In years past, I have set reading goals: read 25 books, read 40 books, read all the books on my shelf before I buy more. Some years I crushed these goals, and others I couldn’t quite make it. I have also set monthly “To Be Read” lists and not read a single one on that list… because when it came down to it I wanted to read something else.
But there are a few titles and genres that I continually come back to and have a desire to read. So this year, I am going to try to set aside ten (new to me) books that I really want to make time for.
Each of these books presents its own challenge for me personally and I have been eyeing several of them up for a few years now. I knew that in order to make this challenge worth it, I would have to have a personal reason to read each of these, otherwise I am investing time into something that isn’t bringing me joy. There are too many great books out there for that!
If you are interested in reading any of these with me, let me know! I’d love to chat with you about them.
P.s. These are not in a particular order.
Amanda’s 10 Books for 2022
- The Once and Future King by T.H. White
Synopsis: “T.H White′s masterful retelling of the Arthurian legend is an abiding classic. Here all five volumes that make up the story are published in one volume, as White himself always wished. Exquisite comedy offsets the tragedy of Arthur′s personal doom as White brings to life the major British epic of all time with brilliance, grandeur, warmth and charm.”
- Watership Down by Richard Adams
Synopsis: “Set in England’s Downs, a once idyllic rural landscape, this stirring tale of adventure, courage and survival follows a band of very special creatures on their flight from the intrusion of man and the certain destruction of their home. Led by a stouthearted pair of friends, they journey forth from their native Sandleford Warren through the harrowing trials posed by predators and adversaries, to a mysterious promised land and a more perfect society.”
- A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Synopsis: “A Tale of Two Cities is Charles Dickens’s great historical novel, set against the violent upheaval of the French Revolution. The most famous and perhaps the most popular of his works, it compresses an event of immense complexity to the scale of a family history, with a cast of characters that includes a bloodthirsty ogress and an antihero as believably flawed as any in modern fiction. Though the least typical of the author’s novels, A Tale of Two Cities still underscores many of his enduring themes—imprisonment, injustice, social anarchy, resurrection, and the renunciation that fosters renewal.”
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
Synopsis: ““It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships’ cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.”
So Melville wrote of his masterpiece, one of the greatest works of imagination in literary history. In part, Moby-Dick is the story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself. But more than just a novel of adventure, more than an encyclopaedia of whaling lore and legend, the book can be seen as part of its author’s lifelong meditation on America. Written with wonderfully redemptive humour, Moby-Dick is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.”
- Redwall by Brian Jacques
Synopsis: “Redwall Abbey, tranquil home to a community of peace-loving mice, is threatened by Cluny the Scourge savage bilge rat warlord and his battle-hardened horde. But the Redwall mice and their loyal woodland friends combine their courage and strength.”
- The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
Synopsis: “Lyra is rushing to the cold, far North, where witch clans and armored bears rule. North, where the Gobblers take the children they steal–including her friend Roger. North, where her fearsome uncle Asriel is trying to build a bridge to a parallel world.
Can one small girl make a difference in such great and terrible endeavors? This is Lyra: a savage, a schemer, a liar, and as fierce and true a champion as Roger or Asriel could want–but what Lyra doesn’t know is that to help one of them will be to betray the other.”
- The Iliad by Homer
Synopsis: “Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War.”
- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Synopsis: “Acclaimed by many as the world’s greatest novel, Anna Karenina provides a vast panorama of contemporary life in Russia and of humanity in general. In it Tolstoy uses his intense imaginative insight to create some of the most memorable characters in all of literature. Anna is a sophisticated woman who abandons her empty existence as the wife of Karenin and turns to Count Vronsky to fulfill her passionate nature – with tragic consequences.”
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
Synopsis: “The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan’s love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo’s last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith…”
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Synopsis: “In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.”
There are several books that I hope to read this year that I did not put on the list, as it is with most readers. But I am very excited to look at this list and think about the year of reading ahead!
How many of these have you read? Which are you hoping to read this year?
Unless otherwise noted, all synopses came from Goodreads. Having not read any of these titles, I could not write them myself.
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