2019 Reading List

This year I read 100 books! This beats my reading last year by almost 40 books. I know why– the readalouds. I’ve always readaloud to my girls, but this year we had a lot of transition (moving 2x, once to a new state!) and so I really readaloud a lot.

Here’s the breakdown of my (almost) 100 books:

• Around 45 of these were read-alouds to my children (children’s novels, like Wizard of Oz and The Borrowers)
• Around 12 were poetry books (one of which a lengthy anthology)
• Around 40 were nonfiction (on Christian Living / Theology, Writing, and Various Topics)

I didn’t read ONE single novel for myself last year–all my fiction was for the kids. I love children’s fiction–Roald Dahl’s Danny Champion of the World is probably one of my favorite books ever, for children or any human being–but for the same reasons I read fiction to the children–for enjoyment, teaching character, working through situations–I probably should read at least a little bit of it for myself.

Last year I attempted the Challies Challenge and failed–it was geared toward theological reading (which I do a lot of) but didn’t have much room for whimsical reading on topics various and wide (like I tend to do–grab whatever catches my fancy in the new-reads section of the library).

This year I decided to come up with my own booklist. Assuming I will read 100 books next year, I’m allotting a space for:

• 40 readalouds
• 20 poetry books

I’m not going to make a list of which poetry books/ readalouds I plan to read because I like to read what catches my eye there (and also whats in our homeschool curriculum).

For the other 45, I plan to read more books on poetry craft, much more fiction, and a few select Christian Living books (cutting back on my random nonfiction / random christian nonfiction)

Booklist:

(Christian Living)

1. You Who by Rachel Jankovic
2. Made for More by Hannah Anderson
3. When God Doesn’t Fix It by Laura Story
4. Table for 8 by Megan Francis
5. Holding on to Hope by Nancy Guthrie

(Writing Craft Books)

1. Nine Gates by Hirshfield
2. The Cure of Poetry by Kinzie
3. Your First Novel by Rittenburg
4. Poetic Meter and Poetic Form by Fussell
5. Poetry in Person by Neubauer
6. The Art of Syntax by Ellen Bryant Voigt
7. The Triggering Town by Richard Hugo
8. The Art of the Poetic Line by James Logenbach
9. The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young
10. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
11. Rules for the Dance by Mary Oliver
12. Letters to a Young Poet by Rilke
13. Real Sofistikashun by Tony Hoagland
14. Ordering the Storm by Susan Grimm
15. A Little Book on Form by Robert Hass

(Fiction)

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
2. The Awakening of Miss Prim by Natalia Fennorella
3. True Grit by Charles Portis
4. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell
5. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
6. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset
7. Bleak House by Charles Dickins
8. Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth
9. My Cousin Rachel by Daphne de Maurier
10. Austerlitz by W. G. Sewald
11. Atonement by Ian McEwan
12. The Hours by Michael Cunningham
13. Beloved by Toni Morrison
14. The Inn at the Edge of the World by Alice Thomas Ellis
15. The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O’Connor
16. Delta Wedding by Eudora Welty
17. A Month in the Country by J.L Carr
18. Gaudy Nights by Dorothy Sayers
19. Song of the Lark by Willa Cather
20. The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis

I don’t expect I’ll finish this list this year, but I’m going to try! I feel like this list is more purposeful for me than the Challies Challenge–these are books I Actually Want To Read but haven’t for one reason or another.

What are you reading this year?