The first three quarters of last year, I robbed my brain of the benefit of reading any books. I fixed that by Reading 10 books the last quarter of the year, and falling in love with reading again. At the end of the year, I reflected on those books and the adventures they provided. I promised myself that I would go on more adventures in 2020.

I spent a bit of time thinking about what books I was going to read this year. I finalized my list with the following:

  1. Unspeakable Things – Jess Lourey (Complete)
  2. The Name of the Wind – Patrick Rothfuss (currently reading/listening)
  3. We Were Soldiers Once… and Young – Harold G Moore, Joseph L. Galloway
  4. American Dirt – Jeanine Cummins
  5. Dead Mountain: The untold true story of the Dyatlov Pass incident – Donnie Eichar
  6. The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey
  7. Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the quest to bring down the most wanted man on Wall Street – Sheelah Kolhatkar
  8. The Outsider – Stephen King
  9. Dark Matter – Black Crouch
  10. The Closer: My Story – Mariano Rivera
  11. Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, renegades, infidels, and the brotherhood of war in Afghanistan – Sean Parnell
  12. Pet Cemetery – Stephen King
  13. The Alchemist – Paulo Coelho
  14. Being Mortal: medicine and what matters in the end – Atul Gawande
  15. Open – Andre Agassi
  16. Why we sleep: unlocking the power of sleep and dreams – Matthew Walker
  17. The Water Dancer – Tanehisi Coates
  18. The Tattooist of Auschwitz – Heather Morris
  19. The Goldfinch – Donna Tartt
  20. Born a Crime: stories from a South African childhood – Trevor Noah
  21. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a focused life in a noisy world – Cal Newport
  22. Permanent Record – Edward Snowden
  23. The Silent Patient – Alex Michaelides
  24. Midnight in Chernobyl: The untold story of the world’s greatest nuclear disaster – Adam Higginbotham
  25. Where the Crawdads sing – Delia Owens
  26. Mansfield’s Book of manly men: An utterly invigorating guide to being your most masculine self – Stephen Mansfield
  27. Moneyball: The art of winning an unfair game – Michael Lewis
  28. The Testaments – Margaret Atwood
  29. The Ride of A Lifetime: lessons learned from 15 years as CEO of Walt Disney Company – Robert Iger
  30. Writing that works: how to communicate effectively in business – Kenneth Roman
  31. I’ll be gone in the dark – Michelle McNamara
  32. Lord of the flies – William Golding
  33. A Clash of Kings – George R.R. Martin

Though there are 33 books in this list, my actual goal for the year is to finish 30 of them. There was no particular science to these choices, just some recommendations by friends and mere curiosity. I’m sure I am going to enjoy a lot of these books and probably dislike others. Such is the nature of giving yourself to a story.

I am also exploring the world of audiobooks for the first time. I started with The Name of the Wind, which is a long book. It is such a good story and I will most likely add the sequel to my list. Having no experience with audiobooks required I train my brain to listen to a book instead of reading it, but it proved to be fairly simple. It’s as easy as listening to a podcast — a very long one at that.

I’m also exploring Amazon Prime Reading which provides free reads for Prime members. I read Unspeakable Things from Prime Reading and I enjoyed it. You can’t go wrong with free* books, right?

I’ll continue to explore this list and update my progress to see how I’m doing. Let’s get reading!

*Prime membership includes a yearly fee, but I’m a user simply for the free shipping, and recently, some of their shows