My To-Be-Read Pile

You are all my accountability partners now.

After I confessed last week to reading an e-book I bought four years ago, I decided it was time to come clean with myself and all of y’all about the depth of my to-be-read pile. I went through my Kindle purchases. I emptied my bookshelves. 33 books total, purchases stretching back years but…I created additional categories to make myself feel a little better.

Books I purchased with my hard-earned money (aka top priority):

• Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies by Charles Perrow

• The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You're Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate by Harriet Lerner

• Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America's Heartland by Jonathan Metzl

• House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

• Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

• Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim and Ulrich Bae

• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff by Christopher Moore

• Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

• The Odd Women by George Gissing

• Accompany Them with Singing--The Christian Funeral by Thomas G. Long

• Habits of the Heart by Robert N. Bellah

• Come Together: The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Connections by Emily Nagoski Ph.D.

• Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius and Gregory Hays

• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson

• Die With Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life by Bill Perkins

Books sent to me by listeners (aka next highest priority):

• How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States by Daniel Immerwahr

• The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion by Diana Greene Foster

• Get Me Carlucci: A Daughter Recounts Her Father’s Legacy of Service by Kristin Carlucci Weed

• I'll Pray for You: And Other Outrageous Things Said to Disabled People by Hannah Setzer

• Sliding Off by Alejandro del Mar

Books sent to me by publishers (aka lowest priority):

• BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity by Ruth Whippman

• Complicit: How Our Culture Enables Misbehaving Men by Reah Bravo

• Undiplomatic: How My Attitude Created the Best Kind of Trouble by Deesha Dyer

• The Year of Living Constitutionally: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Constitution's Original Meaning by A.J. Jacobs

• Down Ballot: How a Local Campaign Became a National Referendum on Abortion by Patrick Wohl

• Ghosted: An American Story by Nancy French

• Don't Believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is The Beginning & End Of Suffering by Joseph Nguyen

• Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters by Brian Klaas

• True Gretch by Gretchen Whitmer

• How Schools Really Matter: Why Our Assumption about Schools and Inequality Is Mostly Wrong by Douglas B. Downey

Books I picked up for free because I can’t help myself:

• Radical Humility: Essays on Ordinary Acts by Rebekah Modrak

• Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis

• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

• Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi

So, here is what I need from y’all. The categories only helped me feel better. They didn’t help me prioritize. That’s where you come in.

If your favorite book is on this list, tell me and I’ll move it to the top.

If there’s a book you know to be a stinker, tell me and I’ll cut it.

My goal is to get through this list by the end of the year. Ambitious, yes? But the thought of starting 2025 wild and free is motivating.

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