A Book to Read

My 2017 reading goals are a little more focused this year. I didn’t meet my Goodreads reading goals last year. In fact, I read fewer books in 2016 than I have read in previous years. It’s disappointing, but it happened. I was very much involved in other things- social justice, working for a horrible company that took advantage of me and did not pay me, and trying to refocus our financial security so that it was more of a blanket and less of a fire alarm.

This year, I wanted to try something different. Rather than setting my reading goals based on a random number, I made a list of all the books that I want to read and decide how many books that I would complete this year based on that. Choosing a random number is far more stressful in the long run.

My focus is on reading various works of fiction AND on expanding the number of works of non-fiction that I read. I am also ensuring that I read books written by authors from different religions, cultures, races, sexual orientation, and gender identification. My goal is to expand my world view.

Reading Goals:

• 80% of the books read should be books that I already own. Those are tagged with an “*” below.
• Books that I have read previously don’t count unless I am rereading them with my daughter (**).
• YA books that I am reading with my daughter count.

Fiction

1. The Wool Pack by Cynthia Harnett
2. Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins
3. A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes
4. The Evening and the Morning and the Night by Octavia Butler
5. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson***
6. Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson***
7. Ashes by Laurie Halse Anderson
8. Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson***
9. Dunne by Frank Herbert*
10. Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden
11. The Conquest of Plassana by Emile Zola
12. Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allendale***
13. The Infinite Plan by Isabel Allendale***
14. Mistress of Rome by Kate Quinn*
15. Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs*
16. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie***
17. How to be an American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway*
18. Son by Lois Lowry*
19. Tree of Life by Maryse Condé*
20. Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson*
21. The Last of the Empire by Sembene Ousmane
22. I, Mona Lisa by Jeanne Kalioridis*
23. Kindred by Octavia Butler*
24. No One Writes the Colonel by Gabriel Garcia Marques*
25. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott*
26. Good Wives by Louisa May Alcott*
27. Eve: A Novel of the First Woman by Elis*sa Elliott*
28. The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
29. Leaving Tabasco by Carmen Boullosa
30. Asunder by Chloe Aridjis
31. Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (Author), Karen S. Kingsbury (Translator)
32. The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin (Author),  Ken Liu (Translator)
33. Branded: Fall of Angels by Keary Taylor
34. The Legend of King Arthur by Sir James Knowles***
35. The Devil’s Lament by Kenneth W. Harmon*
36. The Wrong Girl by CJ Archer*
37. All Families are Psychotic by Douglas Coupland*

Short Story Collections

1. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury*
2. Summer Lightening and Other Stories by Olive Senior*
3. The Complete Shorter Fiction of Virginia Wolf by Virginia Wolf*
4. The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights by Richard Burton*
5. The Metamorphosis and other stories by Franz Kaftka*
6. The Oresteia by Aeschylus*

Non-Fiction

1. Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett
2. Becoming Nicole: The Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt
3. The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting by Alice Miller
4. But Some of Us are Brave by Kasha (Gloria T.) Hull, Patricia Bell-Scott, and Barbara Smith
5. The Gnostic Gospel by Elaine Pagels*
6. How Jesus Become God by Bart D. Ehrman*
7. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins*
8. Fearless Girls, Wise Women, and Beloved Sisters by Kathleen Ragan and Jane Yolen*
9. Jefferson’s Sons: A Founding Father’s Secret Children by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley*
10. The Republic by Plato*