I usually post this closer to the start of the new year, but it’s still early. Goodreads offers a yearly challenge to set for yourself the number of books you’ll read throughout the year. I usually set it for my birthday. Last year I planned on 54 books and I read 70 books. It might have been more than that since some of the books don’t appear on Goodreads. This year’s goal is 55. I’ve already read 14 books and re-read 3.

I have not included links, but you can search any that seem interesting online, either to buy (in physical form or e-book) or borrow from your library (again either in physical form or e-book).

Happy Reading!

BOOKS

• January
• Waiting in Joyful Hope: Daily Reflections for Advent and Christmas 2020-2021 – Michelle Francl-Donnay
• Solutions and Other Problems – Allie Brosh

• February
• Is This Anything? – Jerry Seinfeld
• Bag Man: The Wild Crimes, Audacious Cover-Up, and Spectacular Downfall of a Brazen Crook in the White House – Rachel Maddow and Michael Yarvitz
• Welcome to the United States of Anxiety: Observations from a Reforming Neurotic – Jen Lancaster
• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents – Isabel Wilkerson
• A Promised Land – Barack Obama

• March
• Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat – Bee Wilson
• A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith – Timothy Egan

• April
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
• So Here’s the Thing… Notes on Growing Up, Getting Older, and Trusting Your Gut – Alyssa Mastromonaco and Lauren Oyler
• Not by Bread Alone: Daily Reflections for Lent – Mary DeTurris Poust
• Inside Camp David: The Private World of the Presidential Retreat – Michael Giorgione
• When Women Invented Television: The Untold Story of the Female Powerhouses Who Pioneered the Way We Watch Today – Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
• The Magnificent Medills: America’s Royal Family of Journalism During a Century of Turbulent Splendor – Megan McKinney
• Integrating Delmar 1957: The Story of a Friendship – Margaret B. Cunningham and Arlen R. Westbrook
• The Alchemist – Paolo Coelho
• Lily Dale: the Town That Talks to the Dead – Christine Wicker
• Gilded Lives, Fatal Journey: The Titanic’s First-Class Passengers and Their World – Hugh Brewster
• American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, the Woman Who Defied the Puritans – Eve LaPlante

• May
• From Cold War to Hot Peace: An American Ambassador in Putin’s Russia – Michael McFaul
• The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire – Jack Weatherford
• Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy – Adam Jentleson
• Sensational: The Hidden History of America’s “Girl Stunt Reporters” – Kim Todd
• Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps – Richard Rohr

• June
• Up From Slavery – Booker T. Washington
• Wow, No Thank You.: Essays – Samantha Irby
• A Jesuit’s Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life – Rev. James Martin, SJ
• We Are Never Meeting in Real Life: Essays – Samantha Irby
• Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers – Bob Eckstein
• “Live from Cape Canaveral”: Covering the Space Race, from Sputnik to Today – Jay Barbree
• Wicked Albany: Lawlessness & Liquor in the Prohibition Era – Frankie Y. Bailey, Alice P. Green
• Freedom’s Detective: The Secret Service, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Man who Masterminded America’s First War on Terror – Charles Lane

• July
• Information Hunters: When Librarians, Soldiers, and Spies Banded Together in World War II Europe – Kathy Peiss
• Without Precedent: Chief Justice John Marshall and His Times – Joel Richard Paul
• 18 Tiny Deaths: The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics – Bruce Goldfarb

• August
• Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage – Anne Lamott
• Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin – Jill Lepore
• I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran and Closing the Case on Jimmy Hoffa – Charles Brandt
• Undaunted: Surviving Jonestown, Summoning Courage, and Fighting Back – Jackie Speier
• The Devil May Dance: A Novel (Charlie and Margaret Marder Mystery, 2) – Jake Tapper
• I Alone Can Fix It: Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year – Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker

• September
• Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI – David Grann
• In the Footsteps of Margeurite Bourgeoys in Montreal, Walking Tour (small book, about 30 pages)
• Carry On: Reflections for a New Generation – John Lewis, read by Don Cheadle (audiobook)
• I Have Something to Tell You: A Memoir – Chasten Buttigieg
• Reflections from Both Sides of the Glass Ceiling: Finding My True Self in Corporate America – Stephanie Battaglino
• Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service – Carol Leonnig
• The Presidents of War: The Epic Story, From 1807 to Modern Times – Michael R. Beschloss

• October
• The Last Camel Died at Noon – Elizabeth Peters
• Rachel Maddow: A Biography – Lisa Rogak
• Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of World War II – Chester Nez and Judith Schiess Avila
• The Snake, the Crocodile, and the Dog – Elizabeth Peters
• Beloved – Toni Morrison

• November
• The Hippopotamus Pool – Elizabeth Peters
• Seeing A Large Cat – Elizabeth Peters
• Lost Kingdom: Hawaii’s Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America’s First Imperial Adventure – Julia Flynn Siler
• The Ape Who Guards the Balance – Elizabeth Peters
• The Falcon at the Portal – Elizabeth Peters
• He Shall Thunder in the Sky – Elizabeth Peters
• Lord of the Silent – Elizabeth Peters
• The Golden One – Elizabeth Peters
• Children of the Storm – Elizabeth Peters
• Guardian of the Horizon – Elizabeth Peters
• The Serpent on the Crown – Elizabeth Peters
• Tomb of the Golden Bird – Elizabeth Peters
• A River in the Sky – Elizabeth Peters
• The Painted Queen – Elizabeth Peters
• Mystery Stories – Elizabeth Peters
• The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear – Kate Moore

• December
• Here, Right Matters: An American Story – Alexander S. Vindman
• Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could – Adam B. Schiff
• Re-read the Amelia Peabody books #s 1-16 , plus 19 & 20

Here are some movies that may entertain you!

1. Bill & Ted Race the Music
2. Ant-Man and The Wasp
3. Land of the Lost
4. The Interview
5. Zach Snyder’s Justice League
6. Tropic Thunder
7. Captain America: Civil War
8. Godzilla
9. Kong: Skull Island
10. Godzilla: King of the Monsters
11. Godzilla vs. Kong
12. The Trial of the Chicago 7
13. Outside the Wire
14. Army of the Dead
15. Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre
16. Galaxy Quest
17. Doctor Strange
18. The Tomorrow War
19. Black Widow
20. An American Werewolf in London
21. Shang Chi: The Legend of the Ten Rings
22. Planet of the Apes
23. Beneath the Planet of the Apes
24. Escape from the Planet of the Apes
25. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
26. Battle for the Planet of the Apes
27. Venom: Let There Be Carnage (drive-in)
28. The Eternals
29. Dune
30. An Open Door
31. Ghostbusters: Afterlife
32. Fiddler on the Roof
33. Spider-Man: No Way Home
34. Spider-Man: NWH