I have an ambitious goal to read 50 books by the end of this year. In the spirit of accountability, I thought I should share with my list of books that I want to read this year.
I will continue adding more books as the year goes along so if you have any suggestions for me, please leave them in the comments.
2020 UPDATE ON MY READING LIST
I contemplated deleting this post all together because I did not even come close to achieving my goal for last year (2019), but then I decided otherwise.
It is also important to note that I am writing this in September 2020, yes I am reviewing my 2019 goals in the last quarter of 2020. Oops.
But here is the thing, the last one year has been one of survival for me. I ended up with a complicated pregnancy, spent 4 months on bed rest and just when I had my baby and I was about ready to start getting out and get some air, COVID-19 happened.
It has been a lot! My focus was no longer achieving great things but rather just living, being present and doing whatever I could do to keep my family and myself going strong.
What that meant is that this blog took a back burner, I read when I could and when I felt like and I also chose to do things that brought me joy.
Looking back, I did not read as many books as I would have loved to, but I learned a ton of lessons. I rested, I had new dreams, I started new ventures, I grew.
Earlier this year (2020), I wanted to come up with one word that would guide what this year would be for me. I prayed for a word, I meditated about but hard as I tried I did not have one word.
These sentences kept playing in my mind:
“Breathe. It is well, It is well”
I wrote it on my board next to the kitchen where I would see it every day and it didn’t really make sense until March when the pandemic started and all my plans went to sh*t.
It has been an exercise in breathing and reaffirming to myself that it is well ever since. So why am I writing all these?
Here is to say that sometimes working on your goals may look different than you expected. Sometimes you will fail. Sometimes you won’t achieve the goals that you wanted to achieve but that does not make you a failure.
You wake up and you live to fight another day. We fail forward.
With that said, I am proud to report that I read at least 10 books in 2019. I say at least 10 because I read plenty of summaries on Blinkist that are not recorded here.
I also started a bunch of books that I did not finish.
By the way, one of Bill Gates’ rules on reading books is to never start a book and not finish but I guess I am not a Bill Gates?
Here is the list of Books (Non Fiction) that I read in 2019
- Becoming by Michelle Obama (completed, Jan 2019)
- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (completed, March 2019)
- Who moved my cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson (completed, Feb 2019)
- The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod (completed, May 2019)
- Educated by Tara Westover (completed, July 2019)
- Decluttering at the Speed of Life by Dana K. White (completed, April 2019)
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (completed, August 2019)
- Yes, The Prayer God Loves to Answer ( completed August 2019)
- Babywise: Giving your infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep by R Bucknam and G. Ezzo (completed October 2019)
- I’m Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi (completed in December 2019)
As you can tell it is quite a diverse list of books that are not just personal development books but also books that were appropriate for what I was dealing with at the time.
Like the baby book for sleep, and the decluttering book for getting rid of clutter in the home. I actually really liked the Declutter at The Speed of Life book because it was way more practical for me than what is taught by the famous Marie Kondo system.
Books that I started but did not finish from my 2019 reading list:
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving
a F *ck - Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela
- You Are a Badass, How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero
Books that I wanted to read on my 2019 reading list but did not get to them
- Growth Mindset by Carol Dweck
- Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
- Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis
I am hoping that my life will get easier as 2020 goes by and I can resume reading more often but for now, I am not really pressuring myself on that.
Currently, I have Daring Greatly by Brene’ Brown and 20 something 20 Everything by Christine Hassler on my desk but to be honest I haven’t started reading either of them yet. I am giving myself grace for the season that I am in while also gently pushing myself.
Updating this post is a start and I hope to pick some momentum and keep going. I have been reading whenever I feel like but now I want to move into the next level where I reestablish reading as a habit.
Hope you will stick around to journey with me.
My Top 3 Books from my 2019 Reading List
Before I go, I would like to share my top 3 books from the books I actually read in 2019. This is not to say that the others were not good. However, these are the ones that left a big impression on me.
For example, I loved Gifts of Imperfection so much and it had a big impact on my life that I decided to get Daring greatly which is by the same author.
Becoming sparked a whole lot of thoughts, some of which I shared in this post.
Educated on the other hand, I cannot quite explain how powerful it was for me. I often find myself randomly thinking about Tara Westover’s family and their story and try to draw lessons from it. Yes, I think about it, a year later.
I gifted it to my elder sister and now she calls me siddle lister ?(read the book, you will get it).
Here are the links (affiliate) to the books that I loved the most from my 2019 reading list.