2020 has been a challenging year. Dealing with a worldwide pandemic, political unrest here in America, and high profile celebrity deaths like Kobe Bryant and Chadwick Boseman have made it a year that no one saw coming. However, I have reached August 31st and another birthday.
Birthdays are always a big deal to me. It is one of the things that happens outside of your control. You don’t get to choose the day you are born and come into the world. Yes after months of pregnancy from your mom can give you a general idea when you will be born. But, the actual day is not set in stone. For example, my mother told me that I was supposed to be in September and I came into the world a week earlier than was projected. My daughter was supposed to born in mid to late August but came into the world a week sooner. Again, our date of birth is outside of our control. That’s special to me and something that I will always celebrate until it’s time for me to leave this world.
I love lists and have posted numerous lists on this blog since 2011. Well, I have decided to make one more list in honor of my birthday. I’m going to list my 31 favorite books of all time. They will include both fiction and non-fiction. They will range from genre to literary fiction to non-fiction. They will represent my belief in reading widely as possible. I have discussed many of these books on my social media pages for years. Most of the books will not be new to those of you who have followed me on social media. However, I want to have a list posted with all of together. These 31 books represent my date of birth, not my age. These 31 books represent the ones I will keep on my bookshelf forever. I’m grateful to see another year of life. Here’s my list and I have written reviews for most of these books. Just click on the link for the full review (in alphabetical order by author):
2) Home Is The Sailor by Jorge Amado
3) Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4) Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
5) The Wooden Sea by Jonathan Carroll
6) Face of an Angel by Denise Chavez
7) Memory & Dream by Charles de Lint
8) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
10) Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
11) Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck
12) The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
14) Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
15) Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
16) Children of Earth & Sky by Guy Gavriel Kay
17) Late Bloomers by Rich Karlgaard
18) Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
19) Essentialism by Greg McKeown
20) Structuring Your Novel by James Meredith and Robert Fitzgerald
21) South of the Border, West of The Sun by Haruki Murakami
22) My Mrs. Brown by William Norwich
24) Ascending by Meg Pechenick
25) The Artist’s Journey by Steven Pressfield
26) The Long Way Home by Louise Penny
27) Anniversary Day by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
28) The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
29) The Pearl by John Steinbeck
30) A Time to Dance by Padma Venkatraman
31) Black Fortunes by Shomari Wills
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