Back in January, I made a public New Year’s Resolution to read a lot more books this year, and made a 36 book list to help me with my goal. Now that it’s July, I thought I’d catch you up on that list - what on it I’ve read, what I’ve added to it, and what I read that isn’t on it!
4. Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys
6. Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman
8. Sweetbitter, by Stephanie Danler
9. Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
10. Queen of the Conquest: England's Medieval Queens, by Alison Weir
11. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan, by Herbert P. Bix
12. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy
13. Children of the Jacaranda Tree, by Sahar Delijani
14. The Weight of Ink, by Rachel Kadish
15. Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs
16. The Art Forger, by B.A. Shapiro
17. The House of the Spirits, by Isabel Allende
18. The Japanese Lover, by Isabel Allende
19. The Gene, by Dr. Siddartha Mukherjee
20. The Martian, by Andy Weir
21. And The Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini
22. Oleander Girl, by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
23. A Little Life, by Hanya Hanagihara
24. 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
25. The Rook, by Daniel O'Malley
26. This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women, collected by Dan Gediman, Jay Allison, and Studs Terkel
27. The Lowland, by Jhumpa Lahiri
28. Mary, Queen of Scots: And the Murder of Lord Darnley, by Alison Weir
29. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
30. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
31. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
32. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
33. And The Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, by Randy Shilts
34. Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng
35. Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, by Neil Degrasse Tyson
36. Letter to My Daughter, by Maya Angelou
Obviously I haven’t crossed a ton off this list yet, but that’s okay because I’ve read a bunch of books not on here! I also read
1. Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda, by Becky Albertalli
2. Leah on the Offbeat, by Becky Albertalli
3. Heroes of Olympus, Books 2 - 5, by Rick Riordan
7. Trials of Apollo, Book 1 (and part of Book 2), by Rick Riordan
8. The Husband’s Secret, by Liane Moriarty
That brings my total to 15 books, if you count the fantasy series I had to finish before I even started on this list. I’m definitely a bit behind - I lost some steam for a bit there, but I’ve gotten it back and have been blasting through books again. I’m also currently halfway through Circe, Madeline Miller’s most recent release, and started A Darker Shade of Magic, By V.E. Schwab.
Other books I’ve added to the list are
Shades of Magic series, by V.E. Schwab (obviously)
Call Me By Your Name, by Andre Aciman
The Tea Planter’s Wife, by Dinah Jefferies
The Idiot, by Elif Batuman
Dietland, by Sarai Walker
Autumn, by Ali Smith
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mendel
The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang
The Humans, by Matt Haig
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers
I need to shout out Books with Emily Fox for more than half of the new books listed here. She’s the one Booktube channel I follow, and I don’t really feel like I need to follow more because she reads such a wide range of books and gives such thoughtful and concise reviews of what she’s read.
There are definitely more books that I’ll add to this list, but if I’m being a hundred percent honest, this has become more of a guide/general To Read list. I’m not going to hold myself to these books alone if something else catches my eye, because something else will draw my attention, and I will read it without hesitation. Reading shouldn’t feel like a chore - it should be done for your own enjoyment 😊
Happy reading!!
(Also perhaps go check out my most recent Youtube video!)
