Beloved,
I have over 300 books and counting in the house I live. From that number I’ve read about 16% of them, which is about 50 books. I’m trying to make a resolution to read more books in general but specifically more books from my own physical pile. I literally cannot keep collecting books I’m not reading.
This year I’m aiming to read 24 books in total- two for each month. This is 11 more books than I planned to read last year. However, the past two years I’ve been exceeding my goals and reading well over twenty books, so I think this is doable. Out of 24, I plan to read at least 12 from my shelf (gotta leave a little wriggle for those frivolous romances I love so much). Last year I aimed for seven and even though I didn’t necessarily read the actual seven I set out on my list, I at least did read seven physical books that I owned. (A win is a win).
I’ve also made yet another resolution, which is, I don’t want to only read really really popular books, so I’ve split the list into three categories depending on how well known they are. So without further ado here are twelve books that I own that I plan to read this year.
BOOKS I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.
This category is books I’ve never ever heard anyone talk about. I have never even heard of the authors. I’m going in there absolutely blind.
1) Witch Child by Celia Rees.
The spellbinding diary of a teenage girl who escapes persecution as a witch–only to face new intolerance in a Puritan settlement.
Enter the world of young Mary Newbury, a world where simply being different can cost a person her life. Hidden until now in the pages of her diary, Mary’s startling story begins in 1659, the year her beloved grandmother is hanged in the public square as a witch. Mary narrowly escapes a similar fate, only to face intolerance and new danger among the Puritans in the New World. How long can she hide her true identity? Will she ever find a place where her healing powers will not be feared?
This was gifted to me by my friend Zee. We found a bookshop were the books were going for cheap and something about the cover and title just unsettled me.
2) A Summer Affair by Elin Hilderbrand.
Claire Danner Crispin, mother of four young children and nationally renowned glassblower, bites off more than she can chew when she agrees to co-chair a huge benefit concert on Nantucket. Claire is asked to chair the Nantucket Children Summer Gala, at least in part, because she is the former high school sweetheart of world famous rock star, Max West. Max agrees to play the benefit and it looks like smooth sailing for Claire—until she agrees to create a “museum-quality” piece of glass for the auction, pre-emptorily offers her best friend the catering job, goes nose-to-nose with her Manhattan socialite co-chair, and begins a “good-hearted” affair with the charity’s Executive Director, Lockhart Dixon.
Hearts break and emotions stretch to the point of snapping in this in-depth look at one woman’s attempt to deal with loves past and present, raise a family, run a business, and pull of a charity event unlike any the island of Nantucket has ever seen. Claire discovers that doing good and being bad are not mutually exclusive—and that nothing is ever as simple as it seems
I got this from the first farmers market I ever went to. I didn’t want to leave without buying anything so I decided to get a book and this is the one that interested me.
3) Pillow Talk by Freya North.
What keeps you up all night?
They were high-school sweethearts who hadn’t seen each other for seventeen years. And suddenly they’re in front of each other—in a tiny sweet shop in the middle of nowhere. Neither can quite believe it. These days, Petra works in London as a jeweller while Arlo has left his rock-and-roll lifestyle for the wilds of North Yorkshire. Out of the blue, their paths have just crossed. But for first love to have a second chance both must put their pasts to bed. However, there are skeletons in Arlo’s closet which keep him up at night. And just what is it that causes Petra to sleepwalk?
I must have gotten this when my sister and I went to Baobab bookshop though I’m not entirely sure. Similar to reasons of buying the previous book I just mentioned, I don’t like leaving bookstores without purchasing a book.
4) Who Cares if They Die by Wendy Dranfield.
Jane Doe hanging in Maple Valley’s woods. Officer Dean Matheson stands shivering against the cold night, trying not to look too closely at the gruesome scene before him. The medical examiner says it’s a case of suicide. But the fact that the victim isn’t wearing any shoes and there’s a stepladder placed beneath her makes Dean suspicious.
Then another body turns up.
Women are dying. Outcasts that no one would miss. Dean believes a twisted serial killer is roaming the streets of Maple Valley, hiding in plain sight. But he’s in over his head, and now he’s put a target on his own back. Trapped in a vicious game of cat-and-mouse with a killer who seems to know his every flaw. Dean must face his own demons if he has any chance of unearthing the disturbing truth. Before more women pay the price .
At this point I’m just guessing. I assume I got this book from a man who sells books in Zomba that my cousin plugged me to. But I could just be making that up. Anyway I haven’t read a detective thriller in most likely years so, variety.
BOOK I’VE HEARD SOMETHING ABOUT.
In this category I’m only mildly aware about an aspect of the book. Perhaps I started it, or the author is popular even if the book isn’t or I’ve read works of that author before and now I’m here.
1) Desert Flower by Waris Dirie.
Waris Dirie ran away from her oppressive life in the African desert when she was barely in her teens, illiterate and impoverished, with nothing to her name but a tattered shawl. She traveled alone across the dangerous Somali desert to Mogadishu — the first leg of a remarkable journey that would take her to London, where she worked as a house servant; then to nearly every corner of the globe as an internationally renowned fashion model; and ultimately to New York City, where she became a human rights ambassador for the U.N. Desert Flower is her extraordinary story
I’m honestly just trying to read more non-fiction that isn’t tied to my job. I’ve actually never heard anyone, anywhere talk about this story and I’m only familiar with it because I did start reading it like maybe half a decade ago but for one reason or the other I put it down. I do remember aspects of the story so I guess, it’s time I fully revisit.
2) The Babes in the Woods by Ruth Rendell.
With floods threatening both the town of Kingsmarkham and his own home and no end to the rain in sight, Chief Inspector Wexford already has his hands full when he learns that two local teenagers have gone missing along with their sitter, Joanna Troy. Their hysterical mother is convinced that all three have drowned, and as the hours stretch into days Wexford suspects a case of kidnapping, perhaps connected with an unusual sect called the Church of the Good Gospel. But when the sitter’s smashed-up car is found at the bottom of a local quarry–occupied by a battered corpse–the investigation takes on a very different hue.
One of my best friends, The Void herself, got this book for me waaaay back in like 2016 and I’ve never read it at all. However, I have read another book, that was gifted to me by another friend by this same author though it was the under the pseudonym Barbara Vine. The book in question is called the Chimney Sweeper’s Boy and I vaguely remember sort of enjoying that one and also finding it insane. So let’s see what Rendell/Vine has to offer with this ones.
3) The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ by Phillip Pullman.
This is a story. In this ingenious and spell-binding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told. Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after the final page is turned. For, above all, this book is about how stories become stories
Come on. You can’t tell me that title doesn’t at least intrigue you? I got it for that title alone. I know Phillip Pullman from his more famous trilogy His Dark Materials. I’ve never been curious about that particular body of work though I think as a kid I did watch the movie The Golden Compass which is based on the Northern Lights – the first book in trilogy. I hear a lot of people talk about it but I’ve never been interested in it. However, Good Man Jesus and Scoundrel Christ does have my attention.
4) The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro.
“You’ve long set your heart against it, Axl, I know. But it’s time now to think on it anew. There’s a journey we must go on, and no more delay…”
The Buried Giant begins as a couple set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen in years.
Sometimes savage, often intensely moving, Kazuo Ishiguro’s first novel in nearly a decade is about lost memories, love, revenge, and war.
Another Author I hear a lot about who I’ve never read. Unlike Pullman, I do fully plan on reading Ishiguro’s work and I have some of his other books in my possession. However, though I’ve heard of the award winning Never Let Me Go, I’ve never heard of The Buried Giant. I really really like the title but the reason I actually want to read this is because the copy I have has the most gorgeous cover.
BOOKS EVEN YOU SHOULD HAVE HEARD ABOUT.
These are popular books. Books even the biggest non-reader (unless you’re my aura faming other best friend) should have at least heard of somehow, somewhere.
1) Normal People by Sally Rooney.
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers – one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
This book was an internet sensation man. Every body was talking about this in like 2022 or there abouts and even now it’s still mentioned in many books spaces.
2) Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze.”The conjunction of a sense of humor with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.” —The New YorkerAwe and exhilaration—along with heartbreak and mordant wit—abound in Lolita, which tells the story of the aging Humbert Humbert’s obsession for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America. Most of all, it is a meditation on love—love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation.
I know most of the premise of this but this is one of the most controversial and most misunderstood books to have ever existed and yes, I’m slightly curious. Bonus because it raises my literary girl points.
3) Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, a Tamil boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
I didn’t know this was a book until quite recently actually. I watched the movie as a kid though and I remember the way the movie ended confused me so much – cause yes it was a metaphor but what it was a metaphor for? No clue. Maybe if I read it, I’ll get it.
4) A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry the troubled and bitter Rasheed, who is thirty years her senior. Nearly two decades later, in a climate of growing unrest, tragedy strikes fifteen-year-old Laila, who must leave her home and join Mariam’s unhappy household. Laila and Mariam are to find consolation in each other, their friendship to grow as deep as the bond between sisters, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter.
With the passing of time comes Taliban rule over Afghanistan, the streets of Kabul loud with the sound of gunfire and bombs, life a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear, the women’s endurance tested beyond their worst imaginings. Yet love can move people to act in unexpected ways, lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism. In the end it is love that triumphs over death and destruction.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a portrait of a wounded country and a story of family and friendship, of an unforgiving time, an unlikely bond, and an indestructible love.
I read the Kite Runner and I had very mixed feelings about it. Two of my other literary friends told me, this one a was a superior book so I guess I’ll be reading it.
Those are the twelve books I plan to read this year. What’s on your tbr this year, beloved?
