The List, Explored

Choosing 38 books for my refined Dymocks 52 Challenge was not an easy task.

Particularly since I'd miscalculated, and originally only planned for 34 books.

I didn't want to randomly choose my list, nor did I want to just pick the stories that most appealed to me. The whole point is to challenge myself; to read books that seem deserving that I am otherwise unlikely to read.

I can't tell you how many years I've put off reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, because war stories just don't appeal to me in the slightest. However it's appeared consistently in the Dymocks 101, never at a spot beyond #6 (2018) and even took out first place three years in a row (2014, 2015 and 2016). Despite my reservations, this was the first book I added to my challenge list.

It's also worth mentioning that I've already read a lot of the books listed each year. Re-reading old favourites, while entertaining, would have nullified the point of the challenge. So look in vain for titles like Lord of the Rings, Throne of Glass, 1984, Harry Potter and many more favourites, both classic and modern.

To determine the most worthy books, I began by reviewing the lists for the past five years. Some appeared on their own, others as part of its series. (For the sake of numbers, I've included only the first book in series.)

Upon my review, I discovered 9 unread books that have made the list every time:

1. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak (AA)
2. The Happiest Refugee - Anh Do (AA)
3. Jasper Jones - Craig Silvey (AA)
4. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
5. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
6. The Light Between Oceans - M. L. Stedman (AA)
7. The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (AA)
8. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
9. Assassin's Apprentice (The Farseer Trilogy) - Robin Hobb

AA = Australian Author

Seems that we are quite partial to our homegrown authors!

I have to admit - I was not comforted by these titles. Several I've had no intention of ever reading (Hichhiker's Guide ... , The Narrow Road ...) and others I've attempted in the past but cast aside after a chapter or two (Light Between Oceans, Assassin's Apprentice). Yet here they were, consistently proving they had won the hearts of Australian book lovers.

On to the list they go.

The next step was to look for the books that had made it four of the five past years - another six books emerged.

10. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt (-2016)
11. The Husband's Secret - Liane Moriarty (AA) (-2015)
12. The Martian - Andy Weir (-2015)
13. My Brilliant Friend (The Neapolitan Series) - Elena Ferrante (-2015)
14. The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows (-2016)
15. Ready Player One - Ernest Cline (-2015)

(- the year they missed out)

Again,  mostly books I'd never thought a lot about reading. Sci-fi, lit fic ... eh. And that potato one? I almost don't want to read it just because its title is so obnoxious. How anyone remembered the name of this book is beyond me.

Naturally, it was then the books that had three mentions:

16. Shantaram - Gregory David Roberts
17. All the Bright Places - Jennifer Niven
18. Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty (AA)
19. Reckoning - Magda Szubanski (AA)
20. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara 
21. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson

Now here was something fun: Finally my list had its first two non-fiction offerings!

Not particularly happy with the voters for delivering me Shantaram, though. This is a 936-page monster I am NOT looking forward to tackling.

(I'm sure there were some other 3/5 options that I neglected based on page-count alone - Anna Karenina didn't get a second glance at all.)

With what I believed to be 12 more choices to go, I decided it was time to have a little fun with it.

A common book lover problem is buying more books than one can possibly read, and having them sit, neglected, on bookshelves for years. I am no exception. My next step was to compare the 101 lists from 2012-2019 against the books already on my shelves. It produced six more titles not already on my list:

22. The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
23. The Final Empire (The Mistborn Series) - Brandon Sanderson
24. Wool - Hugh Howey
25. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine - Gail Honeyman
26. Boy Swallows Universe - Trent Dalton (AA)
27. Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicles) - Jay Kristoff (AA)

Admittedly, the last three are recent purchases bought to celebrate the 2019 list. I love that 3-for-2 deal.

Down to the last 7, I thought it was time to allow for some random choices. The only stipulation was that they be chosen from this year's Top 101. Here they are:

28. Simon VS the Homo Sapiens Agenda - Becky Albertalli
29. Fight Like a Girl - Clementine Ford (AA)
30. Circe - Madeline Miller
31. Mythos - Stephen Fry
32. The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart - Holly Ringland (AA)
33. Becoming - Michelle Obama
34. A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness

And then of course I discovered I'd neglected four weeks of the remaining year, so added by random choice:

35. Crazy Rich Asians - Kevin Kwan
36. Scrublands - Chris Hammer (AA)
37. Normal People - Sally Rooney
38. Nine Perfect Strangers - Liane Moriarty (AA)

So there you have it! The complete list of 38 books I intend to get though in the next 38 weeks! 14 Australian authors, four non-fiction books, and so many I've been putting off for years. Wish me luck!

Stay tuned for updates, stats and more.

Happy reading!