My Favorite Book of the Year: 1889-1880

image

I may be slightly biased for this decade in history, both because it features my favorite bustle for women in Victorian England and because it is the decade that the infamous Jack the Ripper went on his killing spree. But for books, I was surprised how little I had read from this decade. But ah, well, means I can read more classics, so I have no complaints.

As always, if this is your first post of this series, check out my many previous ones.

My Favorite Book of The Year: 2019-2010
My Favorite Book of The Year: 2009-2000

My Favorite Book of The Year: 1979-1970
My Favorite Book of the Year: 1969-1960
My Favorite Book of the Year: 1939-1930
My Favorite Book of the Year: 1929-1920

My Favorite Book of the Year: 1899-1890

Now, let’s get into the books!

1889

Three Men in a Boat (Three Men, #1)

I read this humorous classic about three hypochondriacs (people who believe they have a lot of diseases they don’t) who go on a boating vacation together. It’s absurd and hilarious and a fun read.

1888

The Man Who Would Be King

This is more of a novella that novel, but I was really impressed by it. It follows two white men who go into Africa and become kings of the local tribe, only to bring disaster on themselves by their lust and pride. It’s a fascinating story, and a quick read.

1887

Ten Days in a Mad-House

This is a nonfiction book about journalist Nellie Bly going into a women’s insane asylum to reveal the horrible conditions of mental institutions of this era. I loved this book, and despite it feeling like an obvious reality of asylums, when this book came out it brought such great change to how “insane” people were treated. It’s a great read!

1886

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

One of the best horror books! I read this a year or so ago and I was so impressed by it. Less because it felt horrific and more because it speaks to the theme that we all have evil or weakness in us.

1885

King Solomon's Mines

This is kind of quintessential classic adventure novel. It might not be perfectly politically correct, but the story is so fun and engaging, about a group out to search for the legendary mines of King Solomon in Africa.

1884

Against Nature

This is definitely a strange book, about a wealthy recluse who engages in wealth and literature and hatred of humanity. It is much more a profile of the main character than any else, but I found it fascinating.

1883

Pinocchio

I love children’s books which are moral lessons, and this one is both hilarious and sobering, about a wooden boy whose selfishness gets him in trouble again and again.

1882

An Enemy of the People

I read this play just a couple months ago, and I was impressed how it is so relative even to modern times, where we accuse people of being enemies of the people (or canceling them) simply because they disagree with what the majority says.

1881

The Prince and the Pauper

This is such a classic story, and one I first read back in high school. It’s so popular, the story of a prince and a peasant to look alike and change places. It’s also about the only book I’ve read by Mark Twain which I actually enjoyed. He’s just not my cup of tea.

1880

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

This is a whopper of a book, sitting at over 600 pages and incredibly slow. It also really lacks the female characters’ development. However, the examination of culture and philosophy of the era surrounding Christ’s life is incredible.

So there is my list. This is the first month I had to read over half of these books to be able to make this list. At the end of this year I may be forced to move this series to every other month so I have time to read a bunch of books for it, but I do want to continue it as long as I can.

Have you read any of the these books? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments follow my blog for more musings and, as always,

Best wishes in your life full of adventure,

Madame Writer

11 thoughts on “My Favorite Book of the Year: 1889-1880

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s