Every Book In the Entire World

Many of you might know that my first project this summer was my patio garden and the hanging gutter garden. Now that my only responsibility in the garden is to water once or twice a day and harvest what comes up, I’ve been working on my next project: reading.

I was inspired to read ALL the books after reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith (***UPDATE*** read the review here) to read because she has a goal to read all the book in her library starting with A and ending with Z. I’m taking the opportunity to start now.

Over the years (since high school or maybe earlier) I’ve kept lists of books I want to read. Some can be found on odd bits of paper, other on my Pinterest board and still more in notebooks. I finally compiled all of these lists into one massive list, and I mean MASSIVE. It’s an excel spread sheet with tabs for which list the books came from and is conditionally formatted so that once I’ve read the book the box will change color (I have a lot of time on my hands).

Some of the books are classics, some are modern, there are fiction and non-fiction, poetry and history and everything else you can think of and I will be reading, quite literally, until I die.

I don’t just want to read the books; I want to analyze them as well. The way I did in high school, which is why I am also planning to write reviews for each book as I finish it and post it here, on my blog. The first one was Life of Pi (read it here). I also wrote a bit about Harry Potter (read it here). So that’s the plan.

 If you’re interested in my books lists…

Books that were recommended to me by friends, family, professors and/or my own bookshelf:

• Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
• Wish You Well by David Baldacci
• My First Summer in the Sierra by Thomas Muir
• Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• The Paris Wife by Paula McLain
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov
• The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell
• Beside a Burning Sea by John Shors
• Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
• Multiple books by Sharon Kay Penman
• The Story of B by Daniel Quinn
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
• Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey
• Walden by Henry David Thoreau
• The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
• A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Websites with other booklists:

• 10 Books Every Girl in Her 20s Should Read: List gives books that are help through or are about the transition into adulthood.
• 40 Books that you Won’t Be Able to Put Down: Self-explanatory
• Rory Gilmore Book Challenge: Books read by Rory or Mentioned on the TV show Gilmore Girls (over 250 books).
• 15 Books to Cure Your Hunger Games Hangover: These are young adult fiction that are similar to the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.
• 25 Books to Read if You Love the Hunger Games: Same idea to the previous bullet, read the update at the bottom as well.
• 10 Awesome Fantasy Series that Aren’t HP or LOTR: Great list if you’re a fantasy lover.
• Most Popular Books: I think this list changes because it’s different from when I first read it. Still a good list though.
• 100 Books Every High School Student Should Read: These are all the classics that most people DO read in high school.
• 50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years: Books that set something in motion or changed the way society thinks about things.
• 1001 Book You Must Read Before You Die: For the really ambitious.

(***Update 09/05/12: Although I loved my time at WordPress, I found it was my time to move on. I am now at Blogger; I believe it to be a better fit for me personally. If you subscribe, or want to subscribe, to this blog, please be sure to subscribe to the new one. Here’s the link.)

What’s on your book list? What is your favorite book?