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Personal development: What's in two years of reading?

  

Do you love to read? I certainly do. Maybe that’s why I chose to work as a writer, even though that pursuit took me into several different pathways of wordsmithing – from advertising to journalism to editing to speech-writing to authoring my own books – and back again. Writers tend to be voracious readers.

 



Forgive me for stating the obvious, but you don’t have to be a writer to love books.

 Reading is not only informative, instructive, or entertaining. (The best writing usually includes all of these qualities.) It’s also enriching, both personally and professionally. It stretches our boundaries in countless ways.

 

Reading can be a wonderful annual goal. It surely is for me.

 For the past two years, I have set specific reading objectives for myself. Here’s how that turned out.

 Please note: Inclusion does not imply endorsement. I enjoyed and appreciated many of these books. Others left me less than enthused. Fortunately, the vast majority proved well worth the time and treasure it took for me to turn their pages. (Yes, I read nearly all of these in their cloth-bound or paperback versions. Call me a traditionalist, if you must. (I love the feel of a solid book.)

 

My 2022 reads:

Books are listed alphabetically (by title) and unsorted (by genre).

  1. A Mercy, Toni Morrison
  2. A Thief of Time, Tony Hillerman
  3. A Thousand Voices, Lisa Wingate
  4. All He Ever Wanted, Anita Shreve
  5. Beyond the Soiled Curtain, Beth Grant and David Grant
  6. Big Lies in a Small Town, Diane Chamberlain
  7. Caleb’s Crossing, Geraldine Brooks
  8. Circling the Sun, Paula McClain
  9. Close to Home, Lisa Jackson
  10. Covenant Child, Terri Blackstock
  11. Criminal Mischief, Stuart Woods
  12. Dead Sea Rising, Jerry B. Jenkins
  13. Discerning the Voice of God, Priscilla Shirer
  14. Divine Disruption: Holding on to Faith When Life Breaks Your Heart, Dr. Tony Evans, Chrystal Evans Hurst, Priscilla Shirer, Anthony Evans, and Jonathan Evans
  15. Double Minds, Terri Blackstock
  16. Eat the Cookie … Buy the Shoes, Joyce Meyer
  17. Everything We Didn’t Say, Nicole Baart
  18. Fierce Jesus, Lisa Harper
  19. Fifteen Minutes, Karen Kingsbury
  20. Find Her, Lisa Gardner
  21. Forgiving Paris, Karen Kingsbury
  22. Forgiving What You Can’t Forget, Lysa TerKeurst
  23. Girl Forgotten, Karin Slaughter
  24. Greenwich Park, Katherine Faulkner
  25. History Decoded, Brad Meltzer
  26. Horse, Geraldine Brooks
  27. House Rules, Jodi Picoult
  28. It Ends with Us, Colleen Hoover
  29. Light on Snow, Anita Shreve
  30. Limitations, Scott Turow
  31. Local Woman Missing, Mary Kubica
  32. Look for Me, Lisa Gardner
  33. March, Geraldine Brooks
  34. My Sister’s Keeper, Jodi Picoult
  35. Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud
  36. Night Road, Kristin Hannah
  37. On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library, Glory Edim
  38. One Step Too Far, Lisa Gardner
  39. One True Thing, Anna Quindlen
  40. Peace Like a River, Leif Enger
  41. People of the Book, Geraldine Brooks
  42. Plain Truth, Jodi Picoult
  43. Point of Origin, Patricia Cornwell
  44. Pretty Baby, Mary Kubica
  45. Red Swan, P.T. Deutermann
  46. Reminders of Him, Colleen Hoover
  47. Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
  48. Riding Freedom, Pam Munoz Ryan and Brian Selznick
  49. Riven, Jerry B. Jenkins
  50. Rules of Civility, Amor Towles
  51. Run Rose Run, Dolly Parton and James Patterson
  52. Shattered, James Patterson
  53. Shunned and Dangerous, Laura Bradford
  54. Something Wicked, Lisa Jackson
  55. Something Worth Doing: A Novel of an Early Suffragist, Jane Kirkpatrick
  56. State of Terror, Louise Penny and Hillary Rodham Clinton
  57. Sunflower Sisters, Martha Hall Kelly
  58. The Book of Fate, Brad Meltzer
  59. The Book of Lies, Brad Meltzer
  60. The Burning, Jonathan Kellerman and Jesse Kellerman
  61. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon
  62. The Death of Mrs. Westaway, Ruth Ware
  63. The Family Remains, Lisa Jewell
  64. The Fifth Assassin, Brad Meltzer
  65. The First Lady, James Patterson & Brendan DuBois
  66. The Flying Angels, Danielle Steel
  67. The Girl Behind the Red Rope, Ted Dekker and Rachelle Dekker
  68. The Girls in the Garden, Lisa Jewell
  69. The Hidden Child, Louise Fein
  70. The Horse Dancer, JoJo Moyes
  71. The Horsewoman, James Patterson and Mike Lupica
  72. The Inner Circle, Brad Meltzer
  73. The It Girl, Ruth Ware
  74. The Kommandant’s Girl, Pam Jenoff
  75. The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid
  76. The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles
  77. The Murder House, James Patterson and David Ellis
  78. The Nightingale, Kristin Hannah
  79. The Other Mrs, Mary Kubica
  80. The Palm Beach Murders, James Patterson
  81. The Paris Apartment, Lucy Foley
  82. The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
  83. The Pilot’s Wife, Anita Shreve
  84. The Prayer Box, Lisa Wingate
  85. The President’s Shadow, Brad Meltzer
  86. The Priestly Sins, Andrew M. Greeley
  87. The Right Kind of Strong: Surprisingly Simple Habits of a Spiritually Strong Woman, Mary A. Kassian
  88. The Rumor, Elin Hilderbrand
  89. The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks
  90. The Templar Legacy, Steve Berry
  91. The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult
  92. The Third Grave, Lisa Jackson
  93. The Traitor’s Wife, Kathleen Kent
  94. The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins
  95. The Winter Guest, Pam Jenoff
  96. Three Sisters, Heather Morris
  97. Upright Women Wanted, Sarah Gailey
  98. Verity, Colleen Hoover
  99. Where the Light Fell, Philip Yancey
  100. White Lies: Nine Ways to Expose and Resist the Racial Systems That Divide Us, Daniel Hill
  101. Wish You Were Here, Jodi Picoult
  102. Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague, Geraldine Brooks

 This roster omits books I authored. It also does not include the Bible, Bible studies, children's books I read (again and again), cookbooks, devotionals, magazines, newspapers, reference books, etc. It's simply a list of full-length, cover-to-cover reads (to-date) for the year.

Titles are hyperlinked to Amazon. (Disclaimer: I'm an Amazon Affiliate, so I may earn a very small commission from orders placed through links on my sites.)

 My 2021 reads:

  1. A Church Called Tov, Scot McKnight & Laura Barringer
  2. A Matter of Life and Death, Philip Margolin
  3. A Rip in Heaven, Jeanine Cummins
  4. American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins
  5. Before She Disappeared, Lisa Gardner
  6. Behind Closed Doors, B.A. Paris
  7. Cutting for Stone, Abraham Verghese
  8. Dark Horses, Susan Mihalic
  9. Did I Say You Could Go, Melanie Gideon
  10. Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table, Louie Giglio
  11. Hell of a Book: A Novel, Jason Mott
  12. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance
  13. Home Front, Kristin Hannah
  14. How to Fight Racism, Jemar Tisby
  15. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, Austin Channing Brown
  16. If I Run, Terri Blackstock
  17. If You Tell, Gregg Olsen
  18. In a Dark, Dark Wood, Ruth Ware
  19. Into the Water, Paula Hawkins
  20. Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes Du Mez
  21. Last Girl Standing, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush
  22. Liar, Liar, Lisa Jackson
  23. Love Does, Bob Goff
  24. Miriam: A Treasures of the Nile Novel, Mesu Andrews
  25. My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
  26. Nineteen Minutes, Jodi Picoult
  27. One Last Breath, Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush
  28. Pretty Little Wife, Darby Kane
  29. Prey Tell, Tiffany Bluhm
  30. Reading While Black, Esau McCaulley
  31. Recovering from Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, Aimee Byrd
  32. Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church, Diane Langberg
  33. Secrets to the Grave, Tami Hoag
  34. Sisters Trilogy (The Sea Glass Sisters, The Tidewater Sisters, The Sandcastle Sister), Lisa Wingate
  35. Somebody’s Daughter: A Memoir, Ashley C. Ford
  36. Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, Jason Reynolds & Ibram X. Kendi
  37. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism, James W. Loewen
  38. The Black Book, James Patterson
  39. The Book of Lost Names, Kristin Harmel
  40. The Coming Race Wars: A Cry for Justice, from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, William Pannell
  41. The Family of Jesus, Karen Kingsbury
  42. The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell
  43. The Fortunate Ones, Ed Tarkington
  44. The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah
  45. The Guest List, Lucy Foley
  46. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood
  47. The House of Deep Water, Jeni McFarland
  48. The Hunting Party, Lucy Foley
  49. The Invisible Girl, Lisa Jewell
  50. The Justice Game, Randy Singer
  51. The Last Bookshop in London, Madeline Martin
  52. The Orphan’s Tale, Pam Jenoff
  53. The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris
  54. The Preacher’s Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities, Kate Bowler
  55. The Red Book, James Patterson
  56. The Silent Patient, Alex Michaelides
  57. The Summer House, James Patterson
  58. The Talented Miss Farwell, Emily Gray Tedrowe
  59. The Testaments, Margaret Atwood
  60. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
  61. The Woman in the Window, A.J. Finn
  62. The Woman with the Blue Star, Pam Jenoff
  63. Tranquility Falls, Davis Bunn
  64. True Colors, Kristin Hannah
  65. Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe
  66. Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man, Emmanuel Acho
  67. Watching You, Lisa Jewell
  68. We Were the Lucky Ones, Georgia Hunter
  69. When No One Is Watching, Alyssa Cole
  70. When the Stars Go Dark, Paula McLain
  71. When You See Me, Lisa Gardner
  72. You Betrayed Me, Lisa Jackson


A quick perusal of these titles and authors reveals that the list includes multiple literary genres. Some books are current or recent bestsellers, and a few might be called classics. Still others are somewhat more obscure.

True confession: I am a library nerd, so most of my recent reads have been borrows from our local branch (often via the statewide inter-library loan program) or from the Little Free Libraries found at the ends of driveways in my own community. Others were trades or pass-alongs from friends and colleagues. And I actually purchased a few from book swaps, online sellers, and regular book retailers.

What have you been reading lately? Do you have any books to recommend (in the comment section, below)?

 

Image/s: Public domain

 

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