2019 book challenge

If there’s one answer I always give to the “what do you do in your spare time” obnoxious question, it’s “I guess I read a lot.” It’s always been something I’ve done. You’re looking at the winner of all of the Accelerated Reader programs in elementary school. I’ve eaten more of those personal pan pizzas from the Pizza Hut summer Book It challenges. I could not wait for the next Scholastic Book Fair. As an adult though, it’s so hard to find the time to get to sit down and read a book. I also have a binging problem when it comes to reading and watching Netflix. I just cannot stop so I have to set aside a day pretty much.

So I started 2019 thinking I would read more. I usually read a lot anyway, but about half-way through the year I found out about the Good Reads app while scrolling through Reddit. Admittedly, I did not realize just how difficult it is to read a book a week while trying to maintain an adult life. At the beginning of the year, I went through a Stephen King phase entirely based on my inability to finish It. Seriously, it is the longest and most boring read, I started it in 2006 and have yet to finish it.

So, here it is, my list for 2019:

1. The White Album - Joan Didion

2. Misery - Stephen King

3. Red Rain - R.L. Stine

4. Sharp Objects - Gillian Flynn

5. A Sin Such As This - Ellen Hopkins

6. Hyperbole and a Half - Allie Broch

7. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

8. I'm Judging You - Luvvie Ajayi

9. Pet Sematary - Stephen King

10. Men Explain Things to Me - Rebecca Solnit

11. The New Codependency - Melody Beattie (I read this thinking it would be interesting for my psychology interests but found it too religious for my liking.)

12. we are never meeting inr real life. - Samantha Irby

13. Crucial Conversations - a lot of people (an assignment from work that I found the most boring to read and vowed to not pick up another self help book again this year.)

14. The Shining - Stephen King (favorite movie, book did not disappoint)

15. Doctor Sleep - Stephen King (The Shining sequel, again did not disappoint)

16. People Kill People - Ellen Hopkins

17. We Should All Be Feminsts - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

18. Roadside Picnic - Arkady & Boris Strugatsky

19. Watchmen - Alan Moore (yes, comics count)

20. The Grownup - Gillian Flynn

21. The Mission - Jason Myers

22. Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf

23. Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

24. Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood

25. Codename Villanelle - Luke Jennings

26. The Last Tsar: Life and Death of Nicholas II - Edvard Radzinsky

27. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype - Clarissa Pinkola Estes (recommeded by my therapist) current read

28. A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women: Essay on Art, Sex, and the Mind - Siri Hustvedt current read

29. The Stalin Epigram - Robert Littell

30. Stay Sexy & Don’t Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide - Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

31. The Turn of the Screw and Other Short Novels - Henry James

32. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara

33. Writer, Sailor, Soldier, Spy: Ernest Hemingway’s Secret Adventures, 1935-1961 - Nicholas Reynolds