So...the American Fork Library had
an Adult Reading challenge for 2018. If you read 50 books by the end of the
year, you can attend a special dinner at the library in January 2019. I
did it! (I read three children's books because I was worried I wouldn't finish
in time.) I filled the list with fifty by the end of November, so I probably
didn't need to use the children's books....but I've read at least five more
books (adult level) since then, and I'll probably read at least one more before
the new year.
Want to know what I read? It's fun to review the list--I thought I'd consumed more fiction, but I actually read more non-fiction. Cool! Guess I didn't waste all of my reading time. Here's the illustrious list (it's a potpourri of autobiographies, fantasy/sci-fi, mysteries, near-death experiences/research, poetry, and personal essays).
- I Am, I Am, I Am--Seventeen Brushes with Death (Maggie O'Farrell)
- She Got Up Off the Couch (Haven Kimmel)
- Brother Odd (Dean Koontz)
- Do No Harm (Henry Marsh)
- Odd Thomas (Dean Koontz)
- The Inheritance (Niki Kapsambelis)
- The Only Girl in the World (Maude Julien)
- Church of the Small Things (Melanie Shankle)
- Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy)
- House Immortal (Devon Monk)
- Infinity Bell (Devon Monk)
- Into the Arms of the Angels (Candy Kinser)
- The Girl Who Stopped Swimming (Joshilyn Jackson)
- A Boy Back from Heaven (Celeste and Matthew Goodwin)
- Very Good Lives (J.K. Rowling)
- God and the Afterlife: The Science of Near-Death Experiences (Jeffrey Long, M.D.)
- Deepsix (Jack McDevitt)
- Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer (Heather Lende)
- Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living from a Forensic Pathologist (Janis Amatuzio, M.D.)
- Glimpsing Heaven: The Stories and Science of Life After Death (Judy Bachrach)
- Encountering Heaven and the Afterlife:True Stories from People Who Have Glimpsed the World Beyond (James L. Garlow and Keith Wall)
- Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death (Adrian Owen)
- The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying (Nina Riggs)
- When Breath Becomes Air (Paul Kalanithi)
- The Third Gate (Lincoln Child)
- A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy (Thomas Buergenthal)
- Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian (John Elder Robison)
- The House at the End of Hope Street (Menna Van Praag)
- Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout)
- My Name Is Lucy Barton (Elizabeth Strout)
- The Enemy (Lee Child)
- How Reading Changed My Life (Anna Quindlen)
- Echo Burning (Lee Child)
- Good Dog. Stay. (Anna Quindlen)
- Make Me (Lee Child)
- The Library (Sarah Stewart)
- Near Death in the ICU (Lauren Bellg, M.D.)
- Haunted Houses Around the World (Joan Axelrod-Contrada)
- The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)
- A Wanted Man (Lee Child)
- Serafina and the Black Cloak (Robert Beatty)
- On the Brink of Everything (Parker J. Palmer)
- Sea Prayer (Khaled Hosseini)
- The Pharoah Key (Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child)
- The Hunt for the Seventh (Morton-Shaw)
- Eating Chocolates and Dancing in the Kitchen (Tom Plummer)
- Childhood: An Anthology (Kate Figes)
- The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)
- Where I End (Katherine Elizabeth Clark)
- In Harm's Way (Ridley Pearson)
After I finished the requisite fifty tomes, I just kept on reading:
- Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories (Ambrose Bierce)
- Survivors Club: The True Story of a Very Young Prisoner of Auschwitz (Michael Bornstein and Debbie Bornstein Holinstat)
- In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer (Irene Gut Opdyke)
- All But My Life: A Memoir (Gerda Weissmann Klein)
- Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness, and How Marry Shelley Created FRANKENSTEIN (Lita Judge)
I'm reading the following heavy hitters, off and on:
- Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic (David Quammen)
- The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Francis S. Collins)
