Summer Reading Challenge 2018

I realize I've basically not posted anything since December two years ago.

Oops.

But as I roll around towards my MA thesis, I realize that I need a place to record some of the reading that I do outside of the required stuff. The stuff I read (or reread) for fun. The random books in my book haul when I go out to local bookstores. Books that I recommend, books that I don't, and books that have been recommended to me.

So my goal this summer is to keep track of what I'm reading, both here and on Goodreads. I'm also creating a small tracker in my bullet journal to make sure I follow my reading goals.

I'm going to plan out 20 books that I know I want to read this summer: five fiction, five non-fiction, five plays/poems, five rereads. I'm also going to list (separately) books that I want to reread in order to teach them in the spring.

With each book, I will post a blog review when I finish it. The rating system will be 1-10 (and some books can go to 11). I'll include a brief blurb about the book, what made me want to read it, and what my thoughts are. And then on to the next book.

So here's my 20 Summer Reads for 2018:

1. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hemingway
3. We, the Drowned - Carston Jensen
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay - Michael Chabon
5. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
6. Battle Cry of Freedom - James McPherson
7. American Brutus - Michael W. Kauffman
8. The Romanovs - Simon Sebag Montefiore
9. Grant - Ron Chernow
10. The Invention of Murder - Judith Flanders
11. The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare
12. Five Revenge Tragedies: Kyd, Shakespeare, Marston, Chettle, Middleton
13. The Duchess of Malfi - John Webster
14. Pericles - William Shakespeare
15. Five Plays - Christopher Marlowe
16. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
17. Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
18. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
19. Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov
20. The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald

And other assorted books that I'll be rereading this summer may include:

• Henry V - William Shakespeare
• Confederates in the Attic - Tony Horowitz
• The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara
• The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
• Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
• The Scarlet Pimpernel - Baroness Orczy

Feel free to join along! There's not any set timetable for this, other than to be done by the end of the summer. Fingers crossed that I make it there!