2015 Reading Challenge: "It's about time."

On Goodreads, I set my goal for the year at 50 books, which is more or less my standard.  But I also wanted to pick out some specific books.  I took a three-tiered approach.

First, I went through my shelves and pulled out ones that I have had for a long time, or have been looking for for a long time.  I am finally going to read these, because it's about time.

Second, while I was completing my 2014 Challenge, I learned about quite a few interesting books that I was unfamiliar with, and I managed to track some of them down, too.

And third, I have the two books left over from 2014.  So if I can get to those as well, so much the better.

With that, I have quite the stack of suggested reading.  I'm not going to be overly regimented with it.  If I get to them all, that's fine; and if I don't, that's fine, too.

Here's the 'official' not-very-official list:

• Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood   (from 2014)
• Saturday by Ian McEwan  (from 2014)
• Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett (this one is not in the picture because I'm reading it)
• The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Diamond Age by Neil Stephenson
• A Virtuous Woman by Kaye Gibbons
• A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters by Julian Barnes
• Drood by Dan Simmons
• The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht
• Illywhacker by Peter Carey
• The Kingdom of Ohio by Matthew Fleming
• Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett
• Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
• Let the Great World Spit by Colum McCann
• The Passage by Justin Cronin
• Confederates by Thomas Keneally
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
• Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
• The Bone People by Keri Hulme
• Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje
• The Sound of Waves by Yukio Mishima
• The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
• Waiting by Ha Jin
• The Gathering by Anne Enright
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
• The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
• Servants of the Map by Andrea Barrett
• Close Range by Annie Proulx
• Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin
• White Teeth by Zadie Smith
• Troubles by J.G. Farrell
• Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

So that's 38 books.  And I have a few more coming in the mail that may distract me from this list.  Plus, I have some authors on there twice, so that I have options to choose from.  So I don't know if all 38 will happen or not, but I think it's a pretty good line up!

.....

Aaaaaaaand I thought I had it all set up.  Then I just had to look at my ebook collection.  Here's some more options for 2015:

• Katherine by Anya Seton
• Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
• Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozecki
• The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon
• The Shadow Lines by Amitov Ghosh
• Hounded by Kevin Hearne
• The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
• The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
• The Charterhouse of Parma by Stendhal
• Justine by Lawrence Durrell
• Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale
• The Maid's Version by Daniel Woodrell
• If I Stay by Gayle Forman
• Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
• Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
• Harvest by Jim Crace
• Brooklyn Bones by Triss Stein

So there's 18 more for a grand total of 56.  I know I won't get to them all.  There are some heavy hitters on the list, and to get over 50 there usually has to be quite a few that I can read in a day or two.  I don't like to go in predicting failure, but I'm pretty sure that's what is going to happen :)