A few years ago my dad asked me how many books I’ve read in my lifetime. I laughed and told him it was impossible to say for sure. Words are like oxygen to me.
“Well, can you make a guess?” he asked.
“No.”
A pause in the conversation.
“Would you write down every book you read for the next year?”
“Yes!”
Just like that a family tradition was born. At the end of every year I email the list of books I read to my parents. Once or twice they’ve shared their lists with me as well. Sometimes they’ve recognized stuff they also read that year, but most years I seem to find authors that they aren’t that familiar with.
This year dad had an additional request:
“Blog about what you read!”
He wanted me to add Amazon links to every single book in this post so that I’d make a little money if anyone decides to purchase one of them through my affiliate links. Instead I’ve decided to only provide links to the stories I really loved. For privacy reasons I am not including the books I read for the site I write reviews for. If you were to add them to this list it would be about twice as long.
Longterm readers may notice similarities between this list and what I recommend every week Suggestion Saturday.
January
Mary Oliver “A Thousand Mornings” (poetry)
Etta James “Rage to Survive” (biography)
Sharyn McCrumb “The Ballad of Tom Dooley” (fiction)
John H. Willoughby “Ellen: The Story of the Orphan Whose Adoption by Pierce and Rachael MacNeill of Cavendish Was the Inspiration for ‘Anne of Green Gables’ by L.M. Montgomery” (biography)
[…] been keeping track of every book I read for the last four years. Over half of the books I read were for a review site that I volunteer at under a […]
[…] I couldn’t begin to give him an answer to that question, but it did make me decide to start keeping track from that moment forward. The previous posts in this series are as follows: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. […]
U always read more than anyone I have ever known. Remember book it with Pizza Hut coupon reward days?
Yes! You have no idea how much I looked forward to those trips to get my personal pizzas. It was so much fun.
[…] been keeping track of every book I read for the last four years. Over half of the books I read were for a review site that I volunteer at under a […]
[…] I couldn’t begin to give him an answer to that question, but it did make me decide to start keeping track from that moment forward. The previous posts in this series are as follows: 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013. […]