IN THIS POST: My reading challenge for 2023 will be joining with other readers on Instagram to read twenty-three books in 2023 – one for each year of the century. This is my list.
The premise is simple: read 23 books that you already own in the year 2023.
Making a list turned out to be a lot harder. I have enough books to make the number; I’m just not sure that I want to read them this year. The mood reader in me is strong and has been particularly pernicious recently.
So I hemmed and hawed. I decided to participate and then put all the books back on my shelves and opted out. Rinse and repeat since the beginning of December.
So what finally pushed me in to make this my reading challenge in 2023? I have no idea (moody much). But here we are, and I’m ready to go!
About the Reading Challenge in 2023
This particular reading challenge is one I’ve seen floating around Instagram this past year and one of my favorite people/accounts in the bookstagram sphere hosts it. If you’re interested, Gilion blogs at Rose City Reader, the sign-up from her blog and all the details are here, and her Instagram is @gilioncdumas. Follow, sign-up, follow.
This was a bit more of a challenge since half of my tbr pile is online at this point – in other words, books to check out at the library. Since that’s not part of this challenge I had to double down to make my selections from my own shelf.
And that’s probably a good thing. I think half the challenge of reading the books that I already own is getting distracted by reading books I can find in the library. I know I’m not alone – I’ve seen the memes!
The Books on the List
Overall, I think I managed a decent blend. I’ve got some fiction, some non-fiction, a book of poetry, some theology, history, short reads, medium reads, re-reads, classics, and recent releases. The only thing that I don’t have represented that I normally read is a play — but I found another challenge for those 🙂
If anything, I hope it’ll cover whenever a mood hits me (fingers crossed!).
Are any of these familiar to you? What should I read first?
- Origin of Species by Darwin
- The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- A Month in the Country by J.L. Carr
- Stoner by John Williams
- Notes from the Underground by Dostoevsky
- Common Sense by Thomas Paine
- Utopia by Thomas More
- Short Stories by Edith Wharton
- The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
- Villette by Charlotte Brönte
- When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Scoop by Evelyn Waugh
- Notre-Dame: A Short History of the Meaning of Cathedrals by Ken Follett
- Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis
- Ursula by de Balzac
- The Aeneid by Virgil
- Belief edited by Francis Collins
- The Givenness of Things by Marilynne Robinson
- Spiritual Authority by Watchman Nee
- Elemental Haiku: Poems to Honor the Periodic Table, Three Lines at a Time by Mary Soon Lee
- Africa is Not A Country by Dipo Faloyin
- Forgive by Timothy Keller
- Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes
What about you? Do you participate in reading challenges? Do you have a list of books you want to read in 2023?
Recommendations for your 2023 Reading
If you’re hurting for reading material. I’ve got some ideas.
Follow me on IG @rebeccarvincent. Look through a book list or two: Books in Asia, Books for Adults who Love the Outdoors, or Books to Stimulate Lifelong Learning.
Of the few books that I’ve reviewed here, these are a few of my favorite fiction reads: Zorrie by Laird Hunt and The Mountains Sing by Nguyen Phan Que Mai.
Finally, here are a couple of my favorite non-fiction reads: The Address Book by Deirdre Mask and The Rival Queens by Nancy Goldstone.
In any case, have a happy year of reading!
Leave a Reply