I read a lot of great books in 2021 and 2022 as part of my Goodreads Choice Awards reading challenge, and I plan to continue reading finalists from last year's Goodreads Choice Awards. However, for 2023, I'm going to change the formal reading challenge that I track.
As I get older, I'm thinking more and more about bucket lists. When it comes to reading, there are lots of lists of books to read before you die, and 2023 seems like as good a year as any to start plowing through the classics. The question is: which of the many lists to choose from?
I started with Peter Boxall's 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. This appears to be the most referenced source when I searched for bucket list books. Not all books on the list are novels, and there are quite a few I've already read. That said, it still leaves a lot of books.
Then I found this handy list, which categorizes the 1,001 books by time period. It helped me organize the reading challenge because what I've decided to do is to read one book a month from the list, using the following criteria:
- 1 book from the 2000s
- 5 books from the 1900s
- 4 books from the 1800s
- 1 book from the 1700s
- 1 book from pre-1700s
Next, I looked through some other lists of books to read before you die, namely this, this, this, and this. My plan is to cross-reference Peter Boxall's list with other lists and select ones that appear multiple times. I already know that I'll read these three books because they appear on all of the lists:
- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
- Ulysses by James Joyce
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
(That's right, I haven't read any of these books. Please don't judge.)
Given the number of books on the list, and that I'm only reading twelve of them in 2023, this sounds like a reading challenge I'll continue for many years to come, even if I don't formally track and report my progress.
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