Every year I try to outread myself. This year I read less books than expected. I suffer from the reader’s constant stress over not reading enough, buying too much, and being overly optimistic in my reading.
I spend almost as much time thinking about reading as I do actually reading. I like to browse bookstores, poke around online, and chat with friends. Numerous notes are made throughout the year to pick up another book recommended by a friend.
Looking at my shelves I’m simultaneously excited and worried. So many new worlds to enter, so many new voices to know, so many things to learn. And. . . not enough time! Will I read everything? Can I read everything? Shouldn’t I be rereading? I can’t recall what happened in that book. Or did that happen in another book? How should I spend my time, with a trusted book—an old friend, or test out a new place and author?
Last year was a mix of new and old authors.
- Last Will by Liza Marklund
- Make Something Up by Chuck Palahniuk
- Inferno by Dan Brown
- The Rotters’ Club by Jonathan Coe
- Armada by Ernest Cline
- The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins by Irvine Welsh
- Prince Lestat by Anne Rice
- Blackout by Mira Grant
- Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
- Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi
- A Curse on Dostoevsky by Atiq Rahimi
- Lifetime by Liza Marklund
- Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous
- Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
- In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
- Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
- Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa
- Between You and Me by Mary Norris
- A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe
- The Wolves of Midwinter by Anne Rice
- Fight Club 2 comics by Chuck Palahniuk
