2016 Backlist TBR Challenge

A week or so ago, the lovely ladies at Cuddlebuggery (seriously, Kat, Meg, & Steph are some of my absolute favorite bookish people) put up a post in which each of them chose 12 books from their backlist TBRs that they were making a priority to read in 2016. I've largely decided to do away with TBR videos/posts this year, just because I'm too much of a mood reader and don't like feeling beholden to a set TBR list each month. However, there are quite a lot of unread books on my shelves, and 12 seems like an entirely manageable number for the next year. I decided to join in on the Backlist TBR Challenge that they started, so here are my 12 picks!

1. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. I bought this ages ago and never read it, but this is a classic that I've been intrigued to read recently. I want 2016 to be the year I start reading classics, so hopefully this will be a good way of kicking things off.

2. Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah. I picked this up because I wanted to read more nonfiction, and this book really aligns with what I studied in my Ethics seminar in college. I'm still really excited to read this, but somehow it keeps being overlooked.

3. The Essential Feminist Reader edited by Estelle Freedman. It's such a shame that I haven't read this yet. But this reader spans history, genre, political thought, to provide (as it says on the tin) essential readings in feminism.

4. Rebel Spring by Morgan Rhodes. I read Falling Kingdoms and hated it, but I had already purchased this second book. So I'm going to read it, probably hate it, and then finally and totally move on from this series and live my best life.

5. Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. This was gifted to me by my friend Lindsay over a year ago, and I still haven't read it. It's a murder mystery that takes place during a reunion at Oxford, and I'll probably be thinking of the shenanigans Lindsay and I got up to while we were at Oxford the whole time.

6. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa. Again, I bought this ages ago and never read it. It's the first in a series about vampires and humans, but much more sinister than any Twilight business. I have no idea what to expect, but it's got to get read this year.

7. More Than This by Patrick Ness. I have never read a single Patrick Ness book, despite owning this one for close to two years. It's time that changed. I have no idea what this book is about other than the story begins with the main character dies. Well then.

8. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I keep putting this off, and I don't even have a good reason for it. I need to just buckle down and finally read Plath in 2016. It will probably ruin me, but that's fine.

9. Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill. I was THE MOST EXCITED to read this, and then I didn't (notice a theme here?). But it's absolutely happening in 2016, and probably soon at that. I have a feeling that this book will dial the radical feminist in me up to 11, and I'm so ready for it.

10. Zodiac by Romina Russell. I preordered this book when it came out in December 2014. PREORDERED IT. And alas, here it sits, unread. This is turning into a TBR of shame. But this book is about a world (solar system?) where each zodiac sign has its own planet and society and civilization. Seems pretty interesting, right?

11. Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. I was almost too ashamed to include this book in my list. I preordered this! I know I will love it! But I also know that I will be devastated and emotionally destroyed by it, and I need to mentally prepare for that.

12. The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan. This beautiful book will be read soon in 2016, because it has been calling to me from atop my shelves. "Jaaaane," it sings, "read me! Stop admiring my glorious design and actually read me!" Or something like that.


Those are the 12 books I've chosen for my Backlist TBR Challenge! Hopefully when 2017 roles around these will all (finally) be read. Well, fingers crossed. What books are you hoping to get to in 2016?