2022 Reading Challenge

Can I join? I usually read about one a month, at a rate of 30-60 minutes before bed. Usually sci-fi or detective/noir novels. I read a lot of technical and legal stuff with work, so with age I migrated towards lighter reading for leisure.

Currently reading:

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Since the pandemic began, I kept a tally for fun (excluding all graphic novels):

March-December 2020
1- Andy Weir "Artemis"
2- John Scalzi "Lock In"
3- John Scalzi "Head On"
4- Blake Crouch "Recursion"
5- Stephen Mack Jones "August Snow"
6- Cara Black "Murder In The Marais"
7- Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Fris "The Boy In The Suitcase"
8- Magdalen Naab "Death Of An Englishman"
9- Robert Crais "The Monkey's Trenchcoat"
10- John Sandford "Rules of Prey"
11- Michael Connelly "The Black Echo"
12- Max Gladstone "The Emperess of Forever"

January-December 2021
13- Henry Chang "Chinatown Beat"
14- John Sandford "Shadow Prey"
15- Karo Hanalainen "Cruel Is The Night"
16- Michael Connelly "The Black Ice"
17- Timothy Hallinan "Crashed"
18- Peter Lovesey "The Last Detective"
19- Ian Rankin "Knots and Crosses"
20- Timothy Hallinan "Little Elvises"
21- Walter Mosley "Down The River Unto The Sea"
22- Michael Connelly "The Concrete Blonde"
23- David Swinson "The Second Girl"
24- Stephen Mack Jones "Lives Laid Away"
25- Henning Mankell "Faceless Killers"
26- Michael Connelly "The Last Coyote"
 
I'll be catching up on some James Rollins to begin the year. In the works are The Seventh Plague, The Demon Crown, Crucible and The Last Odyssey. Nothing too heavy.

For anyone looking for an app to organize their reading and keep track of stuff, I like Reading List. It's super basic and for your eyes only - no pressure to rate, review or follow.
 
I’ll be in. I have a Goodreads account where I keep track of my yearly numbers. I tend to not review.

My goal is 25. I fell short of my 30 in 2021 because it was a v bad year and I spent a lot of time playing animal crossing instead.

I’m planning on getting back to my routine of reading for at least 30 minutes before bed. I sleep much better. I’m 15% through Mexican Gothic and my next book will be the Little Steven autobiography because it’s the Best Show book club selection. It’s going to be ruff.

I’m looking forward to what everyone readsssa
 
Bsdmr2 said:
I would also add, if reading kids books counts then we read my 4 year old 3 books a night - so my tally drastically increases from 12 to god knows how many a year!
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3 books a night really is the perfect number. I do the same with my 4 year old - except when he loses stories as a consequence for misbehavior. He also has the option most nights he's with us to trade 1 or 2 stories in bed for 1 or 2 of his read-along 7" story records instead. But lately it's been all about 5-minute Star Wars stories - which I sometimes get so excited about I'll sneak in an extra!
 
I think I only read like 4 books last year, so maybe my goal should be like 7?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to put together a reading list?

I want to do a mix of classics and newer fiction and 1 or 2 essay or historical books.

I’m thinking right now:

  • Frank Herbert, Dune
  • Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1
  • Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
  • Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I’m also curious about the huge list of other authors that I’ve never read, like Susanna Clarke, John Le Carré, Lauren Groff, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula K Le Guin.
 
Ericj32 said:
I think I only read like 4 books last year, so maybe my goal should be like 7?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to put together a reading list?

I want to do a mix of classics and newer fiction and 1 or 2 essay or historical books.

I’m thinking right now:

  • Frank Herbert, Dune
  • Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1
  • Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
  • Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I’m also curious about the huge list of other authors that I’ve never read, like Susanna Clarke, John Le Carré, Lauren Groff, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula K Le Guin.
Click to expand...
I’ve not read any of those! When I’ve been stuck over recent years on not knowing where to turn as someone definitely not an avid reader, I’ve found that the Booker Prize is often a good place to go to for reading inspiration, and then I’ve done a similar thing to you and thought back about classics I’ve never touched or know nothing about - Mark Twain, All Quiet on The Western Front etc
 
I’m game!

I just finished this book: A002F5B5-C637-431E-856B-54847B4A429A.jpeg
Step It Up & Go by David Menconi. It was a survey of popular music in NC. Good, yet fairly academic type read. It was a Christmas book last year that took me forever to read (which is more often the norm these days.)

I picked 22 books. Hoping to get my 33 1/3 reading back up to snuff and figured I’d read a bunch more books while I’m at it. (I’m usually reading about four at a time).

Next up is:
384BE67B-0BD3-4174-AC56-7B53B16070C5.jpeg

Which just edged out Questlove’s new book as the one I was most excited about from a rather substantial Book Christmas:
021E8A99-9118-4439-AC2B-815186060DCE.jpeg
 
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Ericj32 said:
I think I only read like 4 books last year, so maybe my goal should be like 7?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to put together a reading list?

I want to do a mix of classics and newer fiction and 1 or 2 essay or historical books.

I’m thinking right now:

  • Frank Herbert, Dune
  • Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1
  • Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
  • Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I’m also curious about the huge list of other authors that I’ve never read, like Susanna Clarke, John Le Carré, Lauren Groff, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula K Le Guin.
Click to expand...
Well, I gotta recommend Knausgaard if you're already considering it. Be warned though; if it's something you enjoy you'll want to get through all 6 in short order. I read something between each one but I was always anxious to get back to it. Not even sure why. And apparently Book 6 is 1200 pages so that will be tough for me to do in short order after I finish Book 5 this week. (I don't have a copy of 6 yet anyway)
 
Lee Newman said:
I’m game!

I just finished this book: View attachment 123556
Step It Up & Go by David Menconi. It was a survey of popular music in NC. Good, yet fairly academic type read. It was a Christmas book last year that took me forever to read (which is more often the norm these days.)

I picked 22 books. Hoping to get my 33 1/3 reading back up to snuff and figured I’d read a bunch more books while I’m at it. (I’m usually reading about four at a time).

Next up is:
View attachment 123557

Which just edged out Questlove’s new book as the one I was most excited about from a rather substantial Book Christmas:
View attachment 123558
Click to expand...
That Bourdain book is high up on my wantlist. I read Kitchen Confidential once a year and always enjoy his shows. His passing as a celeb was the one that hit me most for some reason, although it wasn’t completely surprising considering many of his heroes did the same.

The “Roadrunner” documentary is well worth watching if you haven’t already seen it. Very well made IMO.
 
I set my official Goodreads goal this year to 52, so one book a week. Last year I read 79 total so that is definitely doable but I have some longer ones on my list this year that I hope to get to. Last year, I set out to read all of Dickens's novels in chronological order, so next up I have Nicholas Nickelby which is over 800 pages and there are a few other longer classics I am thinking about.

I also want to get through some of the books/ebooks I have actually paid for instead of just borrowing books from my library's app...
 
I am currently reading The Broken Court (Kyra Baxter Series Book 2)

Started this one yesterday after finishing book 1. Very good so far.

I few years back I could have easily read at least 1 book a week. But with how many hours I have been putting in with freelance / second jobs lately that cut the number of books down that I read last year to just over 30. I broke 100 books one year a few years back on Goodreads.
 
Ericj32 said:
I think I only read like 4 books last year, so maybe my goal should be like 7?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to put together a reading list?

I want to do a mix of classics and newer fiction and 1 or 2 essay or historical books.

I’m thinking right now:

  • Frank Herbert, Dune
  • Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1
  • Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
  • Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I’m also curious about the huge list of other authors that I’ve never read, like Susanna Clarke, John Le Carré, Lauren Groff, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula K Le Guin.
Click to expand...

For Le Carré, I'd go with The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. It's a classic for a reason, it's stand-alone (although George Smiley makes an appearance) and it's not too long.
 
Ericj32 said:
I think I only read like 4 books last year, so maybe my goal should be like 7?

Does anyone have suggestions on how to put together a reading list?

I want to do a mix of classics and newer fiction and 1 or 2 essay or historical books.

I’m thinking right now:

  • Frank Herbert, Dune
  • Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book 1
  • Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall
  • Marlon James, The Book of Night Women
  • Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
  • Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life
I’m also curious about the huge list of other authors that I’ve never read, like Susanna Clarke, John Le Carré, Lauren Groff, Salman Rushdie, and Ursula K Le Guin.
Click to expand...
I've read A Little Life, I personally loved it but it's very polarizing. I also read Susanna Clarke and Lauren Groff for the first time last year, Piranesi was one of my favorites of the year!
 
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