2020 Reading Challenge Progress
Social Justice Nonfiction Challenge
Commitment level: Fluid. Let’s see what happens.
Books I’m counting toward the challenge:
- The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America from 1890 to the Present, David Treuer (Indian history, policy, and culture)
- Brick by Brick, Charles R. Smith, Jr. (the role of enslaved people in building the White House; children’s book)
- Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland, Patrick Radden Keefe (The Troubles, Northern Ireland, the I.R.A.)
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi (racism in America)
Sign up for the challenge here.
Commitment level: 5 books (Victorian Reader). I may increase my commitment level if it looks like other commitment levels are in reach.
Books I’m counting toward the challenge:
- Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi (mid-1700s Ghana and United States to present)
- Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi (early 2000s Baghdad, Iraqi during war with U. S.)
- Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (1970s Southern California, Laurel Canyon music scene)
- Revolution, Jennifer Donnelly (partly set during the French Revolution in Paris)
- The Seven Husband of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid (partly set in Hollywood’s studio era)
- The Asylum, John Harwood (Victorian Cornwall)
- Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (Tudor England)
- Bring Up the Bodies, Hilary Mantel (Tudor England)
Sign up for the challenge here.
Monthly Motif Challenge
Commitment level: 12 books
Books I’m counting toward the challenge:
- January: “Winter Wonderland”
- February: “Seeing Red”
- March: “Sub-Genre Sound Off”: These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, Martha Ackmann (subgenre: Literary Biography)
- April: “Classics or Currents”: Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (published 1925)
- May: “Author Introduction”: Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (a new to me author)
- June: “Name or Number”: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Taylor Jenkins Reid (name AND a number in the title)
- July: “Around or Out of This World”: The Marrow Thieves, Cherie Dimaline (set in Canada)
- August: “Creature Feature”: The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (features an elk on the cover)
- September: “When Text Just isn’t Enough”
- October: “Thrills and Chills”
- November: “Dynamic Duos”
- December: “Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice”
Sign up for the challenge here.
Reading Women Reading Challenge
Commitment level: Fluid. Let’s see what happens.
Books I’m counting toward the challenge:
- The Proudest Blue, Ibtihaj Muhammad with S. K. Ali (picture book by a BIPOC author)
- My Papi Has a Motorcycle, Isabel Quintero (by a favorite or new-to-you publisher—Kokila)
- We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, Traci Sorrel (under 100 pages)
- The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh, Supriya Kelkar (a feel-good/happy book)
- These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson, Martha Ackmann (a biography; note: is also nonfiction by a woman historian, about a woman artist, a book about a woman who inspires me, and a book by an LGBTQ+ author)
- Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid (to a large degree, about a woman artist)
- Consider the Fork, Bee Wilson (a book about food)
- The Water Protectors, Carole Lindstrom (about the environment)
- Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel (over 500 pages)
Sign up for the challenge here.
2020 Where Am I Reading?
Settings and locations for all the books I read in 2020.