In August of 2027 I will be turning 50. Not sure how that happened, but here we are. I got the great idea from @BarbaraJean on Litsy to come up with a list of books I want to read before then.

I decided to go back and re-read my old favorites. They’re mostly published pre-2020. They are the books I read before I was tuned in to new releases and what’s trending. These are the books I picked out based on the cover while wandering through the library or bookstore.

As I read through my list I’ll post quasi reviews- my memories of what made me read these books in the first place, and what I think of them now.


11/22/63    Stephen King   
A Man Called Ove    Fredrik Backman   
A Piece of the World    Christina Baker Kline   
Above All Things    Tanis Rideout   
All Fall Down    Jennifer Weiner   
And The Band Played On    Randy Shilts   
Assassination Vacation    Sarah Vowell   
At Home in Mitford    Jan Karon   
Beach Read    Emily Henry   
Cataloochee    Wayne Cadwell   
City of Thieves    David Benioff   
Code Name Verity    Elizabeth Wein
   
Crossing To Safety    Wallace Stegner   
Cutting For Stone    Abraham Verghese   
Destiny of the Republic    Candice Millard   
Disappearing Earth    Julia Phillips   
Divergent    Veronica Roth   
Elizabeth Street    Laurie Fabino   
Ethan Frome    Edith Wharton   
Everything I Never Told You    Celeste Ng   
Homegoing    Yaa Gyasi   
Indianapolis    Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic   
Leaving Orbit    Margaret Lazarus Dean   
Little Heathens    Mildred Armstrong Kalish   
Lonesome Dove    Larry McMurtry   
Margot    Jillian Cantor
   
Matterhorn    Karl Marlantes   
Moneyball    Michael Lewis   
No Ordinary Time    Doris Kearns Goodwin   
Prep    Curtis Sittenfeld   
Sandworm    Andy Greenberg   
Shakespeare In A Divided America    James Shapiro   
Sing, Unburied, Sing    Jesmyn Ward   
Snow Falling on Cedars    David Guterson   
The Bread Givers    Anzia Yezierska   
The Covenant of Water    Abraham Verghese   
The Food Lover's Garden    Angelo M. Pellegrini   
The Garden of Evening Mists    Tan Twan Eng   
The Grapes of Wrath    John Steinbeck   
The Great Believers    Rebecca Makkai   
The Kite Runner    Khaled Hosseini   
The Lowland    Jhumpa Lahiri   
The Martian    Andy Weir   
The Namesake    Jhumpa Lahiri   
The Pearl That Broke Its Shell    Nadia Hashimi   
The Street Gang    Michael Davis   
The Time In Between    Maria Duenas   
The Wilder Life    Wendy McClure   
Wait Till Next Year    Doris Kearns Goodwin   
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running    Haruki Murakami   

Note: Links to bookshop.org are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!