I live in two worlds. One is a world of books. I’ve been a resident of Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County, hunted the white whale aboard the Pequod, fought alongside Napoleon, sailed a raft with Huck and Jim, committed absurdities with Ignatius J. Reilly, rode a sad train with Anna Karenina, and strolled down Swann’s Way. It’s a rewarding world, but my second one is by far superior. My second one is populated with characters slightly less eccentric but supremely real, made of flesh and bone, full of love, who are my ultimate inspiration for everything.
I think Rory from Gilmore Girls summed up my life and love of reading in that quote above. Reading for me is an escape, not that I need to escape my life, but at times it can be nice to forget about everything going on and get lost somewhere else with someone else’s life.
One of my goals for 2015 is to read more and to do this I found this challenge on Pinterest and decided to take a stab at it. There are 50 different types of books on this list and the challenge is to read at least one of each type. I have taken the liberty of doing some research and googling to find a few books of each type and marking which one I will be reading. Feel free to join me in this challenge, I hope my list gets you started or at least gives you ideas of what to read next!
More than 500 pages
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling
Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer
Classic Romance
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Became a Movie
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Published this Year (2015)
The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord
Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver
Everything That Makes You by Moriah McSTay
The Edge of Forever by Melissa E. Hurst
Unspeakable by Abbie Rushton
A Number in the Title
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
1984 by George Orwell
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Catch – 22 by Joseph Heller
Written by someone under 30
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Looking for Alaska by John Green
With Nonhuman characters
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Terry Pratchett
The Immortality Game by Ted Cross
Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott
Trueblood’s Plight by E.S. Lark
A Woman of the Iron People by Eleanor Arnason
Funny
Sugar Rush by Belle Aurora
Roomies by Lindy Zar
Filthy Gorgeous by Jodi Knight
Eight Days A Week by Amber L. Johnson
Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet
By a female author
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling
The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Mystery or Thriller
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith
Speaking From Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
Threat Vector by Tom Clancy
Touch and Go by Lisa Gardner
The Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison
One Word Title
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Possession by A.S. Byatt
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
Loser by Jerry Spinelli
Night by Elie Wiesel
Short Stories
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July
What We Talk About When we Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Set in a different country (than US)
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Lavinia by Urula K. Le Guin
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera
The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
Nonfiction book
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell
Bossypants by Tina Fey
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
Popular Author’s first book
Going Home by Danielle Steele
Finders Keepers by Stephen King
The One in the Middle Is the Green Kangaroo by Judy Blume
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie
Star Quest by Dean Koontz
From an Author you love that you haven’t read yet
This will vary for everyone considering not everyone loves the same type of books let alone the same author. One of my favorite authors of all time is Sarah Dessen and even at 24 I still find myself enjoying her hopeless romantic young adult books about the summer that changed everything.
The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen
Wifey by Judy Blume
Inferno by Dan Brown
The Year of Luminous Love by Lurlene McDaniel
The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Friend Recommended
Now I can guarantee not anyone on my reader list has the same best friend let alone circle of friends as I do so this again will vary for everyone. My best friend has been reading a lot of motivational/inspirational books lately so of course I have a list of those on my to-read list. I also polled a few of my friends to get their recommendations as well so I could have a variety and have ended up adding more to my personal to-read list, damn!
On a side note I think for Christmas 2015 I am going to ask for my friends’ favorite books with an inscription inside. I have a thing for inscriptions and it’s a personal touch for a gift.
Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson
The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
No Excuses by Brian Tracy
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
You Suck: A Love Story by Christopher Moore
Pulitzer Prize winning
Oliver Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Based on a true story
Charlie’s Pond by C.L. Heckman
Phenomena: The Lost and Forgotten Children by Susan Tarr
Spilled Milk by K.L. Randis
Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
At the Bottom of your to-read list
I think all of my books previously on my to-read list have been pushed down thanks to this challenge so I’m not going to bother listing any here.
Mom’s favorite
Sadly my mom doesn’t read, I clearly did not get my love of reading from either of my parents. So I think I will read an extra recommendation from a friend for this challenge.
Scares you
Cellar Door: Words of Beauty, Tales of Terror by Shawna L. Bernard
The Shining by Stephen King
Intensity by Dean Koontz
Salem’s Lot by Stephen King
Nightwatching by John Zunski
More than 100 years old
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift (1726)
He Last of the Mohicans by Fenimore Cooper (1826)
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (1845)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by H.B. Stowe (1851)
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1862)
Based entirely on its cover
Entwined by Heather Dixon
Entangled by Cat Clarke
Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund
Forget You by Jennifer Echols
The Island by Victoria Hislop
Supposed to read in school but didn’t
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Memoir
There Was a Little Girl by Brooke Shields
Watch Me by Anjelica Huston
Seven Letters from Paris by Samantha Verant
True Love by Jennifer Lopez
Facing the Music by Jennifer Knapp
Can finish in a day
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
The Possession by Annie Ernaux
The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
Into the War by Italo Calvino
Antonyms in the Title
Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Winter Notes on Summer Impressions by Ryodor Dostoyevsky
Accidentally on Purpose by L.D. Davis
Set somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit
This will vary for everyone again like some of these categories do. But if you are like me and have always wanted to visit Europe then this list is for you!
Release by Nicole Hadaway
Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James
One Hit Wonderland by Tony Hawks
The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle
Came out the year you were born (1990)
Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver
Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
Oh, The Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss
Four Past Midnight by Stephen King
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
With Bad reviews
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Lolita by Vladimir Narokov
The Qwakening by Kate Chopin
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Trilogy
The Matched Trilogy by Ally Condie
The Selection Trilogy by Kiera Cass
The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth
The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L. James
From your childhood
Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss
With a love triangle
Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally
How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie DeBartolo
The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson
Stepbrother Dearest by Penelope Ward
All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill
Set in the future
The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth
The Ender Quintet by Orson Scott Card
The Maze Runner Series by James Dashner
Set in high school
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
Avalon High by Meg Cabot
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson
With a color in the title
Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard
That made you cry
The book I chose to read has not made me cry because I haven’t read it yet but it is on the list of the top tearjerker books so it’s bound to get me. The other books have made me cry but are still so good and so worth the read.
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
With magic
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
Beastly by Alex Flinn
The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
Entwined by Heather Dixon
Graphic novel
Blankets by Craig Thompson
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
Stitches by David Small
Bone by Jeff Smith
An author you’ve never read before
Like a lot of these categories this one will vary depending on how well read you are and what kind of books you like. Personally I did a quick search for authors that were similar to my favorite author Sarah Dessen and went from there. Surprisingly I have only heard of a few of them so that provided me with a few books to add to my to-read list.
The Boyfriend League by Rachel Hawthorne
Dream Factory by Brad Barkley
City Love by Susane Colasanti
Shug by Jenny Han
Going Too Far by Jennifer Echols
You own but have never read
This list could go on for miles for me… I have this habit of buying books intending to read them and then sticking them on a shelf in the “to-read” pile. But I’ll only list one that I intend to read for this challenge.
Sweet Little Lies by Lauren Conrad
That takes place in your hometown
Another personal category and will vary for everyone. For those of you from Arizona you’re in luck because I am an Arizona Native and have lived here all of my life. I was surprised to find there were actually a lot of books set in Arizona.
In the Heart of the Canyon by Elisabeth Hyde
Dreaming in English by Laura Fitzgerald
Arrowstar by C.K. Thomas
The Immortality Game by Ted Cross
All Fore Revenge by Piper Denna
Originally written in a different language
The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg
The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
The Dog by Kerstin Ekman
Set during Christmas
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
The Christmas Tree by Julie Salamon
The Christmas Wish by Richard Siddoway
The Christmas Clock by Kat Martin
The Snow Globe by Sheila Roberts
Written by an author with your same initials (BJ)
The Alchemist by Ben Jonson
The Stolen Bride by Brenda Joyce
Beyond Scandal by Brenda Joyce
Epicoene by Ben Jonson
Volpone by Ben Jonson
A Play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Our Town by Thornton Wilder
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
A Banned Book
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm by George Orwell
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Based on or turned into a TV Show
Witches of East End by Melissa de la Cruz
The Pretty Little Liars Series by Sara Shepard
The 100 Series by Kass Morgan
The Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris
The Vampire Diaries Series by L.J. Smith
You started but never finished
I actually started working on finishing books I half read a while ago so I only have one on this list that is next in line after I finish the book I started in December. I actually loved this book but it got a little heavy for me when I was taking classes so I dropped it to read something a little lighter.
Going Rogue by Sarah Palin