Happy New Year folks!

I read a decent amount in 2018 (see everything I read in 2018 here) but I didn’t quite read as much as I hoped to. In order to read more in 2019, I have set a goal of reading ONE HUNDRED books in 12 months! I know, I know, 100 books seeeeems like a lot of books and truthfully it is a lot. But it’s less than 10 books a month and I already read 1 physical book and one audiobook a week anyways, so I thought I’d give the goal a try.

Last year was the first year I actually started to keep track of what I was reading and  I didn’t even start doing until about August. In an effort to keep tabs on my reading accomplishments better I’m going to start publishing my reading lists for the month. I feel that this will not only keep my record straight but allows you (my readers) to read along with me! Every month I plan on picking 8 books and 1 audiobook that I’m aiming to read during that month. The first 6 books will be from my ‘To Be Read’ shelf (TBRS), at least 1 book will be from my Book of the Month Club picks, and 1 book I’ll pick from recommendations and suggestions I get from readers, Instagram, celebrity book clubs etc. I think by adding the extra book in from suggestions will help me to continuously branch out and choose books with different themes!

So without further ado below is my January 2019 Reading list!

January 2019

1. Elevation | Stephen King : In the small town of Castle Rock, the setting of many of King’s most iconic stories, Scott is engaged in a low grade—but escalating—battle with the lesbians next door whose dog regularly drops his business on Scott’s lawn. One of the women is friendly; the other, cold as ice. Both are trying to launch a new restaurant, but the people of Castle Rock want no part of a gay married couple, and the place is in trouble. When Scott finally understands the prejudices they face–including his own—he tries to help. Unlikely alliances, the annual foot race, and the mystery of Scott’s affliction bring out the best in people who have indulged the worst in themselves and others.
2. The Hearts Invisible Furies | John Boyne : Cyril Avery is not a real Avery or at least  hat’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he? Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead. At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.
3. The Air you Breathe | Frances de Pontes Peebles : Skinny, nine-year-oldorphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music. The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride–and each woman’s fear that she would be nothing without the other.
4. The Great Alone | Kristin Hannah : Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier. Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknownAt first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources. But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.
5. The Night Tiger | Yangze Choo : Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin plunges into a dark adventure: a mirror world of secrets and superstitions. Eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy Ren also has a secret, a promise he must fulfill to his dead master: to find his master’s severed finger and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever. As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths wrack the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.
6. The Silent Patient | Alex Michaelides : Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London.
7. Golden State | Ben H. Winters : Laz is a resident of The Golden State, a nation resembling California, where like-minded Americans retreated after the erosion of truth and the spread of lies made public life, and governance, increasingly impossible. There, surrounded by the high walls of compulsory truth-telling, knowingly contradicting the truth–the Objectively So–is the greatest possible crime. Stopping those crimes, punishing them, is Laz’s job. In its service, heis one of the few individuals permitted to harbor untruths–to “speculate” on what might have happened in the commission of a crime. But the Golden State is far less a paradise than its name might suggest. To monitor, verify, and enforce the Objectively So requires a veritable panopticon of surveillance, recording, and record-keeping. And when those in control of the truth twist it for nefarious means, the Speculators may be the only ones with the power to fight back.

8. Reader Suggestion!

Comment below on what my 8th pick for January should be!

Audiobooks

1. The Smell of Other People’s Houses | Bonnie- Sue Hitchcock :In Alaska, 1970, being a teenager here isn’t like being a teenager anywhere else. Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger.

These are the books I’ve committed to reading this month. I’m hoping I can follow through and not get distracted by all the other amazing books out in the world! Comment below with you suggestions for my 8th pick of the month or if you’ve read any of the books I have listed, I’d love to know your thoughts!