2020 wasn’t a good year for a lot of reasons that I don’t need to tell you about because you already know them if you haven’t been living under a rock. But for reading, 2020 was an excellent year. After all, many people, myself included, had little else to do. If you’re interested in hearing about my reading habits over the last year, or if you want some tips on things to read, read on!
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that I set myself a yearly goal of reading 52 books: one book a week. In 2019, I did not achieve that goal. In fact, I missed by a single book (sniff). Here’s a list of all the books I did read in 2019:
March
1. De Verwarde Cavia – Paulien Cornelisse
2. Language Change: Progress or Decay? – Jean Aitchison
3. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace (this book is to blame for me reading so few books between last summer and now.)
I participated in the Dumbledore’s Army Readathon this January. A post to view my progress can be found here.
I also hosted the Mental Health Reading Challenge and participated in Femividual’s Feminism Reading Challenge. Her Bingo Card is at the bottom of this post.
1. Grief Is The Thing With Feathers – Max Porter
2. The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison (bingo square: black feminist)
3. The Bad Beginning – Lemony Snicket
4. Girl, Interrupted – Susanna Kaysen (Mental Health Reading Challenge) (bingo square: book about being a girl)
Uncharacteristically, I read one whole book and parts of three more, because I was just that eager to get started on all of them. I’ll finish them soon though, promise.
Find out how many points I earned for Gryffindor House…
A marginalized group I don’t often read about: prisoners. Orange Is The New Black by Piper Kerman.
Own voices book: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.
A book that empowers women: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys: race, gender and mental illness? How marginalized can you get?
An issue of personal significance. For me, that’s would be feminism, disability or mental illness. I’m going with Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen.
A book from my To Be Read: Paaz by Myrthe van der Meer, an account of bipolar disorder.
An internet hype: Everyone seems to be talking about I Love Dick by Chris Kraus.
A book recommended by a fellow blogger: I don’t know! Perhaps A Room Of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf? Not recommended by a blogger, but recommended by a friend.
The longest book I read was Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire. The shortest was probably The Lady With The Pet Dog by Anton Chekhov. I read two books of poetry, one by Richard Siken and one by Alan Ginsberg. I read eleven books I would classify as Young Adult and only one play: Brecht’s Dreigroschenoper.
Here’s a top five of my favorite books I read for the first time this year.
5. Doktor Glas by Hjalmar Soderberg
4. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
3. Reasons To Stay Alive by Matt Haig
2. The Yellow Wallpaper & Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
1. Americanah by Chimananda Ngozi Adichie
My least favorite book with absolutely no competition was:
Books I read this year with LGBTQIA main characters:
I was aiming for level Yellow, which means I wanted to read between 13 and 20 LGBTQIA books. As you can see, I never got that far. I read eight, which means I made it to level orange. Furthermore, part of the challenge was to write a review for each book, so I’m doing that now and making it into a game. There is only one rule: each review must be exactly ten words long. Here goes nothing.
This year I participated in the Feminism Reading Challenge, organized by Femividual, who has since taken her blog offline. The idea was to read as many books as possible from her list of feminist titles, as well as any other books that deal with feminist themes or topics.
My favorite feminist book of the year, perhaps my favorite book of the year full stop, was Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I know few novels that are simultaneously as rich and as light as this one.
Hey there everyone,
As you probably know by now, I am completely obsessed with reading challenges, especially ones that encourage you to read books centered around a theme. So, this year, I’ve decided to host my own. Welcome to the Mental Health Reading Challenge, which will kick-off on January the 1st.
The aim of the challenge is to raise awareness for the complexity and difficulty of mental illness, to erase stigma and to promote understanding and support. Reading, for me, is a transformative experience. It takes me out of myself and into the experience of other people. If all of us could bring ourselves to that level of empathy, the world would be a better place. I’ve written on this topic before here.
You can sign up for the challenge by commenting on this post. Please include your name or username, the number of books you want to read, and a Goodreads profile or blog where you’ll keep track of your progress.
There are going to be different levels of reader-awesomness.
To make it easier to find books you like, I’ve compiled a list of some of my personal favorites that deal with mental illness, as well as ones I haven’t read but that are widely popular. Of course, books that aren’t on this list are still admissible, as long as they feature at least one character with a mental health problem.
Hey everyone,
In this post I will keep track of my ongoing quest to read all of the books read by Rory Gilmore on everyone’s favorite feel good TV show: Gilmore Girls. I’ve copied down the list of books below. If anyone wishes to join me on this venture, drop me a line.
Source of the list is here.
Books I’ve read are in bold.
Books read so far: 41 of 340
Frenzied Fangirl 