Happy New Year! For the past three years, in addition to a New Year’s Resolution, I set a reading resolution for myself. This year’s goal was 40 books, and I met my goal right before Christmas (you’ll see 45 on the list, but 5 were rereads, so I’m not really counting those). In this post I offer my list in the hopes you’ll pick one of them up in 2019. I listed my top 5 Nonfiction picks, then my top 5 Fiction picks (sooo hard to narrow that down), but the rest of the list is in no particular order. I can honestly say I enjoyed every book . . . I’m kind of a book whore 🙂

1. Born A Crime by Trevor Noah *NF
2. Everybody Always by Bob Goff *NF
3. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell*NF
4. The Glass Castle: A Memoir  by Jeannette Walls *NF
5. Enrique’s Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother *NF
6. Simon vs. The Homosapiens Agenda
7. Violent Ends
8. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
9. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
10. One of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus
11. Olivia Twisted by Vivi Barnes
12. Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
13.  Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
14. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
15. THE LEAVING by Tara Altebrando
16. BEHELD by Alex Flinn
17. Unwind (Unwind Dystology)
18. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood
19. Unbelievably Bound by JC Reimer
20. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
21. The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi
22. Side Effects May Vary
23. Under the Feet of Jesus
24. Emergency Contact by Mary H K Choi
25. Love Does by Bob Goff
26. Positively Beautiful by Wendy Mills
27. Faultlines by Lucienne Diver
28. Keeping Her Secret by Sarah Nicolas
29. Fences by August Wilson
30. Maus by Art Spiegelman *Reread
31. Looking For Alaska by John Green *Reread
32. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse *Reread
33. My One Word by Mike Ashcraft & Rachel Olsen
34. The Stand by Stephen King *Reread
35. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut *Reread
36. The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains
37. Visual Note-Taking For Educators by Wendi Pillars
38. 180 Days by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle
39. Write What Matters: For Yourself, For Others by Tom Romano
40. Books for Living: Some Thoughts on Reading, Reflecting, and Embracing Life by Will Schwalbe
41. Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orisha) by Tomi Adeyemi 
42. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez
43. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
44. Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom
45. Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

My goal for this year is 45 books! What’s your New Year’s Resolution? (Mine is to be content . . . there’s lots to be said for being content in our daily lives, and I’m looking forward to living with a word that reminds me to do that.) Any book resolutions? Cheers to Happy Reading in 2019! May the words you read open up new ways of thinking, inspiration, and possibilities!