Claire's optimistic reading list

[Claire]

Read:
10/52
1. A book from the Goodreads Choice Awards 2016 The Widow
2. A book with at least 2 perspectives (multiple points of view)
3. A book you meant to read in 2016 We Need to Talk About Kevin
4. A title that doesn't contain the letter "E" Wolf Hall
5. A historical fiction The Book Thief
6. A book being released as a movie in 2017 The Glass Castle
7. A book with an animal on the cover or in the title The Master and Margarita
8. A book written by a person of color
9. A book in the middle of your To Be Read list: Species of Spaces and Other Pieces
10. A dual-timeline novel Life After Life
11. A category from another challenge
12. A book based on a myth The Lightning Thief read: 4/10/2017
13. A book recommended by one of your favorite authors To the End of the Land or Collected Poems
14. A book with a strong female character My Brilliant Friend
15. A book written or set in Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland) A Man Called Ove
16. A mystery The Girl on the Train
17. A book with illustrations jon I Want My Hat Back
18. A really long book (600+ pages) The Pillars of the Earth
19. A New York Times best-seller The Wrong Side of Goodbye
20. A book that you've owned for a while but haven't gotten around to reading: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
21. A book that is a continuation of a book you've already read A Storm of Swords
22. A book by an author you haven't read before: Middlesex
23. A book from the BBC "The Big Read" list (link) Vanity Fair
24. A book written by at least twoauto's Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
25. A book about a famous historical figure?
26. An adventure book The Three Musketeers
27. A book by one of your favorite authors
_28. A non-fiction Mythologies
29. A book published outside the 4 major publishing houses (Simon & Schuster; HarperCollins; Penguin Random House; Hachette Livre) - check all the editions Tre volte all'alba
30. A book from Goodreads Top 100 YA Books (link) The Fault in Our Stars
31. A book from a sub-genre of your favorite genre The Night Circus
32. A book with a long title (5+ words, excluding subtitle) Veinte poemas de amor y una canción desesperada; Cien sonetos de amor
33. A magical realism novel 1Q84
34. A book set in or by an author from the Southern Hemisphere In ongenade South Africa

35. A book where one of the main characters is royalty the romanov sistersThe Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra
36. A Hugo Award winner or nominee (link) The Graveyard Book
37. A book you choose randomly
38. A novel inspired by a work of classic literature Lavinia
39. An epistolary fiction The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
40. A book published in 2017: House of Names
41. A book with an unreliable narrator The Sense of an Ending
42. A best book of the 21st century (so far) A Visit from the Goon Squad
43. A book with a chilling atmosphere (scary, unsettling, cold) The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories
44. A recommendation from "What Should I Read Next" (link) The Color of Magic
45. A book with a one-word title Middlemarch
46. A time travel novel Time and Again
47. A past suggestion that didn't win (link) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
48. A banned book The Color Purple
49. A book from someone else's bookshelf The Storyteller
50. A Penguin Modern Classic - any edition Alone in Berlin
51. A collection (e.g. essays, short stories, poetry, plays) Breakfast at Tiffany's
52. A book set in a fictional location Water en vuur

I have a few open spots and some overlapping with the popsugar reading challenge.
I hope to be able to do it as reading that many books in my non-native language ( lots haven't been translated or are out of print) might be the biggest challenge

[Zaz]

I'm happy to see several people reading Strange&Norrell, we'll have a nice support group for this huge slow guy. I'll also read The Book Thief.

The Night Circus and The Graveyard Book are 2 favorites. I Want My Hat Back was quite fun, I didn't really enjoy the 2nd (it was creepy) but also liked the 3rd.
The Girl on the Train is a good page turner, but not a good book in my opinion and it's pretty depressing. Think about reading something fun after it!

[J]

Are you reading the Hitchhiker's Guide for the first time? If so, I am so envious of you. I would add in the note that the first book in the series is not the whole story. The first and second books make up the first full narrative -> but it's one of my favorites. (Side note: Douglas Adams wrote for Monty Python's Flying Circus and when the show ended, he was looking to do more comedy writing for the small screen. He ended up writing a Radio Show called: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It was a smash hit and he was offered significant $$$ to turn out a novelization of the same. To fit it to books, he had to either cut some of the story or add to it and make it two books, he went with the latter).

The second book of that series, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, is my favorite Sci-Fi of all time. My favorite fantasy book of all time is also on your plan: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

A similar note: The Color of Magic is another book which is great but has a story which takes place over two books. If you don't have room for two books in your plan, we could offer other solid Discworld suggestions of one off books that are a good place to start (assuming that you aren't already quite familiar with the world).

I also think very highly of The Graveyard Book and The Color Purple. Most of your list is books that I haven't read but really want to, so I'll be keeping track of how they fair with you.

[Claire]

Thank you for the comments.
! To J: I'll read both discworlds then. it's about time I start reading this series anyhow. Jonathan Strange has been on my shelf for a few years now. First time I started I didn't get through it. Hope it works well now.
As for the hitchhikers guide, I have read it, years ago. But definitely need to read it again, as I really hardly remember...
to Zaz: i'm very curious to the girl on the train...I had allready picked so many thick books, so thought a pageturner would be nice. But I'll try reading something nice and friendly after it.

[Lee-Ann]

The Book Thief is what began my love of WWII/Holocaust Historical Fiction, enjoy!

[Jody]

Good luck with Middlemarch ... that was my Everest this year. I'm glad it's out of the way, but it obviously didn't make much of an impression as I just realised I can't even remember any of the characters' names!

[Peter]

We have a couple overlapping books, The Golem and the Jinni and The Girl on the Train.

I also hope you like The Night Circus - I didn't think it was as good as most people seem to think, but I think I'm the minority there. I agree that the imagery was amazing, but I would have preferred a little more substance to it's characters and plot.

A Storm of Swords on the other hand I loved! I think it is probably the strongest book in that series to date and although very long, is absolutely great.

[Saara]

Lavinia was wonderful! I hope you'll like it. :)
Looks like we shall both be reading Middlemarch for the one-word title. I've been meaning to get to it for quite a while now.