Behind every great writer is a reader because reading teaches you to write. Back when I was in school, I was a voracious reader, and I can’t say I was overly fussy either. Compared to today where I can barely make my two a month book goal.

And of course, I have gotten a touch too particular about what I read. And those are mostly series that I start and continue with. So I open myself up to the reading challenges that most libraries do every summer, so the kids have something to do. It’s the same list over and over, but this year I found an unusual way to do it.   I apologize in advance on the length, when I wrote it in word, I put the list in columns, and it won’t let me do that here.

So here is the list of book qualifiers.

I left out several because they didn’t fit the flow, for example is a graphic novel or supposed to read for school but didn’t and of course the main one published the year you were born.

So here is how I am doing this year. Every book I read will be published the year I was born.

Then I am going to try to get as many qualifiers as I can per each book. 

For example: Sh̵̵̵ogun  by James Clavell it falls under   1, 3, 8, 10, 13, 16 (technically I would have looked at the cover and read the first chapter) 27 and 29 for a total of 8 of the 30.  

Convoluted in theory I know but it became fun to try to find a book that covered the most topics.  But I tried the list the normal way and I kept coming back to the same two or three qualifiers or that they had three or four qualifiers.

My initial list looks like this… Although I can’t promise the order… it will depend on the library’s availability. But for the first time since school, I am going to widen my horizon.

1. Humboldt’s Gift
2. Agatha Christies “Curtain”
3. Sh̵̵̵ogun
4. Looking for Mr. Goodbar
5. The Great Train Robbery
6. Tuck Everlasting
7. Heat and Dust
8. Crocodile on the Sandbank
9. Last Bus to Woodstock
10. The Monkey Wrench Gang
11. Terra Nostra
12. The Eagle has landed
13. The Great Railway Bazaar
14. The Money Changers
15. The Choirboys
16. The Grey King
17. The Dead Father
18. Black Sunday
19. The Road to Gandolflo
20. The life Before Us
21. Cold Hand in Mine
22. Blot the Landscape
23. The Period Fable
24. Rag Time
25. Imperial Earth
26. The Female Man
27. The Eye in the Pyramid