We only have one book left for the AIC book group, which is scheduled for discussion in mid-January. So last month the organizer sent out the request for book recommendations (feels like we just did this, but it was July 2023) and we all sent in 5 book names, and then we got the list and voted, and the results just came back in. It seems that a couple of regulars didn’t recommend any books, but of those of us who did, each of us got at least one of our recommendations onto the list.
Unfortunately, this year, there are 2 books that I’ve already read (though, granted, I read them a million years ago, so rereading them won’t be too painful). We had 39 books to whittle down to 9 choices (we pick approximately a year’s worth of books at once), and I’m actually glad only TWO of the ones I’ve read before made the list because in the list of the 32 there were 4 total, and to be fair, I voted for one of them because I wanted to read it again. 4 books I didn’t vote for also made the list, which was disappointing, as I don’t want to read them. Not that I HAVE to read them, no one is forcing me, but it’s nice to WANT to read the books on the list, if you know what I mean.
The organizer said that there was a 5-way tie for the 6th book, so she ended up just adding all of those to the list, and so we have 10 books ahead of us after January instead of 9.
Here is the full list of book recommendations, below, for posterity (and for going back to in case I want to read ones inbetween book group books, which I will, at least the ones I recommended).
Key: blue=recommended/voted for by me, orange=voted for by me, neon green=voted for by me even though I’ve already read it, pink=already read. The ones with a star in front won.
- *America Fantastica: A Novel by Tim O’Brien
- Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
- Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan
- Death’s Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales by William M. Bass, Jon Jefferson
- Framed by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey
- *Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
- Hijab Butch Blues by Lamya H.
- *How to Kill Men and Get Away With It by Katy Brent
- Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
- *Julia by Sandra Newman
- Liliana’s Invincible Summer by Cristina Rivera Garza
- Memory Piece by Lisa Ko
- The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
- More Work For Mother: The Ironies Of Household Technology From The Open Hearth To The Microwave by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
- *Mr. Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo
- *On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong
- *Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
- Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
- Sky Full of Elephants by Cebo Campbell
- Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
- The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
- The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland
- The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab
- *The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
- The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles
- The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey
- The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
- The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell
- The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea by Yukio Mishima
- The Vegetarian by Han Kang
- *The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
- The Wrong Sister by Claire Douglas
- The Year of Living Constitutionally by A.J. Jacobs
- Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
- What Fire Brings by Rachel Howzell Hall
- *Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
My to-read list only ever grows longer. And I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing. 😀
*John Steinbeck
Mood: okay
Music: Deborah Conway—It’s Only the Beginning