Reading List 2020

[thrillingdetectivetales]

So I just received my Christmas gifts and got a couple of AMAZING books from my parents—among other things, like a mini helmet signed by the Coyotes' own Norse god of goal-tending, Darcy Kuemper—and so I thought I would throw together a reading list of all the books I want to try to get through next year. It includes both the new books I received from my parents as well as a bunch of books I either own but have not read or started reading but haven't finished, across platforms from physical books to audiobooks to e-books.

Some of them are books I bought years ago, but I'm making a deal with myself that I'm not allowed to buy any new books until I finish these. You'll see why when you look at the list.

MEMOIRS & ESSAYS

1. Born Into It
   A Fan's Life
   by Jay Baruchel


2. Call of Duty
   My Life Before, During, and After the Band of Brothers
   by Lt. Lynn "Buck" Compton, with Marcus Brotherton


3. No Rooms of Their Own
   Women Writers of Early California, 1849-1869
   edited by Ida Rae Egli


4. One Bullet Away
   The Making of a Marine Officer
   by Nathaniel Fick


5. Medic!
   How I Fought World War II with Morphine, Sulfa, and Iodine Swabs
   by Robert "Doc Joe" Franklin


6. Vacationland
   True Stories from Painful Beaches
   by John Hodgman


7. Combat Medic, World War II
   by John. A Kerner, M.D.


8. A Burst of Light and Other Essays
   by Audre Lorde


9. Easy Company Soldier
   The Legendary Battles of a Sergeant from WWII's "Band of Brothers"
   by Don Malarky, with Bob Welch


10. Everything's Trash, But It's Okay
    by Phoebe Robinson


11. You Can't Touch My Hair
    And Other Things I Still Have to Explain
    by Phoebe Robinson


12. Doctor Danger Forward
    A World War II Memoir of a Combat Medical Aidman, First Infantry Division
    by Allen N. Towne


13. Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
    by Sarah Vowell


14. Unfamiliar Fishes
    by Sarah Vowell


15. Parachute Infantry
    An American Paratrooper's Memoir of D-Day and the Fall of the Third Reich
    by David Kenyon Webster

WWII HISTORY

1. The Bomber Boys
   Heroes Who Flew the B-17s in World War II
   by Travis L. Ayres


2. Iron Knights
   The U.S. 66th Armored Regiment in WWII
   by Gordon A. Blaker


3. Fighting for Life
   American Military Medicine in World War II
   by Albert E. Cowdrey


4. "Elbe Operation"
   With 2d Armored Division & 83d Infantry Division
   by Lt. Houcek


5. Hell on Wheels
   The 2d Armored Division
   by Donald E. Houston


6. Six Armies in Normandy
   From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris
   by John Keegan


7. Strong Men Armed
   The United States Marines Against Japan
   by Robert Leckie


8. My Queer War
   by James Lord


9. Double Cross
   The True Story of the D-Day Spies
   by Ben MacIntyre


10. Sex and the Weimar Republic
    German Homosexual Emancipation and the Rise of the Nazis
    by Lauie Marhoefer


11. Deadly Sky
    The American Combat Airman in World War II
    by John C. McManus


12. The Dead and Those About to Die
    D-Day: The Big Red One at Omaha Beach
    by Jon C. McManus


13. Masters of the Air
    America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany
    Donald L. Miller


14. The Wolves at the Door
    The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy
    by Judith L. Pearson


15. And the Show Went On:
    Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris
    by Alan Riding


16. The French Resistance
    The History of the Opposition Against Nazi Germany's Occupation of France During World War II
    by Charles River


17. When Paris Went Dark
    The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940-1944
    by Ronald C. Rosbottom


18. D-Day Girls
    The Spies Who Armed the Resistance, Sabotaged the Nazis, and Helped Win World War II
    by Sarah Rose


19. Hell's Angels
    The True Story of the 303rd Bomb Group in World War II
    by Jay A. Stout


20. World War II at Camp Hale
    Blazing a New Trail
    by David R. Witte

"WILD WEST"/AMERICAN FRONTIER HISTORY

1. Calamity Jane and the Lady Wildcats
   by Duncan Aikman


2. Diamondfield
   Finding the Real Jack Davis
   by Max Black

Re-Dressing America's Frontier Past
Peter Boag

3. Dodge City
   Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West
   by Tom Clavin


4. Frontier Medicine
   From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941
   by David Dary


5. The Last Gunfight
   The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral—And How It Changed the American West
   by Jeff Guinn


6. Everyday Life in Early America
   by David Freeman Hawke


7. The Far Southwest 1846-1912
   A Territorial History
   by Howard R. Lamar


8. Pioneer Women
   Voices from the Kansas Frontier
   by Joanna L. Stratton


9. Jesse James
   Last Rebel of the Civil War
   by T. J. Styles


10. African American Women of the Old West
    by Tricia Martineau Wagner

MISC. HISTORY, NATURE, & SOCIETY

1. A Queer History of the United States
   by Michael Bronski


2. Gay New York
   Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940
   by George Chauncey


3. Cold War Radio
   The Dangerous History of American Broadcasting in Europe, 1950-1989
   by Richard H. Cummings


4. Six Months in 1945
   FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman: From World War to Cold War
   by Michael Dobbs


5. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers
   A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth Century America
   by Lillian Faderman


6. Race, Monogamy, and Other Lies They Told You
   Busting Myths About Human Nature
   by Augustín Fuentes


7. The Cold War
   A New History
   by John Lewis Gaddis


8. Buzz
   The Nature and Necessity of Bees
   em>by Thor Hanson


9. Hockey: A Global History
   by Stephen Hardy and Andrew C. Holman


10. Girls Will Be Boys
    Cross-Dressed Women, Lesbians, and American Cinema, 1908-1934
    by Laura Horak


11. Midnight Rising
    John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War
    by Tony Horwitz


12. Berlin 1961
    Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Most Dangerous Place on Earth
    by Frederick Kempe


13. The Down Goes Brown History of the NHL
    The World's Most Beautiful Sport, the World's Most Ridiculous League
    by Sean McIndoe


14. Queer Cowboys
    And Other Erotic Male Friendships in Nineteenth Century American Literature
    by Chris Packard


15. Bowling Alone
    The Collapse and Revival of American Community
    by Robert D. Putnam


16. Cold War on the Airwaves
    The Radio Propaganda War Against East Germany
    by Nicholas J. Schlosser


17. Generation Kill
    Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the New Face of American War
    by Evan Wright

FICTION

1. Beartown
   by Fredrik Backman


2. The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
   by Becky Chambers


3. The Club of Queer Trades
   by G. K. Chesterton


4. Manalive
   by G. K. Chesterton


5. Diamonds Are Forever
   by Ian Fleming


6. Live and Let Die
   by Ian Fleming


7. Thunderball
   by Ian Fleming


8. Feed
   by Mira Grant


9. Into the Drowning Deep
   by Mira Grant


10. Who Is Vera Kelly?
    by Rosalie Knecht


11. A Man with One of Those Faces
    by Caimh McDonnell


12. The Last Kind Words Saloon
    by Larry McMrurty


13. There, There
    by Tommy Orange


14. Annihilation
    by Jeff Vandermeer


15. Artemis
    by Andy Weir


16. The Martian
    by Andy Weir

POETRY & BOOKS ABOUT POETRY

1. The Tradition
   by Jericho Brown


2. Soft Science
   by Franny Choi


3. The Waste Land and Other Poems
   T. S. Eliot


4. Forest Primeval
   by Vievee Francis


5. Dearest Creature
   by Amy Gerstler


6. Conversations with Natasha Trethewey
   edited by Joan Wylie Hall


7. American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
   by Terrance Hayes


8. Gerard Manley Hopkins
   The Major Works, including all poems and selected prose
   by Gerard Manley Hopkins, Oxford World's Classics


9. A. E. Housman
   The Collected Works
   by A. E. Housman, Wordsworth Poetry Library


10. Civil War Poetry
    An Anthology
    edited by Paul Negri


11. Blood, Tin, Straw
    Sharon Olds


12. The Moon is Always Female
    by Marge Piercey


13. Hapax
    by A. E. Stallings


14. Native Guard
    by Natasha Trethewey


15. Songs of Sappho
    by Various

THEOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, & ETHICS

1. Bulletproof Faith
   A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians
   by Candace Chellew-Hodge


2. The Everlasting Man
   by G. K. Chesterton


3. Torn
   Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays-vs.-Christians Debate
   by Justin Lee


4. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
   by Thomas Merton


5. American Grace
   How Religion Divides and Unites Us
   Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell


6. Why Does Inequality Matter?
   by T. M. Scanlon


7. The Rejection of Consequentialism
   by Samuel Scheffler

I'm pretty sure this isn't all of them, though this list numbers a nice round 100 books to read. I tend to stumble across books I've forgotten I've bought, so I will update this list as I run across additional volumes.

This week's reading is:

1. Medic!
   How I Fought World War II with Morphine, Sulfa, and Iodine Swabs
   by Robert "Doc Joe" Franklin


2. Annihilation
   by Jeff Vandermeer


3. Manalive
   by G. K. Chesterton

Comments

[muccamukk]

I really want to read that Faderman book at some point. I really liked My Mother's Wars by her, and her general history.

IDK how much you'll get out of Last Gunfight, since it's pretty standard.

Good luck with Compton.

[impala_chick]

One Bullet Away is one of my all-time favorite nonfiction books ♥

Generation Kill is good. I think I like his writing style better than Ambrose's, but it was still slow going for me.

[slightlytookish]

Hey, you're going to read Webster's book!

These lists look great and I'm sure I'll come back here if I need some to-read list ideas.