2016 Book List

Count: 6/112 

(completed books in bold, with titles linking to my blog post about them)

Instead of doing my required grad school reading for class tomorrow, I'm compiling a book list! I have a goal to read 100 books this year (not counting grad school books--or at least only counting a few of them maybe). "How do you have time for this," you ask? "You are in grad school and will spend half the year writing a thesis while taking a full load of graduate level classes and working!" Well, it's simple. I'm cutting back on Netflix, Hulu, and the like, and I am requiring myself to read something non-school related for a bit every night before bed to me hopefully relive some anxiety and sleep better. And once I'm out of school, I'm hoping for a lot of time to go sit out by Lake Michigan and read . . and reading on public transit on my way to work (because I'm also hoping for a job) . . . and reading all the time like I used to. So here is a list of 112 things to read this year (I will probably combine some of them) that I compiled from about 5 different book challenges. I'll try to remember to come back and update the list with what I chose to read when I finished each item.

Also, as one last side note: in my searching for book lists, I found this one: a woman read a book from every country in the world one year! Maybe I'll do that in 2017.

Authors:

• Woman under 25: I am Malala, Malala Yousafzai
• YA author of color
• Graphic novel by a woman
• Post-apocalyptic novel by woman
• Southeast Asian writer
• Popular author's first book
• Never-read author
• Favorite author but previously unread
• Author with my initials
• Celebrity author
• Modernist woman
• Comedian

Expanding Horizons:

• Non-western history
• About an indigenous culture
• Middle Eastern (by/about)
• About an immigrant/refugee to US
• LGBTQIA memoir
• About Africa by an African
• One book from each continent
• About an unfamiliar culture

Form and Genre:

• Essay collection
• Contemporary poetry collection
• Non-superhero comic (released in last 3 years)
• Play
• Short story collection
• Satire
• Feminist sci-fi
• Classic romance
• Futuristic romance
• Murder mystery
• Dystopian novel

Adaptations and Translations:

• Book that is now a movie
• Translated into English
• Book that inspired a TV show
• Based on a fairy tale
• Movie coming out this year

Rereads:

• Favorite childhood book
• Makes me cry
• Required high school reading

Series:

• 1st book in a series I've never read
• 1st book in a series by an author of color
• Trilogy
• Book and it's prequel

Non-fiction:

• Science
• Biography
• Feminist
• Food memoir
• Political memoir
• Autobiography
• About women in war
• Based on a true story
• Religion
• Self-improvement book: Daring Greatly, Brene Brown

When Published:

• the 1980s (or the decade in which you were born)
• 2016
• Before 1916
• 1989 (birth year)
• 20th century classic

Awards and Recommendations:

• Audie Award (listen)
• Recommended by librarian/bookseller 
• Chosen for me by friend or family member: The Alchemist, Paul Coelho
• Banned
• Pulitzer Prize: All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr
• Book Mom loves
• Bad reviews
• National Book Award
• YA bestseller
• NYT bestseller
• Recommended by someone I just met
• Oprah's Book Club
• Family member recommendation
• 1st seen in bookstore

Length, Titles, and Covers:

• 500+ pages
• 600+ pages
• Under 150 pages
• Under 100 pages: Letters to a Young Mormon, Adam S. Miller
• # in the title
• 1 word title
• Antonyms in the title
• Color in the title: The Red Notebook, Antoine Laurain
• Blue cover
• Based on its cover

Shame On Me:

• Been meaning to read
• Should have read in school but didn't
• Started but never finished
• Own but never read
• Intimidating
• Bottom of the to-read list
• Book that scares me

Set In . . . :

• Pre-1900 (historical fiction)
• A place I want to visit
• The future
• Where I live
• Christmas time
• My home state
• Europe
• Summer
• A road trip
• An island
• A world with magic

Characters:

• Main character deals with mental illness
• Nonhuman characters
• Protagonist shares my occupation

(EDIT: I realized I should probably cite the original booklists I compiled this from. The 2015 and 2016 Popsugar challenges, Bustle, Read the World, Modern Mrs. Darcy, and Book Riot Read Harder)