I was not planning to participate in today’s TTT, mostly because I’ve been staying away from TBR posts a lot recently. But I’ve been promising to post the books I want to read for #20 (read 25 books that I physically own), and I’m hoping to read a lot of them soon in any case. Apparently only reading books you physically own is a “thing“, which makes sense because it’s kind of bad when you read so many library/loan books but not the ones on your own shelf.
These are books I physically own (i.e. not e-books, audiobooks or borrowed books) that I want to read before January 2015. The first 10 are what I hope to finish this Spring (because it is Spring in South Africa, although it does not yet feel that way). The strike-throughs are books I read before this list, but after my goal-post. The rest are the rest.
1. China Underground by Zachary Mexico (bought while on Semester at Sea)
2. Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (won from Cate at Boxes of Paper)
3. Wolf, Wolf by Eben Venter
4. African Cookboy by David Dinwoodie Irving
5. Kid Moses by Mark R. Thornton
6. Doomed Love by Virgil (#1 in Penguin’s Great Loves box set – romance AND classics, daunting)
7. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (from Puffin’s Children’s Classics box set)
8. Ratburger by David Walliams
9. Bakuman by Tsugumi Ohba (also bought while on SAS, at the Kyoto Manga Museum)
10. Last Night I Dreamed of Peace (also from SAS)
11. Just One Day by Gayle Forman
12. Whisper Not by Mpongo et. al.
13. Touch by Karina Magdalena Szczurek (won during Short Story Week Africa 2012)
14. Hives in Paradise by Midge Hill Mebane
15. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein
16. Sister-Sister by Rachel Zadok
17. Around Africa on my Bicycle by Riaan Manser (won from The Book Club Blog)
18. Other Lives by Andre Brink (won during Short Story Week Africa 2012)
19. Shakespeare’s England by R.E. Pritchard (bought by Granny on a trip to the UK)
20. Dreams of Trespass by Fatima Mernissi
21. Worlds Afire by Paul B. Janeczko
22. Conversations with Myself by Nelson Mandela
23. The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men by Bill Shore
24. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (SAS)
25. Moxyland by Lauren Beukes (SAS)
Disclaimer: This is by no means a list of books I think you should read before 25 or anything like that. I simply don’t want to turn 25 with a shelf full of books that are gathering dust.
Whispers Unto the Aether 
You’ve got such an interesting selection of books. I hope you enjoy them all 🙂 I’m looking forward to reading Code Name Verity!
Thank you! Code Name Verity was so awesome, I hope you’ll enjoy it!
That is an interesting and mixed selection of books! I don’t even know where to start… I hope you have better luck with Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly than I did. It has such potential, but it didn’t work for me but I seem to be the oddity from the other reviews I’ve seen. What did you think of Code Name Verity? Did it live up to the hype for you?
And good luck with completing the rest of the list.
Thank you! Code Name Verity was so different to what I expected, but absolutely INCREDIBLE. I’m very glad I decided to read it eventually. I hope I’ll enjoy Revolution… it would be a pity if I didn’t!
Ooh, I’m curious about Virgil’s Doomed Love. The Penguin Great Loves series is great; I’ve only read Turgenev’s First Love and Chekhov’s A Russian Affair but I’d love to read the other books in the series at some point 🙂 (minus Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata because I read that story in a collected short stories edition)
Best of luck going through the remaining titles on your list! 🙂
Thanks for stopping by! I’m really struggling with Doomed Love right now. But I’m trying… 🙂
Hello!! We read WIND IN THE WILLOWS in school when I was… 11–and it has never occurred to me that I might want to read it again. At least not until now. Thanks for the reminder!
This is a noble goal, to try to read books you own so they’re not just gathering dust on the shelf. I have a bad habit of collecting books to read later, and then years later they’re still waiting to be read. Perhaps I’m thinking I’ll have a lot of time on my hands one day. HA! 🙂
All the best to you, Mariechen. 🙂
I’ve never ever ever read Wind in the Willows, but I have this collection of beautiful cloth-bound children’s books, and it’s supposed to be a good book, so… that’s where I’m at! Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Oh you have a really interesting list here! Good luck getting through them all 🙂 I also have a rather enormous pile of unread books I own that taunt me from my bookshelves. One day I’m going to attempt to write down (or um, scan them into Goodreads) what they are and start working my way through them.
So many books, so little time!
Thank you! Yes, I get so sad when I realise that there are way too many books on earth to read in a lifetime…
I’ve never heard of any of these books I feel so dumb LOL. I’m currently reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
You don’t have to feel dumb – you’re reading Gladwell! I’ve been meaning to read him, but still haven’t, actually. By the way, you might enjoy Arundhati Roy 🙂
I sadly still have to read Code Name Verity. I’ll hopefully be reading it in the next month or so. -crosses fingers-
Good luck on your reading goals! (:
Thank you! Code Name Verity was wonderful, I hope you’ll enjoy it!
Revolution was a good book. I haven’t read these others, but a lot of them are on my to read list. Seems like you’re making pretty good progress so far. I may have to do something like this, I always push books I own to the side in favor of other books. Happy Reading!
Thank you! I just started Revolution, and I’m loving it.
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