To be perfectly honest, I’m primarily making this blog post for myself LoL
A couple of weeks ago I asked my Facebook friends to recommend books for me to read in 2017 and said I’d add some of them to my reading list. Now that I’m pulled together a list out of their suggestions I wanted to have it one nice central location with links to those books on Goodreads. I could totally do the list in meatspace, but the links require something online and so this blog post has been born.
Besides, maybe you want to join me in reading some of these?
In no particular order the books I’ve added to my reading list based on the suggestions of my Facebook friends are:
- Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- The Reburialists by JC Nelson
- The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar
- Signal to Noise by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History – ed. by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older
- The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin
- Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
- Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older (AB)
- Salsa Nocturna: Stories by Daniel José Older
- Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older
- Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal*
- All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy**
- Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
- Re: Colonised Planet 5, Shikasta by Doris Lessing
- The Source by James Michener
- Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr
- Civil War Land in Bad Decline by George Saunders
- Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold***
- When the Moon was Ours by Anne-Marie McLemore
- The Weight of Feathers by Anne-Marie McLemore
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
- Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit
- City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett
Phew! I’d only intended to add twenty of the books people suggested to this list to leave lots of room for random books I come across and want to read, friend’s novels, that sort of thing… but I couldn’t quite whittle this one down to less than twenty four. For example, someone suggested I read ‘Something by Daniel José Older’ and then when I started looking at all his books I couldn’t choose just one, so he’s actually on this reading list four times O_o Similarly, I couldn’t decide between the two books by Anne-Marie McLemore that I’ve included on here.
I added something from every person who took the time to suggest something to me. As a result, a few of these books don’t really look like they are “my thing” but I’ve been surprised many times before. I will give all of these a fair shot. I don’t finish books I’m not enjoying and I’ve been known to step away within just a few pages but I promise to give each of these at least 20 pages. We’ll see how that goes 🙂
*funny story. I bought the sequel to this when it came out without realising it was a sequel. I’ve meant to pick up this book for forever but my TBR pile is high and my memory imperfect. This reading list will help with at least one of those things 😉
**one of my friends (I forget who) described this as the most disturbing book they’ve ever read. I’ve wanted to read it ever since but never got around to it. Now I will.
***The books suggested were actually #2 and #3 in this series and though Goodreads assures me they work well as standalone novels I just can’t bring myself to start a series in the middle.
AB = Audiobook. These are stories I hope to listen to rather than read.
