All the Books I'm Looking Forward to

Looking over my POPSUGAR Reading Challenge list for 2022, one thing I already feel a lot better about is that I stuck to the prompts much better this time around (apparently there’s this constellation called Carina, and Karina is a variant of the name Carina, and Karenina is like Karina if you drop a few letters…). I’m glad a lot of what I was hoping to read next year managed to fit quite neatly into some of the prompts—Malcolm X, Giovanni’s Room, Journey to the End of the Night, Master and Margarita, and some of the books I didn’t get around to reading this year also found space in next year’s list—Grapes of Wrath, Fried Green Tomatoes, Love in the Time of Cholera.

Animal Farm is one of the books I’ve wanted to read for the longest time (I remember reading some of it when I was still in undergrad, but I don’t think I finished it…? at least I don’t remember the ending); Crying of Lot 49 was a recommendation from my English tutor back in 12th grade; Macbeth is a reread from 10th(?) grade; and I have a hard copy of Three-Body Problem that has been sitting on my nightstand in Sydney for at least the last five years.

A few books from this year ended up being much better than what I was expecting—Mrs Dalloway, A Man Called Ove, so I’ve lined up a few more from the same authors—Orlando, My Grandmother Asked Me. Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan, and Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground also make it to next year’s list as I continue making my way through their most famous works.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a recommendation from James Baldwin; Foundation is a recommendation from a friend; Just Kids is a recommendation from various corners of the internet; and if there was a poll for the internet’s “most hated classic”, Catcher in the Rye would easily make in to the top three. There was a Reddit thread sometime ago where the OP said that they didn’t really appreciate In Search of Lost Time until they reread it in their 30s. Ignore the last part of that sentence…

McCarthy, Calvino, Atwood, Mishima, and Ishiguro are authors I haven’t read from before, and have been sitting on my TBR list for a while. Dickens is an author I was forced into reading from before, but haven’t “read” from before—if you know, you know.

Choosing a book set in the Victorian era was surprisingly difficult, although I had plenty of choice here. I went with The Importance of Being Earnest because (a) Oscar Wilde, and (b) it’s pretty short in light of the choices I made for other prompts. I fully expect my reading time across this and Inferno to average out.

I didn’t know Howl’s Moving Castle was based on a book until I started filling out this list. The rest of it is here (subject to, and in all likelihood will be undergoing a lot of, change):

1. A book published in 2022 — Moldy Strawberries, Caio Fernando Abreu

2. A book set on a plane, train, or cruise ship — Catch-22, Joseph Heller

3. A book about or set in a nonpatriarchal society — Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood

4. A book with a tiger on the cover or “tiger” in the title —

5. A sapphic book — The Color Purple, Alice Walker

6. A book by a Latinx author – Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez

7. A book with an onomatopoeia in its title — One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

8. A book with a protagonist who uses a mobility aid — Howl’s Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones

9. A book about a “found family” — My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Fredrik Backman [2]

10. An Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winner — The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley [16]

11. A #BookTok recommendation — The Years, Annie Ernaux

12. A book about the afterlife — Inferno, Dante Alighieri

13. A book set in the 1980s — No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

14. A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title — Giovanni’s Room, James Baldwin

15. A book by a Pacific Islander author —

16. A book about witches — Macbeth, William Shakespeare [6]

17. A book becoming a TV series or movie in 2022 — The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov

18. A romance novel by a BIPOC author — Spring Snow, Yukio Mishima [10]

19. A book that takes place during your favorite season — If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, Italo Calvino [13]

20. A book whose title begins with the last letter of your previous read — Swann’s Way, Marcel Proust

21. A book about a band or musical group — Just Kids, Patti Smith [5]

22. A book with a character on the ace spectrum — The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

23. A book with a recipe in it — Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Fannie Flagg

24. A book you can read in one sitting — Animal Farm, George Orwell [4]

25. A book about a secret — We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson [15]

26. A book with a misleading title — The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck [1]

27. A Hugo Award winner — Foundation, Isaac Asimov

28. A book set during a holiday — A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens [3]

29. A different book by an author you read in 2021 — Plays, Anton Chekhov [14]

30. A book with the name of a board game in the title — The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut

31. A book featuring a man-made disaster — A World on the Wing (audiobook), Scott Weidensaul [18]

32. A book with a quote from your favorite author on the cover or Amazon page — I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou [8]

33. A social-horror book — Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky [7]

34. A book set in Victorian times — The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde [11]

35. A book with a constellation on the cover or in the title — Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

36. A book you know nothing about — The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon [12]

37. A book about gender identity — Orlando, Virginia Woolf

38. A book featuring a party — The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro [17]

39. An #OwnVoices SFF (science fiction and fantasy) book — The Three-Body Problem, Liu Cixin [9]

40. A book that fulfills your favorite prompt from a past POPSUGAR Reading Challenge → A debut novel (2019) — Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline

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