July 5th, 2009
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 119
Which of these books first published in 1959 have you read?
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White
46 (39.7%)
Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs 33 (28.4%)
A Separate Peace, by John Knowles 21 (18.1%)
Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein 69 (59.5%)
The Sirens of Titan, by Kurt Vonnegut 43 (37.1%)
A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller 64 (55.2%)
Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, by J.D. Salinger 15 (12.9%)
Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum, by Günter Grass 21 (18.1%)
My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George 22 (19.0%)
Alas, Babylon, by Pat Frank 10 (8.6%)
A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry 19 (16.4%)
Hawaii, by James A. Michener 16 (13.8%)
Goodbye, Columbus, by Philip Roth 11 (9.5%)
Cat Among the Pigeons, by Agatha Christie 38 (32.8%)
Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow 9 (7.8%)
Cider With Rosie, by Laurie Lee 35 (30.2%)
The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson 29 (25.0%)
Time Out of Joint, by Philip K. Dick 21 (18.1%)
Titus Alone, by Mervyn Peake 48 (41.4%)
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag , by Robert A. Heinlein 32 (27.6%)
The Menace From Earth, by Robert A. Heinlein 29 (25.0%)
The Longest Day, by Cornelius Ryan 7 (6.0%)
Las Armas Secretas, by Julio Cortazár 0 (0.0%)
Dorsai!, by Gordon R. Dickson 30 (25.9%)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, by Alan Sillitoe 20 (17.2%)
Goldfinger, by Ian Fleming 32 (27.6%)
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, by Mordecai Richler 6 (5.2%)
And which of these books first published in 1909 have you read?
Anne of Avonlea, by Lucy Maud Montgomery 53 (55.2%)
A Girl of the Limberlost, by Gene Stratton-Porter 10 (10.4%)
The Road to Oz, by L. Frank Baum 44 (45.8%)
Martin Eden, by Jack London 6 (6.2%)
Three Lives, by Gertrude Stein 1 (1.0%)
La porte étroite/Strait Is the Gate, by André Gide 7 (7.3%)
The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, by Beatrix Potter 63 (65.6%)
Tono-Bungay, by H.G. Wells 8 (8.3%)
The Ball and the Cross, by G.K. Chesterton 6 (6.2%)
The Tale of Ginger and Pickles, by Beatrix Potter 29 (30.2%)
So which of these books first published in 1859 have you read?
A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens 70 (72.2%)
On the Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin 32 (33.0%)
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins 51 (52.6%)
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, as translated by Edward Fitzgerald 33 (34.0%)
On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill 21 (21.6%)
Adam Bede, by George Eliot 23 (23.7%)
Обломов/ Oblomov , by Ivan Goncharov 3 (3.1%)
Idylls of the King, by Alfred Tennyson 31 (32.0%)
Семейное счастье/Family Happiness, by Leo Tolstoy 2 (2.1%)
Дворянское гнездо/ Home of the Gentry, by Ivan Turgenev 1 (1.0%)
And finally, which of these books published in 1809, 1759, 1609 and 1509 have you read?
Elective Affinities (1809), by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2 (2.5%)
A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809), by Washington Irving 3 (3.7%)
Candide (1759), by Voltaire 46 (56.8%)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (vols 1 (1759), by Laurence Sterne 28 (34.6%)
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759), by Samuel Johnson 7 (8.6%)
Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1609), by William Shakespeare 35 (43.2%)
Troilus and Cressida (1609), by William Shakespeare 51 (63.0%)
In Praise of Folly (1509), by Erasmus 15 (18.5%)
Was 1859 a particularly good year?
(Lists from a combination of Wikipedia and LibraryThing, with fairly arbitrary cutoff points which meant I missed off The Manchurian Candidate etc. Interpret the word "read" to your own satisfaction.)
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