2017 Reading Goal #BeatTheBacklist

It seems like the thing to do right now is bemoan the awfulness of 2016, and believe me I could get on board with that.  I was saddened by the loss of talented artists, I am still reeling from the awful truth that we elected a bigoted douchebag for president, and one of my parents was diagnosed last January with a very aggressive blood cancer.  So, yeah. There are things to dislike about 2016.  There were also things to like about it though.  I got to spend another year with my wonderful husband and two incredible sons.  Watching them learn and grow is simply amazing and I am a really lucky person to be able to experience it.  We moved into a new home that is closer to family and are filling that home with the delightful chaos that is our lives.  I deepened some existing friendships and made some new ones (and neglected a few others, but I’m working on that).  My stepmom’s cancer responded well to chemo and a bone marrow transplant and she is on the road to recovery, the rest of my parents are mostly healthy, and I was able to spend some time with all of them this year.  I could go on, but I will start talking about books now, because that is what this blog is all about.

I set and met some 2016 Reading Resolutions.  I read 62 books last year and wrote about them here, here and in various blog posts.  And today is January 1st so it seems like a good time to start again.  Here goes!

This year I want to complete a book challenge, so I picked one that I think I have a reasonable chance of actually completing.  In 2017 I am going to #BeatTheBacklist.  My personal goal is to read 50 backlist books this year.  My TBR list is long and winding, so I won’t have any shortage of book ideas for this challenge.  The real challenge for me will be blogging about all of them, but I will keep reminding myself that a post can be short and sweet.  It does not have to be a novel.

As I review books, I will link to them in the list below.

Beat the Backlist Booklist (in no particular order, but reviewed books appear at the top of the list in chronological order of when the review was written)
Disclaimer: This list is subject to change 😉

1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
2. A Gambler’s Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem
3. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon
4. Stardust by Neil Gaiman
5. City of Thieves by David Benioff
6. Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
7. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
8. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
9. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
10. Lamb by Bonnie Nadzam
11. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
12. The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
13. Lion by Saroo Brierly
14. The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
15. Before the Fall by Noah Hawley
16. The Education of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart
17. The Orenda by Joseph Boyden
18. Fates  and Furies by Lauren Groff
19. The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare
20. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
21. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
22. The Diviners by Libba Bray
23. 14 by Peter Cline
24. Land of Love and Drowning by Tiffanie Yanique
25. I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
26. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
27. Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick de Witte
28. Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
29. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
30. Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War by Karl Marlantes
31. Exposure by Helen Dunmore
32. Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
33. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
34. Almost Crimson by Dasha Kelly
35. The Ground Beneath Her Feet by Salman Rushdie
36. Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
37. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
38. The Jaguar’s Children by John Valiant
39. GLOW by Ned Beauman
40. Sweetland by Michael Crummey
41. Find Me by Laura Van den Berg
42. Get In Trouble by Kelly Link
43. Almost Famous Women by Megan Mayhew Bergman
44. Summerlong by Dean Bakopoulos
45. The Country of Ice Cream Star by Sandra Newman
46. So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson
47. Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
48. Barbara the Slut and Other People by Lauren Holmes
49. The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
50. Gutshot by Amelia Gray
51. The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli
52. Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness by Jennifer Tseng
53. The Vorrh by B. Catling
54. CALF by Andrea Kleine
55. The Incarnations by Susan Barker
56. You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman
57. The Testament of Gideon Mack by James Robertson
58. Out Backwards by Ross Raisin
59. Hate List by Jennifer Brown
60. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver
61. What Alice Forgot and/or Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

As an additional challenge, I would like to read 20 new books published in 2017, but we’ll just see how that goes.

Happy New Year, yinz!