My online presence began in 2003 with the BBC Big Read. In those days was the Lancastrian Nomad. My final tally is 75 (including a half-dozen DNF’s). There are some that I simply don’t want to read, and the same is true of this latest list compiled for the occasion of the Queen Elizabeth II’s 70th Jubilee. Yet it contains a few that sit in the TBR and many titles of interest. Some may become available at the library. I intend picking off a few of these during the rest of the year (and possibly beyond). I may also supplement or substitute titles with others from my shelves. My starting score is 20 (mostly cross-overs with the BBC Big Read). Links are to my reviews, where these exist. Asterisks indicate 5* favourites.

1952-1961

  • The Palm-Wine Drinkard – Amos Tutuola (1952, Nigeria)
  • The Hills Were Joyful Together – Roger Mais (1953, Jamaica)
  • In the Castle of My Skin – George Lamming (1953, Barbados)
  • My Bones and My Flute – Edgar Mittelholzer (1955, Guyana)
  • The Lonely Londoners – Sam Selvon (1956, Trinidad and Tobago/England)
  • The Guide – R. K. Narayan (1958, India)
  • To Sir, With Love – E. R. Braithwaite (1959, Guyana)
  • One Moonlit Night – Caradog Prichard (1961, Wales)
  • A House for Mr Biswas – VS Naipaul (1961, Trinidad and Tobago/England)
  • Sunlight on a Broken Column – Attia Hosain (1961, India)

1962-1971

  • A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess (1962, England)
  • The Interrogation – J.M.G. Le Clézio (1963, France/Mauritius) (The Prospector, 2008 TBR)
  • The Girls of Slender Means – Muriel Spark (1963, Scotland) ✔️
  • Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe (1964, Nigeria)
  • Death of a Naturalist – Seamus Heaney (1966, Northern Ireland)
  • Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1966, Dominica/Wales) (TBR)
  • A Grain of Wheat – Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1967, Kenya)
  • Picnic at Hanging Rock – Joan Lindsay (1967, Australia) (TBR)
  • The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born – Ayi Kwei Armah (1968, Ghana)
  • When Rain Clouds Gather – Bessie Head (1968, Botswana/South Africa)

1972-1981

  • The Nowhere Man – Kamala Markandaya (1972, India)
  • Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – John Le Carré (1974, England)
  • The Thorn Birds – Colleen McCullough (1977, Australia) ✔️ * (Must reread sometime)
  • The Crow Eaters – Bapsi Sidhwa (1978, Pakistan)
  • The Sea, The Sea – Iris Murdoch (1978, England) (TBR)
  • Who Do You think You Are? – Alice Munro (1978, Canada)
  • The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams (1979, England) ✔️
  • Tsotsi – Athol Fugard (1980, South Africa)
  • Clear Light of Day – Anita Desai (1980, India)
  • Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie (1981, England/India) ✔️

1982-1991

  • Schindler’s Ark – Thomas Keneally (1982, Australia)
  • Beka Lamb – Zee Edgell (1982, Belize)
  • The Bone People – Keri Hulme (1984, New Zealand) ✔️ *
  • The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (1985, Canada) ✔️ *
  • Summer Lightning – Olive Senior (1986, Jamaica)
  • The Whale Rider – Witi Ihimaera (1987, New Zealand)
  • The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro (1989, England) ✔️ *
  • Omeros – Derek Walcott (1990, Saint Lucia)
  • The Adoption Papers – Jackie Kay (1991, Scotland)
  • Cloudstreet – Tim Winton (1991, Australia) ✔️ *

1992-2001

  • The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje (1992, Canada/Sri Lanka) ✔️
  • The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields (1993, Canada) ✔️ *
  • Paradise – Abdulrazak Gurnah (1994, Tanzania/England) (Afterlives, 2020 TBR)
  • A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry (1995, India/Canada)
  • Salt – Earl Lovelace (1996, Trinidad and Tobago)
  • The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy (1997, India) ✔️
  • The Blue Bedspread – Raj Kamal Jha (1999, India)
  • Disgrace – J.M. Coetzee (1999, South Africa/Australia) ✔️
  • White Teeth – Zadie Smith (2000, England) ✔️
  • Life of Pi – Yann Martel (2001, Canada) ✔️ *

2002-2011

  • Small Island – Andrea Levy (2004, England) ✔️ *
  • The Secret River – Kate Grenville (2005, Australia) ✔️
  • The Book Thief – Markus Zusak (2005, Australia) ✔️ *
  • Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2006, Nigeria) ✔️
  • A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam (2007, Bangladesh)
  • The Boat – Nam Le (2008, Australia) ✔️ *
  • Wolf Hall – Hilary Mantel (2009, England) ✔️ *
  • The Book of Night Women – Marlon James (2009, Jamaica)
  • The Memory of Love – Aminatta Forna (2010, Sierra Leone/Scotland)
  • Chinaman – Shehan Karunatilaka (2010, Sri Lanka)

2012-2021

  • Our Lady of the Nile – Scholastique Mukasonga (2012, Rwanda)
  • The Luminaries – Eleanor Catton (2013, New Zealand) ✔️
  • Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue (2016, Cameroon)
  • The Bone Readers – Jacob Ross (2016, Grenada)
  • How We Disappeared – Jing-Jing Lee (2019, Singapore)
  • Girl, Woman, Other – Bernardine Evaristo (2019, England) (in the TBR)
  • The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo (2019, Malaysia)
  • Shuggie Bain – Douglas Stuart (2020, Scotland)
  • A Passage North – Anuk Arudpragasam (2021, Sri Lanka)
  • The Promise – Damon Galgut (2021, South Africa) (TBR)