A Pulitzer Prize winner about a blind French girl and a German radio expert whose paths intersect in occupied France during WWII, as they navigate survival and human connection.

Also fulfills: Read a book that won an award.
Read a book over 500 pages.

A novel about two women, Evelyn and Mrs. Threadgoode, and their life stories, including two more women, Idgie and Ruth, who ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, offering love, laughter, and occasional murder.

Also fulfills: Read a book that won an award.
Read a book about friendship.
Read a book with a color in the title.
Read a dual timeline story.

Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to leave her fortune to. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she’s coming to visit—and won’t take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica’s closed heart starts to open.

Also fulfills: (Maybe:) Read a book with a protagonist older than you.

A suicidal Tokyo teenager documents her Buddhist nun great-grandmother’s life while across the Pacific, a novelist discovers a mysterious Hello Kitty lunchbox connected to the 2011 tsunami.

Also fulfills: Read a book that won an award.
Read a magical realism novel.

A poignant, humorous celebration of enduring female friendship as one woman navigates the heartbreak of her best friend’s terminal illness.

Also fulfills: Read a book about friendship.
Read a book about grief/loss.

An elderly man who taps his radiator daily to signal his neighbor, while a teenage girl searches for her namesake – their stories intertwined through a long-lost book.

Also fulfills: Read a book that won an award.
Read a book that spans generations.

A spare yet eloquent, bittersweet yet inspiring story of a man and a woman who, in advanced age, come together to wrestle with the events of their lives and their hopes for the imminent future.

Also fulfills: (Maybe:) Read a book with a protagonist older than you.

The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers—not for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed into a ceiba tree, leaving them with more questions than answers.

Also fulfills: Read a magical realism novel.
Read a family saga.

A sharp and entertaining essay collection about the importance of multiple forms of love and friendship in a world designed for couples, from a laser-precise new voice.

Also fulfills: Read a memoir/autobiography.
Read a book about friendship.

Longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, orphaned siblings Lucy and Sam flee their mining town during the American gold rush, carrying their father’s body while searching for a place to belong.

Also fulfills: Read a book with siblings at the center.
Read a book that won an award.

After her father’s sudden death, Helen Macdonald copes with grief by training a fierce goshawk named Mabel, weaving together falconry, personal loss, and connections to T.H. White’s writings.

Also fulfills: Read a memoir/autobiography.
Read a book about grief/loss

Books, baseball cards, ceramic figurines, art, iPhones, clothing, cars, music, dolls, furniture, and even nature itself. If you’re like most people, at some point in your life you’ve found yourself indulging in a love affair with some thing that brings you immense joy, comfort, or fulfillment. Why is it that we so often feel intense passion for objects? What does this tendency tell us about ourselves and our society?

Put a stop to self-sabotage and overcome your fears so that you can gain the confidence you need to reach your goals and become your own best friend.

Also fulfills: Read a book with a number in the title.

What can a triangle tell us about love? In Schematics: A Love Story, author Julian Hibbard uses schematic diagrams to meditate on love, memory, and the way time links them.

Also fulfills: Read a book under 200 pages.
Read an indie/self-publised book.