New year, renewed reading goals!
Once again, I will be traveling around the world through books. Since 2021, I’ve used The Book Girls’ Book Voyage: Read Around the World map to guide my reading. This year, I’ve created my own map and tweaked the regions to suit my interests. I separated Central America and the Caribbean from North America and included Middle East/North Africa instead of just the Middle East. My goal is to read more books set in countries I have not yet visited through books and set in regions I have not read as much from yet, in particular South America and Africa.
A highlight of 2024 was the diversity of books I read both in regard to author perspective and genre, and I want to continue that intentional reading this year. Sadly, the Diversity Across Genres reading challenge is not being hosted again this year so I am still finalizing how I’ll be accountable for that goal.
Other reading goals are to continue my exploration of Nordic literature with my ongoing Nordic Literature Reading Challenge (progress here), read women in translation from around the world, and read my own bookshelf (physical, digital, and audio).
Do you have any reading goals for the year?
All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham (2023)
Narrated by Karissa Vacker 🎧
I started the year off by finishing an unread BOTM selection that had been lingering on my shelf for a while. I needed something engrossing enough to keep me coming back, and this mystery/psychological thriller delivered. A mother’s toddler son was taken from their home in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep. The case went cold, but she was desperate and kept the search going, determined to find her son. The story was a little slow to get started, but as more information was gleaned about their pasts and her investigation moved forward with the help of true crime podcaster, it picked up and finished strong. ⭐️⭐️⭐⭐️
- Read My Own Shelf: BOTM selection
Untamed by Glennon Doyle (2020)
Narrated by Glennon Doyle 🎧
This is a memoir with the subtitle “stop pleasing, start living” for other editions. My book club chose it because it was a book that someone brought for our holiday book exchange (we all brought a book from our shelves, read or unread) and we decided it sounded like a good way to start off the new year. It turned out to be too much of a self help book in my opinion, and I only finished it for the sake of book club. I did admire the author’s honesty and courage to share so much personal information, and she did have some interesting observations on parenting and life in general, but overall not for me. ⭐️⭐
- Read My Own Shelf: Gifted
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore (2024) 📖
The setting was what drew me to this book, the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York, a place I’m familiar with from visits since high school. The story centers around the disappearance of a 13-year old camper during the summer of 1975. This camper happens to be the daughter of the wealthy family that owns the summer camp, and coincidentally, her older brother also disappeared 14 years old and was never found. Told through multiple perspectives in various time periods, it was an intriguing mystery with family drama and secrets and interesting characters that I really enjoyed. ⭐️⭐⭐️⭐️
- Read My Own Shelf: BOTM selection
James: A Novel by Percival Everett (2024)
Narrated by Dominic Hoffman 🎧
This was a fantastic listening experience; both the story and performance were exceptional (though I wish I’d had a map to better visualize the journey). It’s a retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain told from the perspective of Jim, an escaped slave and friend of Huckleberry. Huck fakes his own death to escape his abusive father while Jim runs away to avoid being sold and separated from his family. Together, they travel down the Mississippi River meeting all sorts of people and enduring a variety of experiences. I loved Jim, especially how he moved between his true educated, intellectual, and compassionate self and the carefully crafted persona he put forward to white people in order to survive. The relationship between him and Huck was heartwarming. This is not a light or easy read—the pre-Civil War era is not kind to Black people—but Jim’s story is extremely engaging and compelling. Highly recommend. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Author/Genre Diversity: Black / Historical Fiction
- Read Around the World: North America (USA)
- Read My Own Shelf: Audiobook courtesy of librofm’s Educator ALCs
What have you been reading lately?
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