Happy New Year!!
Nate and I hosted a NYE party for our friends. I had a few out-of-town friends visiting Austin this weekend too, so it was just a grand ol’ time. We got to bop around Austin for the weekend so I could show them my favorite Austin hot-spots, and the weather was absolutely PERFECT! I’m talking about sunny and 75 on both days, which was quite the surprise when the weather was forecasted to be thunder storming!
Moving forward in 2017, I’m excited to be a bit more organized about what I’m reading. In 2016, I decided to read 100 books, and my only rule was “read what you want.” So, I basically had no rules. Haha. I was trying to get myself to just read, no matter what that meant! In 2016, I read a pretty odd hodgepodge of books. Some of it was fluff. Some of it was a bit more serious. But all of it was something that I read because it looked fun in that moment.
I’ve decided to do the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2017 reading challenge. She has two: “Reading For Fun,” and “Reading For Growth.” I’m going to start with the fun one, because I still want reading to be something I look forward to every day. (Maybe later this year I’ll do the other challenge, too…). My hope is that this introduces me to some books that I might not have picked otherwise…sometimes those end up being my favorites!
A BOOK YOU CHOSE FOR THE COVER
Easy. I’m picking The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney. I saw so many people read this one last year, and…I don’t even know what it’s about. Haha. I read zero reviews on it. I just always remember thinking, “hmm, that’s pretty cover!” So I’m reading it!
A BOOK WITH A REPUTATION FOR BEING UN-PUTDOWNABLE
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Cline was recommended to me by one of my sisters as being “un-putdownable.” I read through the synopsis, and I’m excited to dive in!
A BOOK SET SOMEWHERE YOU’VE NEVER BEEN BUT WOULD LIKE TO VISIT
Thailand is at the top of my travel wish list, and Anna and the King of Siam is a book I’ve never read, so I’ll read that for this category.
A BOOK YOU’VE ALREADY READ
Just the other day I was saying how I want to re-read Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I’m pretty sure I was about twelve-years-old the first time I read this, and I haven’t read it since then.
A JUICY MEMOIR
Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein. Nate just bought this book to read, and I’ve already stolen it and started reading it! I LOVE LOVE LOVE Portlandia, and I’m a little embarrassed to not know anything about Carrie Brownstein’s life as a musician! ( know plenty about Fred Armisten, but Carrie is a mystery to me.) This memoir is sure to be a fascinating read.
A BOOK ABOUT BOOKS OR READING
In 2017, I’m going to read The World Between Two Covers by Ann Morgan, a British woman who decided to read a book from every country around the world…that’s 197 books!
A BOOK IN A GENRE YOU USUALLY AVOID
I never read science fiction, so I’m not really sure what to expect with the book that I picked… I’m going to read Red Rising by Pierce Brown. This is the first in a trilogy, so if I happen to love it, I’ll have two more to read afterward. Oh, and I found this book by googling “top science fiction books of 2016” and then looking at Barnes and Noble’s list. Ha.
A BOOK YOU DON’T WANT TO ADMIT YOU’RE DYING TO READ
This is a little embarrassing….but I’m really excited to read Emily Maynard’s I Said Yes. This book came out last year, and I keep eyeing it! Emily was a former contestant on ABC’s The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, and she was one of my favorites. Her story is fascinating to me! I’m not even going to try to deny this: I’m super excited for this one. 😉
A BOOK IN THE BACKLIST OF A NEW FAVORITE AUTHOR
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell was one of my favorite books of 2016, so I’m going to read another a book that she wrote in 2013: Fangirl. This is young adult fiction, just like Eleanor & Park, so I’m hoping I like it better than Landline, one of her adult novels that I read last year. Eleanor and Park was just soooo good, so I have high hopes for this author!
A BOOK RECOMMENDED BY SOMEONE WITH GREAT TASTE
My oldest sister has her Ph.D. in creative writing, so saying she has “great taste” is definitely an understatement! I asked her to pick a book for this category, and she gave me Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. It’s a letter that the author wrote to his son about being black in the United States. I’m grateful to have someone in my family who keeps pointing me in the direction of meaningful reading!
A BOOK YOU WERE EXCITED TO BUY OR BORROW BUT HAVEN’T READ YET
I bought Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson back in 2015 when Nate and I went to London. I picked it up on a whim in a cute little bookstore, and I still haven’t read it! It’s about the generation of women whose husbands died during the First World War, women who were led to believe that marriage was the pinnacle of a woman’s life…and then had to learn to live the rest of their lives without their men. It sounded interesting to me then, and it still sounds interesting to me. I just never got around to reading it!
A BOOK ABOUT A TOPIC OR SUBJECT YOU ALREADY LOVE
I’m a sucker for self improvement books. I used to read too many of them compared to the amount of fiction I read, so I had to work on balancing that out last year. But this is one that has looked interesting to me, so I’m going to read it in 2017.
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Ok, that’s it! I think this is going to be a lot of fun, and I can already tell it’s going to make me branch out in my literary choices.
What about you? Any book challenges you’re doing in 2017? Or any books you’re especially excited to read in the near future? Let me know, please!!
Love,
Kelsey
