Kathy's 2018 TBR Must-reads

I am new to this group, but have been a member of ROOTs for some years. I am hoping this group will help me to organize which books to read of the hundreds (yes, hundreds) of books unread on my shelves. My overall goal is to read 40 books in 2018 from my shelves, but here are my top 12 and my alternate 12. The year preceding each book is the year the book came into my house:

THE LIST
✔ 1. abt 1969 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
2. before 2009 Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
3. before 2009 Typical American by Gish Jen
4. before 2009 Unsettled by Melvin Konner
5. before 2009 The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
6. 2011 Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
7. before 2009 Scenes of Clerical Life by George Eliot
8. before 2009 I, Claudius by Robert Graves
9. 2011 Barnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
10. before 2009 Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood
11. 2014 The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
12. 2015 My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead

Alternates

13. before 2009 His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph Ellis
14. 2014 The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
15. 2015 South Riding by Winifred Holtby
16. 2015 Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
17. 2015 Still Life by Louise Penny
18. 2015 Washington Square by Henry James
19. 2016 The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
20. 2016 Old Filth by Jane Gardam
21. 2016 Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
✔ 22. 2016 The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
23. 2016 An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor
24. 2016 Good Behaviour by Molly Keane

As you can see, some are more recent purchases than others. I read The Scarlet Letter in high school, but don't remember much except the letter "A". One is a book lent to me that I need to return (The Time Traveler's Wife); others I've started but never finished (My Life in Middlemarch and Unsettled).

Well, if I get these done, that will be 24 read and xxx (she mumbles...) left to read! :)

I was surprised when I read The Time Traveler's Wife and liked it. I usually wind up definitely not liking a book when it's totally popular, but, this one was different. It's just enough Sci Fi that's it made it interesting, but, it doesn't get bogged down in that part of the book. (Sort of like Lock In by John Scalzi which always seems to be marketed like a Sci Fi book, but, I definitely think it should be shelved with the Mysteries.

Ooh so many good books on the list. I'm a big Agatha Christie fan so am excited to see Murder on the Orient Express on your list. Overall you can't go wrong with Dickens. The George Washington biography was really good as is pretty much anything by Joseph Ellis. I have I, Claudius on my shelves and hope to get to it soon.

So many books I recognize and have not yet read. I look forward to your thoughts on many of them. Happy reading!

Interesting list! There are several titles I recognise, among which I've read three (The Time Traveler's Wife, Murder on the Orient Express and The Moonstone), have one unread on my shelves (I, Claudius) and one that I couldn't finish (Master and Commander). I look forward to reading your thoughts on them all.

>2 DanieXJ: Thanks, that is encouraging about The Time Traveler's Wife. A woman in my book club lent it to me in 2014, and she probably has forgotten that I still have it! I feel guilty every time I look at it.

I tried the first 20 pages a couple of years ago, but got pulled away by other books. I'm not normally a Sci-Fi reader, but Niffenegger is a local writer for me (Chicago) so I wanted to give her a try.

>3 LittleTaiko: Thanks for stopping by, Stacy. I have a whole bunch of Agatha that I've picked up at library sales, Goodwill, etc. I picked Murder on the Orient Express because I want to read it before I see the movie. I've read a few others of hers here and there, but at one point thought of reading them in order. I go back & forth with that plan.

Speaking of Dickens, I'll also be reading Nicholas Nickleby with the group read. There are only 3 full novels of CD that I haven't read yet: Barnaby Rudge, Dombey & Son, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Hopefully after this year I'll knock it down to 2.

Glad to hear Joseph Ellis is good; somewhere around here I also have a book by him about Jefferson. And I think I, Claudius is somewhere on Paul's BAC challenge this year, so that should work out well.

>4 Narilka: Yep, Gale, so many that stare at me UNREAD. Hoping to change that this year. Thanks for visiting!

>5 passion4reading: Hi, Petra. I read both The Moonstone and The Woman in White some 40 years ago, and literally ALL I remember about them are their titles! So I bought used copies of both and plan to re-read, although it's going to be more like a first reading, I think.

The Moonstone is a great deal of fun! The one thing I know about Master and Commander (other than the movie based on it, which I love) is that O'Brian is great at historical accuracy, which is always a plus in my book.

Murder on the Orient Express I want to get to this year as well.

Happy reading!

>10 Petroglyph: Yes, I remember enjoying The Moonstone, but not much beyond that. :(

Both my brother and my aunt have enjoyed the O'Brian series, and they are both mostly non-fiction readers. I'm hoping it works for me, as I've picked up the first 4 books in the series.

I'm looking forward to almost all of these books, so it should be a good year of reading!

I like how you have the year you acquired the book. :)

I just purchased A Country Doctor, so I look forward to seeing what you think of that one.

>12 billiejean: Thanks! The pre-2009 books were all acquired pre-LT, when I didn't keep track of when or where I got my books. I've been tracking the books I read since 1985, so that was easy to carry over.

I've been wanting to get to the Irish Country Doctor series for almost 2 years now, SO THIS IS THE YEAR!

I hated Scarlet Letter, haha, I read it in Early American Lit in high school, only lit class I've ever hated! Almost all the titles we had to read for it were just miserable, lmao.
The Things They Carried is a great one, as is The Moonstone, which I just read a couple weeks ago. :)

A Nicholas Nickleby group read, eh? Hm. I'd say I'd try to join in there (that one's on my list this year) but I probably won't be getting to it for at least a couple mos if not more, so I'd be too late for the thread. Oh well! :P

>14 .Monkey.: I can't remember how I felt about The Scarlet Letter in high school (50 years ago!), but I don't think it was positive. A couple of years ago I read The Blithedale Romance by Hawthorne, and enjoyed it. I found Hawthorne a more nuanced writer than I expected, so I thought I'd give old Hester another try.

The NN group read is here

https://www.librarything.com/topic/279365

>6 kac522:, are you SURE she's forgotten? lol. I lent a book to an aquaintance about ten years ago that has never been mentioned between us again since, and it won't be me who does it first. But I remember!

About 1969 for the Hawthorne's arrival, wow! I thought reading Treasure Island after it hung around my house since the 1980s was special, but you've got me beat. You were letting anticipation build up for your re-read like a fine wine. Is it your original school copy?

I'm very close to putting Patrick O'Brien on my pile, so many good things said about that series. Graves for sure needs to get there eventually.

Barnaby Rudge is really not bad, despite being the least popular Dickens novel (I'd rate at least Curiosity Shop as worse). Made more interesting if you know it was written as historical fiction, and that Grip inspired Poe's 'The Raven'. Only three CD novels left, good for you! I'm about halfway.

I would like to read more Atwood and Bradbury, and sample Wilkie Collins. Nothing but praise for Henry James, Agatha Christie and Anne Frank.

>16 Cecrow: You are probably right about the lent book--OK, OK, to the top of the pile it goes!

And yes, it's my original high school copy with my notes in the back cover, in handwriting I no longer recognize....

>16 Cecrow: & >17 kac522: - Now I feel guilty about the book a friend loaned me years ago that I never read. I think it's even been part of the TBR challenge before. Sigh. One of these days.

So a half-year has gone by; I've read 36 books; 17 of them from the TBR shelves; and absolutely ZERO from my TBR Challenge lists....

UNTIL TODAY!

Because I have started Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl from my Alternate List.

I have several others (again mostly from the Alternate List) at my bedside. So I shan't give up entirely....check this space :)

Welcome back and good luck with making progress with your list!

Sticking to these lists is hard: there's so much else to read (and watch, and do, and people to interact with).

I have a shelf on which I dump books that I really should be getting to one of these days. Every time I'm itching to start a new book, I grab one of those. It's working out fine, so far.

>20 LittleTaiko:, >21 Petroglyph: I think what derails me is getting all these BBs from LT, and then taking them out from the library, and never getting to MY books. But I'm determined to finish Anne Frank (along with a library book!)

Still plenty of time to catch up :)

>23 Narilka: Definitely!

And you've started with an excellent choice.

OK, Kids, finally finished my first TBR book (from the Alternate pile): Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl.

I thought I would fly through this book. I've read other holocaust books, but this was hard for me to pick up. As I finished the book it occurred to me that it was different because I knew Anne's fate. And it was different because she writes in such an intimate way. And because I longed for the fresh air and sunshine, too.

I honestly can't recall if I read this as a young person. My vague remembrance is that I tried, but gave up. So glad I finished this time as a senior citizen.

>26 kac522:, it's a unique read for there being nothing sensational, for its unpolished nature, for its earthy realism. I think if Anne had any inkling millions would read her diary someday and tried to buff it up, it could never have been as good and true.

>27 Cecrow: It's also that I've read Holocaust memoirs before, but of course, they are available to read _because_ the writers survived, so something good is destined in the end. The ending here is known and terrible. She is so positive at the end, and yet...

Woo-hoo! Finally finished one: The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This novel of Good and Evil, guilt and revenge, the Individual and Society, can't possibly be the same book as that boring one I read in high school 50 years ago, can it? What a difference a half-century makes. Whoever thought high school kids could fully absorb this book, must not understand high school kids. Most of this book went way over my head at age 15, and hit all kinds of nerves at 65.

Hawthorne has such great imagery. And he dives right into the psyche, especially our Rev Dimmesdale. Most remarkable to me is that I'm reading this book in the 21st century, which was written in the mid-19th century, about America in the mid-17th century. All these layers of "looking back" impact how I reacted to the story, Hawthorne's view and our history. This is not a quick and easy read, but it kept my interest throughout, and made me think at every turn.

>29 kac522:, glad that's a good one, it's still ahead of me. I think it was in the running for my last couple of TBR challenges, maybe next year.

>30 Cecrow: I would never have re-read it (after my h.s. experience), except that a year or two ago I read Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance for my book club. I probably would never have read Hawthorne on my own. But I was so impressed with the little novella, that I had to give the novel another try. As an adult. I found my beat-up h.s. copy, but to give myself "fresh" eyes, I invested in a new, clean Penguin copy. Maybe that helped, too?

Nice review!

>32 billiejean: Thanks! It may end up being one of my better reads this year.

Thank you to all the encouraging comments and participants this year.

I, however, was sadly lacking in completing my goals--only 2 of the books on my lists were read in 2018. I did, however, read a total of 23 TBRs in 2018; it's just that only 2 of them were from my list here.

At this time, the jury is still out as to whether I'll try this again in 2019. I may take a "gap" year and come back in 2020.

In the meantime, the best of the new year to all, and keep reading those TBRs!

Happy New Year!

>34 kac522:, sounds almost like my first year of this challenge in 2011, I didn't score very well then either. Sounds like you've reached a different conclusion than I did, but don't take it as a failure! Anything that gets you thinking about how and why you choose what to read is a worthy lesson, imo, whatever the outcome.

>36 Cecrow: Thanks for the encouraging words. I'm trying something different this year: I've decided to work on various "projects" (rather than "challenges"--makes it sound more on-going, I guess). Mostly it is reading the next few books in a series, or reading all the works of some of my favorite authors. In most cases, it involves a mix of TBRs and library books. So if it's a TBR, it will be more space on the shelf, but if not, I'm still getting something accomplished. We'll see how it goes. It will certainly be fun, since I've chosen all series and authors I enjoy.

>37 kac522:, some of my TBR Challenge books are ... library books. Tell no one.

>38 Cecrow: ...your secret is safe with me, Comrade...