived Then: Recollections of a Well-Known Name Dropper by Dominick Dunne. Before he reinvented himself as a novelist, Dunne was a television producer in Hollywood. This memoir, chock-o-block with personal snapshots of celebrity society in Hollywood in the 1950s and ‘60s, would be insufferable without Dunne's charm and frank admission of how badly he messed up his life later on.

The Old Patagonian Express: By Train Through the Americas by Paul Theroux, about his 1978 train journey from Boston, through North and South America, to Patagonia, another TBR 24 in '24 read.

The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don’ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life by Charles Murray, a common sense guide to adulthood, which I wrote about here.

Menagerie Manor by Gerald Durrell, about starting a private zoo on Jersey, was the first first book by him I've read, but won’t be my last. Another TBR 23 in ’24 read. I'm going to pass this on to my daughter-in-law who is a vet at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. because I think she will find interesting the comparison between a private zoo in the 1960s and '70s and a public zoo now. 

I’ll Never be Young Again by Daphne du Maurier. This is du Maurier's second novel and I found it tough going. I'm in a Du Maurier Deep Dive reading group on Instagram and we are down to the last few books. This one is my least favorite DDM book so far. The main character is unattractively immature and I wanted nothing to do with him. If I weren't a du Maurier completist, I would not have finished it. 

The Vintage Caper by Peter Mayle, a wine-themed cozy mystery set in Marseille. Loved it. 

Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto was my book club pick for March. I am pleased to report that everyone in the group enjoyed it, which is unusual for book club! 

Songbook by Nick Hornby, the only author I like enough to read a 20+ year old book about pop music.

The Horse’s Mouth by Joyce Cary. I read this because it is on Anthony Burgess's list of Top 99 Novels in English, one of my favorite lists for reading inspiration. It might be a classic about the life of an artist, but there is a reason you don’t see it around much anymore. The protagonist, artist Gully Jimson, is highly unlikeable, which made the book a slog for me. Oddly, by one of those reading coincidences, in The Old Patagonian Express, Paul Theroux mentions in passing and without context that some wall art he sees from the train window would make Gully Jimson proud. I am happy to cross this one off my TBR 24 in ’24 list.

Slightly Foxed, Issue 81, Spring 2024
. I like to include these in my lists of books read so I can keep track of which ones I've finished.  

His Last Bow by Arthur Conan Doyle, which brings me to the end of the Sherlock Holmes series. Several years ago, I found a boxed set at an estate sale and jumped right on it, intending to read (and reread) them straight through. But my enthusiasm waned and it's taken me almost 14 years to get through all of them. 

NOT PICTURED (READ WITH MY EARS)


Foster by Claire Keegan, my other book club’s latest pick. This is an excellent novella about a young girl in Ireland sent to live with foster parents. We don't meet until April, but I am sure the book will be a popular one. 

A Song for the Dark Times by Ian Rankin. I have been working my way steadily through his John Rebus books, making a concerted effort the past year and a half. This is book 23 of 24 (so far), so I am close to wrapping up the series. I love the books, but it's a long series! 

What were your March reading highlights?






Saturday, April 16, 2022

Easton Press List of the list of The 100 Greatest Books Ever -- BOOK LIST


THE EASTON PRESS LIST OF 100 GREATEST BOOKS EVER

A while back, Easton Pres put together its list of the 100 Greatest Books Ever and described the collection as the "most renowned works of literature by history’s greatest authors." It was an interesting mix that includes books going back to ancient times, from around the world, and includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. 

Easton Press used to sell the whole set in its fancy, leather-bound editions. The list is no longer on the Easton Press website and it no longer sells the books as a set, although they are available individually. They are also all available elsewhere in other formats and editions.

Here is the list, with notes about whether I've read a book, it is on my TBR shelf, or it is available as an audiobook from my library. So far, I've read of the 71 of the 100, but don't know if I will ever read them all. How about you?

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne ON OVERDRIVE

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne FINISHED

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED

Walden by Henry David Thoreau FINISHED

Gulliver's Travels by Johnathan Swift FINISHED

Moby Dick by Herman Melville (reviewed here)* FINISHED

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway FINISHED

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane FINISHED

The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling* TBR SHELF

The Odyssey by Homer FINISHED

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan FINISHED

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (reviewed here) FINISHED

Paradise Lost by John Milton FINISHED

Tales From The Arabian Nights by Richard Burton ON OVERDRIVE

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (reviewed here) FINISHED

Candide by Voltaire FINISHED

Oedipus the King by Sophocles FINISHED

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo ON OVERDRIVE

The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper* TBR SHELF

The Sea Wolf by Jack London TBR SHELF

Cyrano De Bergerac by Edmund Rostand

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer FINISHED

Collected Poems by Robert Browning

Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson TBR SHELF

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James FINISHED

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (reviewed here) FINISHED

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson FINISHED

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle FINISHED

Collected Poems by John Keats TBR SHELF

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin ON OVERDRIVE

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra TBR SHELF

Collected Poems by Robert Frost TBR SHELF

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories by Washington Irving FINISHED

Animal Farm by George Orwell FINISHED

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë FINISHED

She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith FINISHED

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck FINISHED

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen FINISHED

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky FINISHED

Les Misérables by Victor Hugo ON OVERDRIVE

The Iliad by Homer FINISHED

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence FINISHED

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas* FINISHED

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley FINISHED

Aesop's Fables by Aesop FINISHED

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad FINISHED

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin ON OVERDRIVE

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas* FINISHED

Politics and Poetics by Aristotle TBR SHELF

The Aeneid by Virgil FINISHED

Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert FINISHED

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli FINISHED

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë FINISHED

Hamlet by William Shakespeare FINISHED

Pygmalion and Candida by George Bernard Shaw TBR SHELF and FINISHED

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe* FINISHED

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare FINISHED

The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov TBR SHELF

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri FINISHED

The Analects of Confucius by Confucius

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare FINISHED

Collected Poems by William Butler Yeats (reading now)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde FINISHED

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray TBR SHELF

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio FINISHED

Beowulf FINISHED

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy TBR SHELF

The Necklace and Other Tales by Guy de Maupassant TBR SHELF

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells FINISHED

Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev FINISHED

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad FINISHED

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy FINISHED

The History of Early Rome by Livy TBR SHELF

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott FINISHED

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott TBR SHELF

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy FINISHED

Alice's Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll FINISHED

Dracula by Bram Stoker (reviewed here) FINISHED

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám by Omar Khayyám  FINISHED

The Red and the Black by Stendhal FINISHED

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens FINISHED

The Republic by Plato TBR SHELF

Collected Poems by Emily Dickinson TBR SHELF

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe FINISHED

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding* FINISHED

The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay FINISHED

Silas Marner by George Eliot FINISHED

The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine ON OVERDRIVE

Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman TBR SHELF (reading now)

Billy Budd by Herman Melville TBR SHELF

The Confessions by St. Augustine FINISHED

Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe FINISHED

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott FINISHED

The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler* FINISHED

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (reviewed here)* FINISHED

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky FINISHED

Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm FINISHED

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain* FINISHED

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley FINISHED

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens FINISHED


NOTES

This is a repost of the list I first posted in 2009. The links needed refreshing. 

The original list is no longer available on the Easton Press website, so I don't know why the books are listed in this order. The aren't listed in alphabetical order by title or author, nor are they listed by publication date. They must be listed by Easton Press catalog number or publication date, but I don't remember. 

* Marks those that I have in the fancy Easton Press edition, thanks to a lovely Christmas gift from Hubby.




Thursday, December 30, 2021

2021 Vintage Mystery Challenge - My Wrap Up Post


VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE 2021

VINTAGE SCATTEGORIES

MY WRAP UP POST

COMPLETED


The Vintage Mystery Challenge on My Reader's Block is one of my favorite challenges. The idea is to read at least eight vintage mysteries, either from the Golden Age of mysteries (those published prior to 1960) or the Silver Age of mysteries (those published from 1960 to 1989). 

Each year, Bev makes some kind of game out of it. This year the game is Vintage Scattegories. Participants are to read one book from at least eight of various categories. I signed up for both the Golden Age and Silver Age to try to read 16 books. 


MY VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE BOOKS - GOLD

In 2021, I read 13 vintage mysteries published before 1960. I was on a mission to read all the Father Brown books, having read the first one in December 2020 and wanting to go straight through, so Fr. Brown shows up a lot in this list. 

  • A Mystery by Any Other Name: Funerals are Fatal by Agatha Christie (aka After the Funeral and Murder at the Gallop)


MY VINTAGE MYSTERY CHALLENGE BOOKS - SILVER

I read 11 vintage mysteries in 2021 that were published between 1960 and 1989. Most of them were by Dick Francis because he's my favorite. 

  • Murder by the Numbers: Twice Shy by Dick Francis 
  • Malicious Men: LaBrava by Elmore Leonard
  • Repeat Offenders: Whip Hand by Dick Francis 
  • Hobbies Can be Murder: Reflex by Dick Francis 
I didn't review any of these books, so my challenge participation was minimal. But I had a terrific time reading them. I look forward to joining the 2022 version of the Vintage Mystery Challenge and will sign up soon!



Friday, November 9, 2012

Book Beginnings: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

TWITTER: If you are on Twitter, please tweet a link to your post using the has tag #BookBeginnings. My Twitter handle is @GilionDumas.

MR. LINKY: Please leave a link to your post below. If you don't have a blog, but want to participate, please leave a comment with your Book Beginning.



MY BOOK BEGINNING


To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. 
 - from "A Scandal in Bohemia," the first story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle.

That is a catchy start for any story. But given the eminence of this particular story in Doyle's oeuvre, and the significance of "the woman" to Sherlock Holmes, it is worth reading a fuller opening passage:

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. 

Yes, it is the introduction of Irene Adler! I think she plays a greater role in movie adaptations and spin offs than in the books, but she still looms large in the collective recollection of Sherlock Holmes' world.  

I started reading all the Sherlock Holmes book in order last year.  This is the third volume and I like the stories a lot.  But this is the book I have on my iPhone kindle app, which means it is my emergency book for when I get stuck waiting in line, or need something to read while grabbing a quick bite to eat. So I've been reading these stories for months and months. I may have to grab the book-book off my shelf and finish it off. 

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Sign of the Four



"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case."

-- The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

This is a pretty startling opener today; it must have been shocking at the time. Although, maybe not. Maybe cocaine wasn't illegal back then, so this would have been tantalizing, but not bear the freight it does today.

This is the second of the Sherlock Holmes books. I am reading them in order because I found a pretty little set at an estate sale last summer.



Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Teaser Tuesday: A Study in Scarlet



"He was more than six feet high, was in the prime of life, had small feet for his height, wore coarse, square-toed boots and smoked a Trichinopoly cigar. He came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new one on his off fore leg."

-- A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  An example of Sherlock Holmes's remarkable deductive powers.

I started reading this as my first e-book, using the kindle app I put on my iPhone.  But I had such an adorable little Peebles Classic Library edition on my shelf, that soon I found myself with the book in my hands, tearing through the pages.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by Should Be Reading, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.



Sunday, January 2, 2011

Opening Sentence of the Day: A Study in Scarlet



In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course prescribed for surgeons in the army.

-- A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Thanks to Steve Anderson, who I had coffee with when I was considering getting an iPhone, I learned that I could download a kindle app to my iPhone and have a book with me in my pocket.  So I downloaded the first Sherlock Holmes book.  I wanted to start with a free e-book, in case I didn't like it.

But I do.  It was pretty intuitive, and I learned how to set the color to "sepia" so the background is offwhite and the text is brown, so it is a little softer to look at.  And I figured out how to bookmark the page where I stop, so I can go back to it. I don't think I'll be giving up my print books any time soon, but it is fun to have.  It came in handy when I was waiting for a friend for breakfast the other day.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Mailbox Monday


It looked like I was going to have an empty mailbox this holiday weekend. But then I ran across an estate sale late yesterday afternoon -- on Independence Day! -- while I was heading out to get the fried chicken for our 4th of July picnic.  So it is another long list for Mailbox Monday.

First, a couple of fancy books:

The Prado by Santiago Alcolea Blanch (the picture doesn't do it justice, because it is a beautiful coffee table book in perfect condition -- really lovely, and the closest I'll get to the real thing in the foreseeable future)



Charles II by Antonia Fraser (another coffee table edition full of pictures)



Then, some fun stuff:

I got the first eight volumes of a nine-volume, Book Club edition of the Sherlock Holmes books. Since I've been in a vintage mystery mood lately, I thought I could start at the source. Of course, now I want to find the ninth volume.


I found several P. D. James books. I recently read her first Adam Dalgliesh mystery, Cover Her Face, and it made me want to work my way through the series. I picked up A Taste for Death, Devices & Desires, A Certain Justice,





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