30 before 30 - Reading Goals

Today is my 20th birthday!

As I am moving into a new decade of my life, I decided to create a ‘30 Before 30’ bucket list of 30 things I want to do in the next ten years. I loved creating it, and I’m even more looking forward to ticking them off as I head through the next ten years.

Being the bookworm I am, I also had the idea of setting myself a ‘30 before 30’ reading challenge. Just like my bucket list, this challenge consists of 30 texts I want to read before I turn 30 years old. The texts I have chosen are a mix of ones I've been eager to read for a long time, and ones I've recently come across that I am so excited about and can't wait to get around to reading. Others I consider to be monumental, classic or iconic texts that I absolutely must read as a literary enthusiast. Some I have already in my book cupboard waiting for me to delve into, whilst the majority are waiting patiently on a bookshelf somewhere for me to come along and adopt them into my bookish family.

For added variety, I’ve chosen 15 fiction texts (1-15) and 15 non-fiction texts (16-30). The texts themselves are listed in no particular order…

1. A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara

2. The Colour Purple, Alice Walker

3. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

4. White Teeth, Zadie Smith

5. Sea Prayer, Khaled Hosseini

6. The History of Bees, Maja Lunde

7. Amnesty, Aravind Adiga

8. Sparks Like Stars, Nadia Hashimi

9. Blonde Roots, Bernadine Evaristo

10. We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver

11. Kindred, Octavia Butler

12. The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett

13. A Spark Of Light, Jodi Picoult

14. The Death of Vivek Oji, Akwaeke Emezi

15. The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak

16. A Promised Land, Barack Obama

17. Educated, Tara Westover

18. Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Jaron Lanier

19. What Happened, Hillary Rodham Clinton

20. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, Audre Lorde

21. 101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think, Brianna Wiest

22. All the Young Men, Ruth Coker Burks

23. Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates

24. How Women Can Save The Planet, Anne Karpf

25. Our Bodies Their Battlefield, Christina Lamb

26. We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World, Malala Yousafzai

27. Travelling While Black, Nanjala Nyabola

28. Head, Hand, Heart, David Goodhart

29. Eating Animals, Jonathan Safran Foer

30. Why We Sleep, Matthew Walker

Watch this space and make sure to follow me over on Instagram to keep up to date with my challenge and see whether I read all 30 texts!