With hundreds of books on my ToBeRead shelves, it has been hard to select 24 for this challenge. Mysteries, science fiction, history, classics, philosophy, religion—which ones should I commit to reading this year?
Some of these books have been on my TBR shelf since before we moved to this house 20 years ago; some are relatively recent. Some I inherited from my mother. Others were gifts. Some were purchased new, others from library sales, garage sales, or thrift shops. I’ve settled on these, in order of publication year.
- A Modern Utopia, H.G. Wells. 1905. (The print edition I have is a hardcover edition from 1910, but that book is too heavy for my arthritic thumbs. I’ll be reading an ebook edition I downloaded in 2011.)
- The Eye of Osiris, R. Austin Freeman. 1911. (hardcover)
- Nicholas Goade, Detective, E. Phillips Oppenheim. 1929. (hardcover)
- The Starship and the Canoe, Kenneth Brower. 1978. (hardcover)
- Chop Wood, Carry Water. Rick Fields. 1984. (paperback)
- Speaker for the Dead, Orson Scott Card. 1986. (paperback)
- Xenocide, Orson Scott Card. 1991. (paperback)
- Spiritual Journey, Anne Bancroft. 1991. (paperback)
- A Word After Dying, Ann Granger,. 1996. (paperback)
- McNally’s Puzzle, Lawrence Sanders. 1996. (paperback)
- Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card. 1996. (paperback)
- The Bone Collector, Jeffrey Deaver. 1997. (paperback)
- Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible With Jewish Eyes, John Shelby Spong, 1997. (paperback)
- Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Edward O. Wilson. 1998. (hardcover)
- Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew, Bart. D. Ehrman. 2002. (paperback)
- The Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith, Marcus J. Borg. 2003. (paperback)
- Cat vs. Cat: Keeping Peace When You Have More Than One Cat, Pam Johnson-Bennett. 2004 (paperback)
- The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly. 2005. (paperback)
- Ender in Exile, Orson Scott Card. 2005. (paperback)
- A War of Gifts, Orson Scott Card. 2007. (paperback)
- The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes. 2008. (ebook)
- Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society, Bill Bryson. 2010. (ebook)
- The Lens and the Looker, Lory S. Kaufman. 2011. (ebook)
- Use All the Crayons: The Colorful Guide to Simple Human Happiness, Chris Rodell. 2012. (paperback)
A nice mix, I think. There will also be a few books for my book clubs, but I’ll be borrowing those. These have been on my shelves (or taking up space on my nook) for a year or more.
