2019 Master Reading List

This is the post I wait all year long to write. Once it's live, I go back and visit it several times a month to update. Reading is such a big part of my life and this is my roadmap for 2019. This year, I'll be participating in six reading challenges, as well as reviewing books for publishers, working on book launches, and reading the extra books I pick up throughout the year.

Like the previous years, I'll be doing the Popsugar Reading Challenge, which consists of fifty fun prompts and encourages reading in a broad spectrum of genres. The Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge is more difficult, as it asks you to step outside of your box and read more from authors of color and in genres you might not frequent regularly. I'll also be reading ten books from the Back to University list. I've done this the last few years and have had a chance to read a lot of university-level English literature "required reading" that I didn't get to when I was in school.

A new collection of prompts I'm adding this year is the Modern Mrs Darcy Reading Challenge. I worked on Anne Bogel's book launch for I'd Rather Be Reading, and really connected with her love for books. She does a weekly podcast called What Should I Read Next, and is full of great ideas for new books to read. A couple of my selections for her prompts were her own recommendations.

Just last week, a blogging colleague and fellow bookworm jumped in and created her own reading challenge, so of course, I was going to participate! The prompts for the A RAD Reading Challenge are super fun and cover a variety of genres.

That's about 110 books, just in reading challenge prompts. Will I be able to get through them all? Stay tuned. As always, I'll be updating this list through the year as I check books off. So, buckle up. Here we go!

Popsugar Reading Challenge (Count: 50/50)

1. A book becoming a movie in 2019 - The Art of Racing in the Rain (Garth Stein)

2. A book set in space - Space (James A. Michener)

3. A book that makes you nostalgic - Love Comes Softly (Janette Oke)

4. A book by two female authors - The Wife Between Us (Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen)

5. A book written by a musician - Clapton (Eric Clapton)

6. A book with a title that contains "salty," "sweet," "bitter," or "spicy" - Bitter is the New Black (Jen Lancaster)

7. A book you think should be turned into a movie - The Tenth Justice (Brad Meltzer)

8. A book set in Scandinavia - A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman)

9. A book with at least one million ratings on Goodreads - The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)

10. A book that takes place in a single day - After Dark (Haruki Murakami)

11. A debut novel - The Leavers (Lisa Ko)

12. A book with a plant in the title or on the cover - The Untelling (Tayari Jones)

13. A book that's published in 2019 - Things You Save in a Fire (Katherine Center)

14. A book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature - How to Build a Dinosaur (Jack Horner & James Gorman)

15. A reread of a favorite book - One More Thing (B.J. Novak)

16. A book about a hobby - Life in Motion (Misty Copeland)

17. A book recommended by a celebrity you admire - Thick (Tressie McMillan Cottom)

18. A book you meant to read in 2018 - Night of Miracles (Elizabeth Berg)

19. A book with "love" in the title - The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)

20. A book with "pop," "sugar," or "challenge" in the title - Pop Goes the Weasel (James Patterson)

21. A book featuring an amateur detective - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Stieg Larsson)

22. A book about family - First Family (David Baldacci)

23. A book with an item of clothing or accessory on the cover - Girls in White Dresses (Jennifer Close)

24. A book written by an author from Asia, Africa, or South America - The Sympathizer (Viet Thanh Nguyen)

25. A book inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore - Circe (Madeline Miller)

26. A book with a zodiac sign or astrology term in the title - Zodiac (Romina Russell)

27. A book published posthumously - The Simarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien)

28. A book that includes a wedding - An Amish Wedding (Beth Wiseman)

29. A book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie - The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen)

30. A book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter - Serena (Ron Rash)

31. A retelling of a classic - Vinegar Girl (Anne Tyler)

32. A book with a question in the title - What If It's Us? (Becky Albertalli & Adam Silvera)

33. A ghost story - The Girl Who Chased the Moon (Sarah Addison Allen)

34. A book set on a college or university campus - The Secret History (Donna Tartt)

35. A book with a two-word title - Enduring Love (Ian McEwan)

36. A book about someone with a superpower - Red Queen (Victoria Aveyard)

37. A novel based on a true story - Salvage the Bones (Jesmyn Ward)

38. A book revolving around a puzzle or game - Warcross (Marie Lu)

39. A book told from multiple character POVs - My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult)

40. Your favorite prompt from a previous Popsugar Reading Challenge - The Zookeeper's Wife (Diane Ackerman)

41. A cli-fi (climate fiction) book - American War (Omar El Akkad)

42. A "choose-your-own-adventure" book - Star Wars: A Luke & Leia Story (Cavan Scott & Elsa Charretier)

43. An "own voices" book - To All the Boys I've Loved Before (Jenny Han)

44. Read a book during the season it is set in - The Snow Child (Eowyn Ivey)

45. A LitRPG book - Ready Player One (Ernest Cline)

46. A book with no chapters - Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)

47. Two books that share the same title (1) - Peace (Richard Bausch)

48. Two books that share the same title (2) - Peace (Aristophanes)

49. A book that has inspired a common phrase or idiom - Silver Linings (Debbie Macomber)

50. A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent - Anathem (Neal Stephenson

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge (Count: 24/24)

1. An epistolary novel or collection of letters - Dear Committee Members (Julie Schumacher)

2. An alternative history novel - The Plot Against America (Philip Roth)

3. A book by a woman and/or AOC that won a literary award in 2018 - Home Fire (Kamila Shamsie)

4. A humor book - The Arrangement (Sarah Dunn)

5. A book by a journalist or about journalism - The Last of the President's Men (Bob Woodward)

6. A book by an AOC set in or about space - Binti (Nnedi Okorafor)

7. An #ownvoices book set in Mexico or Central America - Disappeared (Francisco X. Stork)

8. An #ownvoices book set in Oceania - A Wreath for Rivera (Ngaio Marsh)

9. A book published prior to 1/1/19 with fewer than 100 reviews on Goodreads - Princess (Jane Dismore)

10. A translated book written by and/or translated by a woman - The Story of My Teeth (Valeria Luiselli)

11. A book of manga - Peach Fuzz (Jared Hodges & Lindsay Cibos)

12. A book in which an animal or inanimate object is a POV character - Black Beauty (Anna Sewell)

13. A book by or about someone that identifies as neurodiverse - Thinking in Pictures (Temple Grandin)

14. A cozy mystery - Still Life (Louise Penny)

15. A book of mythology or folklore - The Folklore of Discworld (Terry Pratchett)

16. A historical romance by an AOC - Something Old, Something New (Beverly Jenkins)

17. A business book - The 4-Hour Work Week (Timothy Ferriss)

18. A novel by a trans or nonbinary author - If I Was Your Girl (Meredith Russo)

19. A book of nonviolent true crime - No Place to Hide (Glenn Greenwald)

20. A book written in prison - Long Walk to Freedom (Nelson Mandela)

21. A comic by an LGBTQIA creator - Don't Call Me Dirty (Gorou Kanabe)

22. A children's or middle-grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009 - Lucky Broken Girl (Ruth Behar)

23. A self-published book - Still Alice (Lisa Genova)

24. A collection of poetry published since 2014 - Lord of the Butterflies (Andrea Gibson)

Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge (Count: 10/10)

1. A book you've been meaning to read - All the Bright Places (Jennifer Niven)

2. A book about a topic that fascinates you - The Universe in a Nutshell (Stephen Hawking)

3. A book in the backlist of a favorite author - Ayiti (Roxane Gay)

4. A book recommended by someone with great taste - The Knight (Gene Wolfe)

5. Three books by the same author - Chaos Walking trilogy (Patrick Ness) (book 2, book 3)

6. A book you chose for the cover - The Geography of Bliss (Eric Weiner)

7. A book by an author who is new to you - The Art Forger (B.A. Shapiro)

8. A book in translation - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

9. A book outside your (genre) comfort zone - Warp (Lev Grossman)

10. A book published before you were born - Brave New World (Aldous Huxley

10 Books from the Back to University Reading List (Count: 10/10)

1. The First Men in the Moon (H.G. Wells)

2. The Secret Agent (Joseph Conrad)

3. The Way of All Flesh (Samuel Butler)

4. The Last Man (Mary Shelley)

5. On the Beach (Nevil Shute)

6. The Day of the Triffids (John Wyndham)

7. The Marble Faun (Nathaniel Hawthorne)

8. Israel Potter (Herman Melville)

9. The Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde)

10. Kim (Rudyard Kipling)

5 Books of Poetry (Count: 5/5)

1. Reflections of a Peacemaker (Mattie Stepanek)

2. Milk and Honey (Rupi Kaur)

3. Slouching Toward Nirvana (Charles Bukowski)

4. Aimless Love (Billy Collins)

5. She Walks in Beauty (Caroline Kennedy)

A RAD Reading Challenge (Count: 10/10)

1. A book of poetry - Poems (Emily Dickinson)

2. A classic you didn't read in school - Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)

3. A memoir from someone you admire - Night (Elie Wiesel)

4. A fun or beautiful children's book - Wish (Barbara O'Connor)

5. A book with a cover in your favorite color - Wonder (R.J. Palacio)

6. A book by an author who shares a name with you - The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating (Elisabeth Tova Bailey)

7. A book about food or a cookbook - What She Ate (Laura Shapiro)

8. A book blowing up your Insta feed - A Spark of Light (Jodi Picoult)

9. A book published the year you were born - The Neverending Story (Michael Ende)

10. A book your BFF recommends - John Adams (David McCullough)