When last we met, I talked about my favorite books that I read last year, and now I’d like to turn to the books I’m excited to read this year.
Over the past seven or so weeks, I took on some seasonal hours at a local big-chain bookstore, and subsequently, my to-read list just exploded. I mostly worked a register, so there wasn’t too much exploring I could do, but when they put me on shelving–oh man. It was incredibly difficult to not read the back of every interesting title. And not just in history! I was exposed to genres I don’t read a lot of, like sci fi/fantasy, nature/science, and fiction (in general). Who could have guessed that the book I’m most looking forward to I would have chanced upon in the medicine section?
So these are the titles that I secretly scribbled down in my little notebook while looking around to see if anyone was watching (I’m still not sure if this was frowned upon or not, so I didn’t want to take any chances at the time), plus some that I already had wanted to check out. I’m aiming for 20 books this year.
Fiction
- The Intuitionist/Zone One/The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
- Borne/Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer
- American War by Omar El Akkad
- How Long ’til Black Future Month? by NK Jemisin
- The Terror by Dan Simmons
- Severance by Ling Ma
- In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
- My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
Non-fiction
- The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War by Joanne B. Freeman (currently reading)
- The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris
- American Eden: David Hosack, Botany, and Medicine in the Garden of the Early Republic by Victoria Johnson
- Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey along America’s Forgotten Border by Porter Fox
Poetry
- They Can’t Kill Us until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
I’m trying to read more books by women and writers of color, so this is just a start. If you have any recommendations, please feel free to get in touch!