Happy 2022! It’s a fresh year and a fresh start, and I have a fresh book list to start off the year. Here’s my reading list for January.
A Reimagined Classic
So Many Beginnings by Bethany C. Morrow. This is a YA retelling of Little Women, set in North Carolina in 1863 in the Freedpeople’s Colony of Roanoke Island, a “haven for the recently emancipated.” The March family and their daughters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, have joined other Black families to put down roots there. I haven’t read Little Women in a very long time, but I really look forward to this retelling from a different perspective.
A Book-Themed Novel
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams. I don’t know much about this book other than that it’s about a mysterious list of books that a teenaged girl finds crumpled up in To Kill a Mockingbird while working at the library. She sets out to read through the list, and eventually shares it with a lonely widowed patron who is hoping to bond with his granddaughter. I was intrigued by both the “book about books” theme (of course!) as well as the idea of an unlikely friendship.
Heists and Criminals from a Beloved Author
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. This book about a heist gone wrong and a salesman living a double life is not something I would normally pick up, but in the hands of Colson Whitehead I’m definitely intrigued (not to mention it’s this month’s pick for the Bliss Books and Wine book club I’m part of). I was captivated by the worlds he created in both The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, so I look forward to seeing what he does with this 1960s Harlem setting.
Organization and Decluttering
Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin. This year, in an effort to read personal growth and development nonfiction more intentionally, I’m planning to read one nonfiction per month on a topic I’d like to learn more about or improve on. I’m a pretty organized person, but with kids and all the papers, toys, and other random junk stuff they bring home, I can’t seem to stay on top of the clutter. I enjoyed Rubin’s The Happiness Project and Better than Before, as well as her “four tendencies” personality framework, so I’m curious to her her home organization philosophies.
Highly-Rated Backlist YA
The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon. I’ve had this backlist YA novel on my TBR for a while now; I enjoyed Everything Everything by Yoon a few years ago as well. This one is about Natasha and Daniel, who meet in New York City where it feels like fate has brought them together. I’ve heard great things about this one.
What are you planning to read this month?
