Back in 2011, I walked into a book store. It may have been a used book store, which is even better because there’s a sense of the hunt at play. And while ordinarily this venue would fill me with joy, on this day in 2011, I had just started graduate school, and effectively knew every book I would be reading for the next seven years. Book stores only reminded me of possibilities I didn’t have time for.
Well, I’ve graduated twice since then, and I’ve got a stable job at a community college. And I noticed that 2019 was the year I started earnestly enjoying reading again, as opposed to feeling like I was sneaking something in between assignments. This was also the year that I really got my feet under me at the new job and my entire schedule significantly relaxed.*
*”Relaxed” is used here in a relative sense–no one who teaches a 5/5/2 of mostly composition courses can be said to have a schedule that even approaches “relaxed.”
Anyway, now that I’m reading again, and reading on purpose, I want to keep track of what I’m doing and what I intend.
Below are the books on my current TBR (To-Be-Read) pile. The plan is not to read them all in 2020–especially not with so many fantasy series on the trawl!–but to keep track of what I have read. I’ll add to this list (heavens!) over the next year. Maybe (let’s be honest) I’ll delete a few things. If I write up any blog posts on any of these books, I’ll link them here.
By the way, this list owes a lot to the only podcast I consistently listen to, Our Opinions are Correct.
Original List Length: 58. (December 26, 2020)
Read: 31
Key:
- Green text denotes a book I read
- Blue text denotes a book I read that was not originally on the list
- (Audio) denotes a book I read in audiobook format
- (Hybrid) denotes a book I read simultaneously in audiobook and traditional formats.
- Books I didn’t get to were carried over to the following year’s list, if I still wanted to read them.
- Alexander, Lloyd. The Book of Three.
- —. The Black Cauldron.
- —. The Castle of Llyr. (audio)
- —. Taran Wanderer. (audio)
- —. The High King. (audio)
- Austen, Jane. Emma. (hybrid)
- Ashman, Howard, with Alan Menken and Dennnis Green. Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. (hybrid)
- Butcher, Jim. The Dresden Files #2: Fool Moon. (audio)
- —. The Dresden Files #3: Grave Peril. (audio)
- —. The Dresden Files #4: Summer Knight. (audio)
- Butler, Octavia. Dawn.
- —. Adulthood Rites.
- —. Imago.
- Carillo, Ellen C. MLA Guide to Digital Literacy.
- Jordan, Robert. The Eye of the World. (audio)
- —. The Great Hunt. (audio)
- —. The Dragon Reborn. (audio)
- —. The Shadow Rising. (hybrid)
- LeGuin. Ursula. A Wizard of Earthsea. (audio)
- —. The Tombs of Atuan. (audio)
- Moxon, AR. The Revisionaries.
- Muir, Tamsyn. Gideon the Ninth.
- Porter, Chana. The Seep.
- Pratchett, Terry. The Wee Free Men. (audio)
- —. A Hat Full of Sky. (audio)
- Rothfuss, Patrick. The Slow Regard of Silent Things. (audio)
- Salesses, Matt. The Hundred-Year Flood.
- Scalzi, John. Redshirts.
- Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
- Strunk, William, and E. B. White. The Elements of Style.
- Vonnegut, Kurt, with Ryan North and Albert Monteys. Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Graphic Novel Adaptation.
Jeff (in the bowtie!) 