2021 Master Reading List

It's the beginning of a new year and that means it's time to make a new master reading list of all the books I want to read in the year. This list includes all of the reading challenges I will be participating in, but isn't exhaustive, as I'll pick up some new releases from publishers and a few other books along the way.

As always, I will be completing the Popsugar Reading Challenge, which gives you ideas for fifty books to read. I always try to make a point of diversifying my bookshelf, and Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge helps me do that. They give you twenty-four prompts that are more difficult, including more authors of color and topics outside of your wheelhouse.

Additionally, I enjoy adding in a few of the smaller challenges, like the Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge, the RAD Reading Challenge, and a fun list of reading and activity prompts from the Reading Glasses Podcast. I'll be choosing five more books from Sanne's Back to University list - a compilation of all the required reading for a standard master's degree in literature. And one challenge that I picked up on a whim last year that I'll be adding to my list again this time is Jessica Turner's #ReadYourBooks challenge, where she encourages you to pull ten books that you already own but haven't had a chance to read yet.

Finally, and what I'm most excited about is a brand new book club for 2021, from writer and Twitter superstar, Roxane Gay. She has impeccable taste in books and is introducing her club members to twelve up-and-coming or underrepresented American authors. After reading the blurbs on a few of these, I can't wait to dig in!

By my count, that is 137 books on this list. That doesn't include the additional books I'll grab on a whim throughout the year. As always, I’ll be updating my list as I go along. Happy reading!

Popsugar Reading Challenge (Count: 50/50)

1. A book that's published in 2021: Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing - Lauren Hough

2. A genre hybrid: Citizen - Claudia Rankine

3. An Afrofuturist book: The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin

4. A book set mostly or entirely outdoors: Blind Descent - James M. Tabor

5. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover: On the Noodle Road - Jen Lin-Liu

6. A book with something broken on the cover: Crush - Tracy Wolff

7. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign: I Want My Hat Back - Jon Klassen

8. A book by a Muslim American author: Yes No Maybe So - Becky Albertalli & Aisha Saeed

9. A dark academia book: The Emperor of Ocean Park - Stephen L. Carter

10. A book that was published anonymously: Beowulf - Anonymous

11. A book with an oxymoron in the title: The Keeper of Lost Things - Ruth Hogan

12. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title: The Emerald Sea - Richelle Mead

13. A book about do-overs or fresh starts: The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

14. A book where the main character works at your current job: The Master - Colm Toibin

15. A magical realism book: The Peach Keeper - Sarah Addison Allen

16. A book set in multiple countries: You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat

17. A book that's won Women's Prize for Fiction: A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing - Eimear McBride

18. A book in a place to visit: The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek - Kim Michele Richardson

19. A book with a family tree: Hidden Valley Road - Robert Kolker

20. A book by a blogger, vlogger, or YouTube creator: Buffering - Hannah Hart

21. A bestseller from the 0990s: Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

22. A book about forgetting: What Alice Forgot - Liane Moriarty

23. A book whose title starts with Q, X, or Z: Z - Therese Anne Fowler & Jenna Lamia

24. A book you have seen on someone's bookshelf: Gravity’s Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon

25. A book featuring three generations: Homegoing - Yaa Gyasi

26. A locked-room mystery: Leave the World Behind - Rumaan Alam

27. A book about a social justice issue: The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander

28. A book set in a restaurant: Sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler

29. A book in a different format than you normally read: The Islanders - Meg Mitchell Moore

30. A book with a black-and-white cover: I'll Be Gone in the Dark - Michelle McNamara

31. A book by an Indigenous author: Braiding Sweetgrass - Robin Wall Kimmerer

32. A book with fewer than 1,000 reviews on Goodreads: An Effort to Understand - David Murray

33. A book that has the same title as a song: Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro

34. A book you think your best friend would like: Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline

35. A book about a subject you are passionate about: The Mercy of the Sky - Holly Bailey

36. A book about art or an artist: Van Gogh - Steven Naifeh & Gregory White Smith

37. A book that discusses body positivity: Shrill - Lindy West

38. A book everyone seems to have read but you? The Vanishing Half - Brit Bennett

39. A book found on the BLM reading list: Stamped From the Beginning - Ibram X. Kendi

40. Your favorite prompt from a past PS reading challenge - One By One - Ruth Ware

41. The longest book (pages) on your TBR list: 1Q84 - Haruki Murakami

42. A book you meant to read last year but didn't: We Can Be Mended - Veronica Roth

43. The shortest book (pages) on your TBR list: When Harley Has Anxiety - Regine Galante, PhD

44. A book from your TBR list you associate with a favorite person, place, or thing: Astrology - DK

45. The book on your TBR list with the prettiest cover: The Stationery Shop - Marjan Kamani

46. A book from your TBR list chosen at random: Sammy's House - Kristin Gore

47. The book on your TBR list with the ugliest cover: Tiny Beautiful Things - Cheryl Strayed

48. A DNF book from your TBR list: Possession - A.S. Byatt

49. The book that's been on your TBR list for the longest time: Summer Reading - Hilma Wolitzer

50. A free book from your TBR list: Good Prose - Tracy Kidder

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

1. A book you've been intimidated to read: Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

2. A nonfiction book about anti-racism: I'm Still Here - Austin Channing Brown

3. A non-European novel in translation: Convenience Store Woman - Sayaka Murata

4. An LGBTQ+ history book: A Queer History of the United States - Michael Bronski

5. A genre novel by an Indigenous author: Race to the Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

6. A fanfic: After - Anna Todd

7. A fat-positive romance: Get a Life, Chloe Brown - Talia Hibbert

8. A romance by a trans or nonbinary author: I Wish You All the Best - Mason Deaver

9. A middle-grade mystery: From the Desk of Zoe Washington - Janae Marks

10. An SFF anthology edited by a person of color - Friday Black - Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

11. A food memoir by an author of color: Yes, Chef - Marcus Samuelsson

12. A work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color - The Missing American - Kwei Quartey

13. A book with a cover you don't like: A Bend in the Road - Nicholas Sparks

14. A realistic YA book not set in US, UK, or Canada: The Light in Hidden Places - Sharon Cameron

15. A memoir by a Latinx author: My Beloved World - Sonia Sotomayor

16. An #ownvoices book about disability: Unbroken: 13 Stories Starring Disabled Teens

17. An #ownvoices YA with a black character that isn't about pain: Watch Us Rise - Renee Watson

18. A book by/about a non-Western world leader: MBS - Ben Hubbard

19. A historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist: The Nickel Boys - Colson Whitehead

20. A book of nature poems: Summer Snow - Robert Hass

21. A children's book with a disabled character: Planet Earth is Blue - Nicole Panteleakos

22. A book set in the midwest: Gilead - Marilynne Robinson

23. A book that demystifies a common mental illness: Not Broken - Alli Baldocchi

24. A book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn't die: Oogy - Larry Levin

Modern Mrs. Darcy Reading Challenge (Count: 12/12)

1. A book that's currently on the bestseller list: Where the Crawdads Sing - Delia Owens

2. A book with a reputation for being un-put-down-able: One Last Stop - Casey McQuiston

3. A book about a topic or subject you already love: The God Equation - Michio Kaku

4. A cookbook, guidebook, or how-to book: Nourish - Reshma Shah & Brenda Davis

5. A Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award winner: Interior Chinatown - Charles Yu

6. A classic you didn't read in school: Lord of the Flies - William Golding

7. A debut novel: Real Life - Brandon Taylor

8. A book about books or reading: The Strange Library - Haruki Murakami

9. A book you've been meaning to read: Astrophysics for People in a Hurry - Neil DeGrasse Tyson

10. A memoir, biography, or book of creative nonfiction: Until the End of Time - Brian Greene

11. A Newbery Award winner or honor book: New Kid - Jerry Craft

12. A re-read: The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

The Audacious Book Club Reading List (Count: 12/12)

1. Black Futures - edited by Jenna Wortham & Kimberly Drew

2. Detransition, Baby - Torrey Peters

3. The Removed - Brandon Hobson

4. Milk, Blood, Heat - Dantiel W. Moniz

5. Libertie - Kaitlyn Greenridge

6. Of Women and Salt - Gabriela Garcia

7. The Five Wounds - Kirstin Valdez Quade

8. Somebody's Daughter - Ashley C. Ford

9. The Renunciations - Donika Kelly

10. The Heart Principle - Helen Hoang

11. Sometimes I Trip on How Happy We Could be - Nichole Perkins

12. Afterparties - Anthony Veasna So

Back to University Reading List (Count: 5/5)

1. The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World - Harlan Ellison

2. Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm

3. Ann Veronica - H.G. Wells

4. The Man of Property - John Galsworthy

5. The Monk - Matthew Gregory Lewis

Books of Poetry (Count: 5/5)

1. The Twenty-Ninth Year - Hala Alyan

2. The Undressing - Li-Young Lee

3. Love Poems - Pablo Neruda

4. Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

5. The Sun and Her Flowers - Rupi Kaur

The RAD Reading Challenge (Count: 9/9)

1. A book of poetry: Sharks in the Rivers - Ada Limon

2. A random library grab: The President’s Daughter - Bill Clinton & James Patterson

3. A one-word title: Sula - Toni Morrison

4. A teenage fave: Boy Crazy Stacey - Ann M. Martin

5. A book in your fave color: Born a Crime - Trevor Noah

6. A book by a black author: How High the Moon - Karyn Parsons

7. A book longer than 500 pages: Paris - Edward Rutherfurd

8. A book shorter than 200 pages: Breakfast at Tiffany's - Truman Capote

9. A backlist read from a fave author: Raven Stole the Moon - Garth Stein

Reading Glasses Challenge (Count: 10/10)

1. A banned book: I Am Jazz - Jessica Herthel

2. Poetry collection: Why I Wake Early - Mary Oliver

3. A microhistory: Coal: A Human History - Barbara Freese

4. A book by a Native/First Nations author - Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse

5. A book recommendation by your librarian: More Than Enough - Elaine Welteroth
   

• Figure out your wheelhouse

• Attend a virtual book event

• Review a bookstore/boost a bookstore on social media

• Review a book by a BIPOC

• Get rid of a book that you are never going to read

#ReadYourBooks Challenge (Count: 10/10)

1. The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux

2. A Funeral for an Owl - Jane Davis

3. The Mysterious Island - Jules Verne

4. The Korean Word for Butterfly - Jamie Zerndt

5. The Impressionist - Tim Clinton

6. At Every Turn - Anne Mateer

7. The Last Day - Emily Organ

8. The Novelist - Angela Hunt

9. Mother Teresa: A Life Inspired - Wyatt North

10. The Dalai Lama: A Life Inspired - Lynn M. Hamilton