I read these books from the 1940s during August and September and finished the last one on October 1, which was a much faster pace than the 1930s books. It helped that I listened to the longest one on audiobook, which is my go-to way of getting through books that might otherwise drag. I read 7 novels, 2 nonfiction texts, and 1 collection of poems and short stories, written by authors from the U.S., U.K., Russia, and Germany.
I previously wrote a much better version of this post which was only missing one or two book reviews, but it somehow got deleted and I can't bring myself to recreate it (I've been trying to muster up the energy for literally months and haven't), so all I can do is publish what was saved and leave my star rating, a brief comment and a quote for the rest. Sorry, but it's 7 months late already.
1940 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers ★★★★
"Her face felt like it was scattered in pieces and she could not keep it straight. The feeling was a whole lot worse than being hungry for any dinner, yet it was like that. I want—I want—I want—was all that she could think about—but just what this real want was she did not know."I really enjoyed this book about a deaf-mute man in a small Southern town who becomes a friend to a bunch of pretty distinct people. Although he gives a lot to them, they don't give much back. The book addresses race in this small town in some pretty insightful ways. Although the book often switches perspectives, I felt like the main character was an adolescent girl (in the above quote) and she was a very compelling character. I've been meaning to read this book since college and was glad that I finally did.
1941 Twelve Million Black Voices by Richard Wright ★★★★
"The conduct of whites toward us... tells us that we possess no rights commanding respect, that we have no claim to pursue happiness in our own fashion, that our progress toward civilization constitutes an insult, that our behavior must be kept firmly with an orbit branded as inferior, that we must be compelled to labor at the behest of others, that as a group we are owned by the whites."I wanted to read a book by Richard Wright for this challenge, but none of the publication years for his more popular books were lining up with the gaps I had, so I was glad to find this book. Through both text and photos, it tells stories about the treatment of black people in the U.S. since they were brought here by slave ships. Wright is a very skilled writer and although this book is very different from his others, the prose is beautiful and engaging, and I feel like I learned a lot.
1942 The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis ★★★
"A woman means by unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others.... Thus, while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish."I've heard about this book for years and can't believe I hadn't read it, so this seemed like the right opportunity. Unfortunately, I was a little underwhelmed. The concept of a devil coaching another devil on how to convert humans to Satan's side is fascinating, but reading it at this point in my life, I didn't feel particularly shocked or enlightened by anything Screwtape said. A month or so after reading The Screwtape Letters I ended up reading The Great Divorce, also by C.S. Lewis, with a book club and enjoyed that a lot more. I think Lewis is a clever, insightful author and I enjoy reading his thoughts about Christianity. Screwtape would certainly have impressed me more if I had gotten to it earlier in life.
1943 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand ★★★★
"This was pity—this complete awareness of a man without worth or hope, this sense of finality, of the not to be redeemed. There was shame in this feeling—his own shame, that he should have to pronounce such judgment upon a man, that he should know an emotion that contained no shred of respect.... He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with the world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue."
Ayn Rand is definitely a pretty controversial author, and the trend I've seen is that people who read her books when they're young love her and people who come to them later in life are less impressed. I tried to listen to Atlas Shrugged while I was in college and just couldn't get through it, but I was fully engaged in The Fountainhead almost immediately. That's not to say that I buy into the politics—I didn't really see Howard Roark as the hero that he's supposed to be. However, I definitely found myself wanting to know what would happen next, and got weirdly into the architecture aspect. I'm glad I read it, but I will not be reading her other work.
1944 The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker ★★★
"It is too bad that the light in a person's eyes is only the light in a person's eyes, and you cannot tell at a look what causes it. You do not know if it is excitement about you, or about something else."
Ultimately, I found this book a bit of a slog to get through. It includes both poems and short stories, and while I thought I would enjoy the poems more, it was actually the stories that captured more of my attention. Most of them are about women feeling some type of way about men, which is pretty relatable tbh. I copied down tons of quotes from the stories and have a few to recommend if you're interested.
1945 If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes ★★★
"I was thinking about that and laughing like hell... thinking about how all my life I'd been scared of white folks because they were white and it was funny as hell to find out white folks were scared of me too, because I was black."
The teacher who occupied my classroom before me was an older black man who fully stocked the classroom library with books by black authors, many of whom I had never heard of. It was really interesting to research for this list and see so many of those books pop up, including this one. It was pretty dark but eye-opening and realistic—not a fun book, but a worthy one.
"So it was a circle, and she could keep on going around it forever and keep on ending up in the same place, because if you were black and you lived in New York and you could only pay so much rent, why, you had to live in a house like this one."
This was another book already in my classroom library when I moved in, and it was my favorite of the decade. I haven't stopped thinking about it for months. Definitely also gets the designation of dark, realistic, and not fun but worthy.
1947 The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank ★★★★
"'I long for something from Father that he's incapable of giving. I'm not jealous of Margot, I never have been. I'm not envious of her brains or her beauty. It's just that I'd like to feel that Father really loves me, not because I'm his child, but because I'm me, Anne."
I was surprised at how much I liked this book. For some reason, I always thought it was probably boring, but it turns out teen angst is dramatic and fun to read about no matter the circumstances. Also, there have been weird comparisons of our current 2020 quarantine to Anne Frank's situation and I'm actually glad I recently read this book so I can know for myself that it's not the same at all and I really have a lot to be grateful for.
1948 The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene ★★★★
"It seemed to Scobie one of the qualities of deceit that you lost the sense of trust. If I can lie and betray, so can others. Wouldn't many people gamble on my honesty and lose their stake?"
This book was not on my radar at all before starting this challenge, but I ended up really enjoying the story. What can I say? Men are trash and everyone knows it.
1949 1984 by George Orwell ★★★★
"You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty, and then we shall fill you with ourselves."
I can't believe I had never read this book before. It's definitely one that everyone should read, if only so you can have something to compare your government/religion/etc. to for the rest of your life. Weirdly relevant right now.
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