Someone the other day asked me if I had my 2019 Reading List available. Wow, someone is keeping up with me! I better not disappoint. After compiling my 2018 Reading List just ahead of January 1, 2018, I published the list of books I planned to read. As I said in that post, my goal was to read 30 books. In order to try to achieve that goal, I put together a list of books in various categories and made plans to do my reading with a mix of physical print books, digital books downloaded to my iPad, as well as audiobooks via Audible. However, I knew the actual reading list would “evolve.” Some books were added to the list, and some books got pushed to some date in the future.
After completing my 30-book reading challenge for 2018, I also said I was going to dial it back a little bit in 2019 and set a 24-book reading goal. However, as of today (February 18, 2019), I have already completed 6 books in 2019! (I put those in BOLD below). Most have been shorter lengths than what I did in 2018 (I read some marathon books). Also, four of the six have been fictional works, showing that fiction is starting to make more of its way into my reading – which is important. I think fiction helps our imagination, brings us into a story, and perhaps even makes us better storytellers in our own writing and speaking. And, it also might explain why I’m off to such a fast start in 2019. However, most of my list below is still dominated by nonfiction.
While I am way ahead of pace in the early part of this year, I don’t want to expand my goal just yet. I do think I’ll end up reading more than 24 books, perhaps even 30 again. But, so far, I’ve only put 28 books on my planned 2019 reading list below (which is more than 24!) I’ve also noted who referred each of the books to me. Can’t wait to dive in to more of these.
Oh — and if you’re wondering what the full quote is in that photo above … I took that photo at the Chicago Cultural Center in October 2018. It was previously the Chicago Public Library. The full quote says: “Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.”
Fiction
1984 by George Orwell (Steve Triana)
Elvis in the Morning by William F. Buckley, Jr. (Jack Fowler)
The Babel Tower by J.B. Simmons (J.B. Simmons)
The Takeaway by John Evans (John Evans)
East of Eden by John Steinbeck (Rory Diamond)
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah (Dana Edwards)
Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Self-recommendation via other book references)
Nonfiction
John Marshall: The Man Who Made the Supreme Court by Richard Brookhiser (National Review Institute)
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo (Maggie Gunther)
The Triumph of Christianity: How a Small Band of Outcasts Conquered an Empire by Bart Ehrman (Brendan Steinhauser)
Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Nearer, My God by William F. Buckley, Jr. (Kathryn Jean Lopez)
The Unmaking of a Mayor by William F. Buckley, Jr. (National Review)
The First Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill George Washington by Brad Meltzer (Frank Gonzalez)
The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (James O’Keefe)
Christian Martyrs Under Islam: Religious Violence and the Making of the Muslim World by Christian Sahner (Christian Sahner)
Wait, What? by James Ryan (Keith Fernandez)
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (Jennings DePriest)
My Two Elaines by Martin Schreiber (Scott Plakon)
The Praise of Folly by Erasmus (Antonio Lopez)
Virtuous Leadership by Alexandre Havard (Antonio Lopez)
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz (Ryan Hovatter)
No One’s World by Charles Kupchan (Marshall Polston)
Abundance by Peter Diamindis and Steven Kotler (Ryan Kaldahl)
The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton (Matt McMillan)
The Second World Wars by Victor Davis Hanson (National Review Institute)
Christianity for Modern Pagans edited by Peter Kreeft (Nathan Bond)
The Moral Case Against Fossil Fuels by Alex Epstein (Alex Epstein)
Janesville: An American Story by Amy Goldstein (Tony & Ann Gonzalez)