In 2018 I will (attempt to) read 60 books

There’s a lot to be said about reading goals – they can be inspiring or detrimental, they can motivate or discourage, and then there’s the entirely separate debate of quality vs quantity. *cue war flashbacks of Accelerated Reader competitions in elementary school where you could either read a few lengthy books for a lot of points or a whole lot of extremely short books for .5 points each*

Whatever your opinion of reading goals, I’m making a list here to help keep track of books I want to read this year. I use Goodreads for this as well, but I just love making lists so any excuse to make one and I’m there.

BOOKS TO READ IN TWENTYEIGHTEEN:

1. Sex and Rage // Eve Babitz
2. Artemis // Andy Weir
3. The Rules Do Not Apply // Ariel Levy
4. Her Body and Other Parties // Carmen Maria Machado
5. Men Explain Things to Me // Rebecca Solnit
6. Madame Bovary // Gustave Flaubert
7. Moby Dick // Herman Melville
8. All the Light We Cannot See // Anthony Doerr
9. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love // Raymond Carver
10. Envelope Poems // Emily Dickinson
11. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race // Reni Eddo-Lodge
12. Slouching Towards Bethlehem // Joan Didion
13. In Cold Blood // Truman Capote
14. The Goldfinch // Donna Tartt
15. Stephen King: A Biography // Albert P. Rollis
16. Secrets of the Mad // Dodie Clark
17. The Book of Phoenix // Nnedi Okorafor
18. Lanark // Alasdair Gray
19. Half of a Yellow Sun // Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
20. On Love // Alain de Botton
21. Breakfast of Champions // Kurt Vonnegut
22. Catch 22 // Joseph Heller
23. Living a Feminist Life // Sarah Ahmed
24. Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior // Jonah Berger
25. Things Are What You Make of Them: Life Advice for Creatives // Adam J. Kurtz
26. Station Eleven // Emily St. John Mandel
27. The Story of Arthur Truluv // Elizabeth Berg
28. The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What Saints, Spies, and Serial Killers Can Teach Us About Success // Kevin Dutton
29. How to Find Love in a Bookshop // Veronica Henry
30. a, A Novel // Andy Warhol
31. a, A Novel // Derek Beaulieu
32. Too Much and Not the Mood: Essays // Durga Chew-Bose
33. Girl in a Band: A Memoir // Kim Gordon
34. The Nix // Nathan Hill
35. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis // J. D. Vance
36. A Fraction of the Whole // Steve Toltz
37. Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine // Joe Hagan
38. So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister // Anna Akana
39. The Heart of the Matter // Graham Greene
40. The Letters of Sylvia Plath // Edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil
41. The Glass Eye // Jeannie Vanasco
42. Manhattan Beach // Jennifer Egan
43. Sisters // Lily Tuck
44. The Animators: A Novel // Kayla Rae Whitaker
45. Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection // Sharon Salzberg
46. Orlando // Virgina Woolf
47. The Argonauts // Maggie Nelson
48. Men Without Women // Haruki Muakami
49. My Family and Other Animals // Gerald Durrell
50. Priestdaddy: A Memoir // Patricia Lockwood
51. Bad Feminist: Essays // Roxanne Gay
52. This Must Be the Place // Maggie O’Farrell
53. The Defining Decade: Why Your Twenties Matter and How to Make the Most of Them Now // Meg Jay
54. The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir // Stephen Elliot
55. The Writing Life // Annie Dillard
56. Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype // Clarissa Pinkola Estés
57. The Beauty Myth // Naomi Wolf
58. The Bell Jar // Sylvia Plath
59. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas // Hunter S. Thompson
60. Just Kids // Patti Smith

For most people in the “voracious reader” category, 60 books a year is nothing. But like I said, it’s not really about the number for me. It’s more about making sure I read as much as I can and trying to expand the genres and authors I read. I’ll be lucky if I end up reading half of these as I’m sure I’ll end up reading several books that aren’t on this list but happen to be on my bookshelves – convenience/laziness wins out sometimes, ya dig?

I also love reading through other people’s book lists for new recommendations, so anyone reading this please feel free to add titles//authors of your own for me to check out!

As always, thanks for reading.

-k