Dymocks Booksellers are an independent chain of stores in Australia. In my book club, one of my friends shared their reading challenge for 2022, (the printable list can be found here). I’ve rattled through my shelves and have selected the following books to tick off the list through the coming 12 months.
- Brought it for the cover – Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown
- Trending on #BookTok – The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
- Illustrated cover – Possession, AS Byatt
- A friend’s favourite – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (actually, the husband’s)
- Otherwordly – Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
- Inspiring Change – Untamed, Glennon Doyle
- Love story – Surrender the Pink, Carrie Fisher
- Start of a series – Dune, Frank Herbert
- A Classic – Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte / Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
- Australian author – 488 Rules of Life, Kitty Flannagan
- A book you keep seeing – Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
- Number in the title – 4:50 from Paddington, Agatha Christie
- Re-read a favourite – Swallows & Amazons, Arthur Ransome (all twelve of them)
- From where you’d rather be – The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern
- An adventure – The Martian, Andy Weir
- Feel good – The World of Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
- Released this year – Unbound, Tarana Burke
- Award-winner – Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
- First Nations author – Australia Day, Stan Grant
From their ‘extra challenging’ section
- 450+ pages – A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth (brought this 20+ years ago, so I ought to read it really)
- A book older than you – One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
- Bottom of your TBR pile – Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
- Finished in a day – The Darling Buds of May, HE Bates
- Out of your comfort zone – The Hobbit, JRRRRRR Tolkien
Not selected yet; ‘Read entirely outside’ and one of the ‘Dymocks Book of the Month’.
Some of these I re-read most years, some I’ve been meaning to get around to and some I’ve got to buy to complete the challenge. Some I’m not looking forward to, as I know I’ll struggle with them. But isn’t that the point of life?
If you’d like to join in, follow the #DymocksReadingChallenge.