Friday, January 1, 2016

Our Books for 2016

This is our sixth year of committing to reading books from our To Be Read (TBR) piles and talking about them on this here blog. (Our lists from 2011-2015 can be found over in the sidebar.)

Last year, we picked four books to read and discuss at the same time. We enjoyed that, so we're doing it again. This year's joint selections were semi-random, but ended up being two re-reads (Garp and Beloved) and two "How have we missed these?" reads (Five Children and Housekeeping).
 
Here is the schedule for our shared reads:
  • January: The World According to Garp  by John Irving
  • April:  Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
  • July: Beloved by Toni Morrison
  • December: Housekeeping  by Marilynne Robinson
Additionally, we each have each chosen 10 other books from our TBR piles all with copyright dates prior to 2015 (forcing us to dig deep on the shelf). Here are our complete lists for 2016... 

Jenny's Books
Here is a screen cap from Shelfari of the books Jenny has chosen:
(click to see that bigger)

In alphabetical order, they are:
      Kelly's Books
      Here is a screen cap from Shelfari of the books Kelly has chosen:
      (click to see that bigger)

      In alphabetical order, they are:
      1. Beloved by Toni Morrison (July)
      2. Detroit: A Biography by Scott Martelle 
      3. F. Scott Fitzgerald On Writing by F. Scott Fitzgerald
      4. Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit (April)
      5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
      6. Housekeeping  by Marilynne Robinson (December) 
      7. Life After Life by Jill McCorkle [in progress]
      8. Lincoln on Leadership by Donald T. Phillips 
      9. Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi 
      10. Traffic by Tom Vanderbilt
      11. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by David Shafer 
      12. Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
      13. Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton 
      14. The World According to Garp  by John Irving (January)
      We each have a total of 14 books on our lists -- 12 for 12 months, plus two alternates, just in case we cannot stand a couple of them. Again, four of them are shared books that we will both read in our designated months, as noted above.

      As we finish them, we write about them here (Spoiler warning: we are spoiler-iffic with the spoilers) and then we cross 'em off of this list by linking to our reviews/reports.

      Credit where it's due: We originally started this project in 2011 by participating in the TBR challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader -- Adam is no longer hosting these challenges, but we still thank him for inspiring us to start this thing up.

      Here's to 2016!

      2 comments:

      1. Hey, just a thought! We picked December last year because I had all those grad school classes. But now I'm realizing we're doing two "read along" months in a row. Do you prefer doing the last one in October or November?

        It really is fine with me, but I realized that the thing that made us choose those months won't be an issue in 2016....BECAUSE I'LL BE DONE WITH GRAD SCHOOL IN JUNE!

        Wheeeee!

        ReplyDelete
        Replies
        1. I'm fine doing 2 read-along months in a row. Or we can plan for March 2017 at the end of the year if we want.

          YAY for finishing grad school!!

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