I was so excited to get next year’s World Book Night picks!
This will be my third year as a WBN giver and my third year to read through all
of the picks from January to April 23rd. This year there are thirty-five
picks, five more than in previous years. I better get started! I am excited to
be filling more gaps in my reading life (Agatha Christie! Joseph Heller!) as
well as being introduced to books that were not previously on my radar. Reading
these picks has absolutely helped me out as a bookseller. I used to believe
that I was a broad reader and to some extent I have been, but I rarely approach
genre fiction out of a lack of knowledge. World Book Night is giving me a mini
crash course in genre fiction (especially mystery and romance) and I am loving
it.
There are only three books on this list that I have read
previously this time around.
I read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia in the fifth grade. And I absolutely loathed
it! I think twenty years is enough time between us and I will definitely be
rereading this one to discover my feelings about it as an adult.
I was in high school the first time I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. And the second time, third time, fourth time. I’m no longer
sure how many times I read this brilliant epistolary tale of a young man lost
in the world and finding himself through words and friends. I reread Chbosky’s
book for the first time as an adult when the film version was released in 2012.
It still resonated with me even as it struck me in different places in my head
and my heart than it did when I was a teen. I wrote about my reread
here.
It was college when I read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. Specifically, it
was the summer of 2008 while I was on a three month long road trip to Alaska
with my grandparents. Kitchen
Confidential was my companion as we travelled up through the Badlands. I
regaled my driving companions with (slightly cleaned up) stories of Bourdain’s
wild adventures. I shared with my grandfather his rants against vegetarians (I
was one at the time) and celebrity chefs (Food Network is a favorite of my
grandmother’s). It was a perfect travel book. An interesting World Book Night
pick; it will definitely keep new readers interested.
And that’s it! I’ve got thirty-two great looking books ahead
of me and I cannot wait to read and write about them.
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