This reading challenge–the “Books To Read Challenge (personal)”–is my own attempt to whittle down the to-be-read pile and I have it done it for a couple of years now. In fact, some of these books have been on those previous lists. They reside on my 2017poss shelf in Goodreads.
There are a total of 85 books which includes some 8 on pause. Of these I challenge myself to complete 2 from each of the 16 categories and a total of 35.
Maybe by upping this number quite a bit—aimed for 12 of 44 in 2016—I will do better at getting through some of these. Then again, I know that’s a laugh because other books will continue to show up and there are already more than 1150 others on the Goodreads to-be-read shelf.
Beer and Brewing
- Amber, Gold & Black – Cornell
- The Complete Beer Course: Boot Camp …: From Novice to Expert in Twelve Tasting Classes – Joshua Bernstein
- Water: A Comprehensive Guide for Brewers (Brewing Elements) – John J. Palmer and Kaminski
- New Brewing Lager – Noonan
- The Brewer’s Companion – Mosher
- The Homebrewer’s Companion – Papazian
- Pubs and progressives : reinventing the public house in England, 1896-1960 – Gutzke
Central Oregon
- Hiking Oregon’s History – William L. Sullivan
- The Deschutes River Railroad War – Speroff
- Oregon’s Dry Side – St. John
Erotica
- The Sexy Librarian’s Big Book of Erotica – Caraway, ed.
- The Jade Door – Chaiko
- Burlesque and the Art of the Teese / Fetish and the Art of the Teese – Dita Von Teese, Bronwyn Garrity
History
- Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend – Karen Essex
- The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse – Brian Cowan
- Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage – Stephanie Coontz
- Hip Hop Family Tree – Piskor
- Hoptopia – Kopp
Librariana
- Cataloging the World: Paul Otlet and the Birth of the Information Age – Alex Wright
- Everyday Information: The Evolution of Information Seeking in America – Aspray & Hayes, eds.
- Language and Representation in Information Retrieval – Blair
- What is Documentation? – Briet [translation]
Language [Language and related]
- Is That a Fish in Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything – David Bellos
- Integrationist Notes and Papers 2014 – Roy Harris
- Basic Color Terms – Berlin & Kay
- The Unfolding of Language – Deutscher
Literature [(lit, poetry, essays, short stories) and literary theory]
- The Literary Mind: The Origins of Thought and Language – Mark Turner
- Imagination in Place: Essays – Wendell Berry
- If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino [translation]
- Seven Gothic Tales – Isak Dinesen
- Collected Fictions – Borges [translation]
- Scenes of Clerical Life – Eliot [which ed.?]
- Bouvard and Pecuchet – Flaubert [translation] [which ed.?]
- The Little Town Where Time Stood Still – Hrabal [translation] [which ed.?]
- The Things We Don’t Do – Neumann [translation, short stories] [2015 Open Letter ed.]
Philosophy [loosely defined]
- Culture in Mind: Cognition, Culture, and the Problem of Meaning – Bradd Shore
- The Sovereignty of Good – Iris Murdoch
- You Must Change Your Life: Poetry, Philosophy, and the Birth of Sense – John T. Lysacker
- Self and Soul: A Defense of Ideals – Mark Edmundson
- Conjectures & Confrontations – Fox
- Philosophy on Tap – Lawrence
Post 2016 Election
- Islam: A Short History – Armstrong
- Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric – Farnsworth
- Shaming the Devil – Jacobs
- Wickedness – Midgley
- Dead Feminists – O’Leary
- Purity and Danger – Douglas
Renewal
- The Wayward Mind: An Intimate History of the Unconscious – Guy Claxton
- Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict – Tsultrim Allione
- Soul: An Anthology – Cousineau
- Chi Walking – Dreyer
- Healing Trauma – Levine
Sex & Gender
- Straight: The Surprisingly Short History Of Heterosexuality – Hanne Blank
- Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation – Elissa Stein
- Desire: Where Sex Meets Addiction – Cheever
- A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis – Friedman
Tech & Software
- Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas – Seymour Papert
- Just My Type: A Book About Fonts – Garfield
- Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation – Pollan
- Abuse of Language—Abuse of Power – Josef Pieper, Lothar Krauth [translation]
Wander
- The Practice of Everyday Life – de Certeau [translation, philosophy]
- Selected Stories – Walser [translation, short stories]
- The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs – Gooley
- The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness – Solnit, or one of her others
- Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder – Taleb
Assorted/Too Lazy to Classify
- How to Worry Less about Money – John Armstrong
- Myths, Dream and Mysteries – Eliade
- Taste – Stuckey [science]
- Home Comforts – Mendelson
Re-reads
- Eros the Bittersweet – Carson [renewal]
- Reverence – Woodruff [renewal]
- On the Cusp of a Dangerous Year – Roripaugh [poems]
- What Do We Know – Oliver [poems]
- Ambitious Brew – Ogle [beer]
- Wisdom, Information and Wonder – Midgley [philosophy]
- Middlemarch – Eliot [lit]
- Winter Hours – Oliver [poems]
On Pause
- Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry into Cognitive Authority – Patrick Wilson [Philosophy]
- Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight – James Atlee [Assorted]
- Thinking Body, Dancing Mind: Taosports for Extraordinary Performance in Athletics, Business, and Life – Chungliang Al Huang & Jerry Lynch [Assorted]
- Take Control of Automating Your Mac – Joe Kissell [Tech & Software]
- The Good Rain: Across Time & Terrain in the Pacific Northwest – Timothy Egan [DPL ebook]
- The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason – Mark Johnson [Philosophy, Renewal]
- Full Catastrophe Living – Kabat-Zinn
- The Breathing Book – Farhi
Clearly some of these books could go in other of these categories. There are also other categories I am tracking not in this list but all of those are covered by something here.
To recap, of a total of 85 books (which includes some 8 on pause) I challenge myself to complete 2 from each of the 16 categories and a total of 35.