An Ever-Updating List of Books I Want to Read

I am constantly adding to my to-read list, whether I'm piling up a precarious stack on my bedside table, screenshotting a reminder for posterity, or putting in a library hold. (For the sake of expedience, this list won't include upcoming releases unless I have a review copy on deck.) I am a glutton for good literature, and there is never enough time to do all the reading that I want—although I make it a priority within my routine.

I'm also a pretty curious person! So I'm always adding to my list based on recommendations from family and friends; I love being able to chat with them and show that their suggestion meant something to me, regardless of how I end up feeling about the book itself.

Luckily, I'm a pretty quick reader—but I hope to be able to cross off many of these, and continually update my list with new, shiny titles and reviews. Here's what's currently on my TBR. You'll see some overlap on here from the books I have in my O'ahu collection too. It is likely a decent assumption that, for the most part, this list comprises the books I have requested on hold at the library.

A

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• Why People Photograph by Robert Adams
• Icarus by K. Ancrum
• The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew
• Payoff: The Hidden Logic That Shapes Our Motivations by Dan Ariely
• Pixel Flesh: How Toxic Beauty Culture Harms Women by Ellen Atlanta
• Courting Samira by Amal Awad
• Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us

B

• Honey by Isabel Banta
• Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World by Mary Beard
• The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
• From Here to There: The Art and Science of Finding and Losing Our Way by Michael Bond
• Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are by Rebecca Boyle
• How to Know a Person by David Brooks
• Work! A Queer History of Modeling by Elspeth H. Brown
• The Age of Grievance by Frank Bruni
• William Blake: Poems

C

• Bittersweet by Susan Cain
• The Plague by Albert Camus
• The Wave by Susan Casey
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
• The Experience Machine: How Our Minds Predict and Shape Reality by Andy Clark
• Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell
• The Rain in Portugal: Poems by Billy Collins
• Forerunners Courageous by Leroy Collins
• For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be by Marcus Collins
• Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano

D

• Bad Romance by Heather Demetrios
• This Ravenous Fate by Hayley Dennings

E

• Middlemarch by George Eliot
• For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories by Nathan Englander

F

• We Hunt the Flame by Hafsah Faizal
• A Thing of Beauty: Travels in Mythical and Modern Greece by Peter Fiennes
• Five Days at Memorial by Sheri Fink
• The Chaos Machine: How Social Media Influences Our Behavior, and Vice Versa by Max Fisher
• The Urge: Our History of Addiction by Carl Erik Fisher
• Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
• We Are Inevitable by Gayle Forman
• Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune
• Northland: A 4,000-Mile Journey Along America's Forgotten Border by Porter Fox
• Jackpot Summer by Elyssa Friedland
• Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death by Jim Frederick
• The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm

G

• Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma
• Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
• The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery by Adam Gopnik
• Belladonna by Adalyn Grace
• Step Into the Circle: Writers in Modern Appalachia edited by Amy Greene and Trent Thomson
• Paradise City by K.E. Gregg
• This Monstrous Kind by Lydia Gregovic

H

• Airplane Mode: An Irreverent History of Travel by Shahnaz Habib
• The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield
• When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought by Jim Holt
• Off the Charts: The Hidden Lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies by Ann Hulbert

I

• What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez
• Ties That Tether by Jane Igharo
• The Stoic Challenge by William B. Irvine

J

• The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James
• Just for the Summer by Abby Jiminez
• When These Mountains Burn by David Joy

K

• Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear by Margee Kerr
• Real Americans by Rachel Khong
• The Art and Science of Connection by Kasley Killam, MPH
• Social Chemistry: Decoding the Patterns of Human Connection by Marissa King
• IT by Stephen King
• The Science of Attraction by Patrick King
• The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova
• The Believer: Encounters with the Beginning, the End, and Our Place in the Middle by Sarah Krasnostein
• How to End a Love Story by Yulin Kuang

L

• Curious Tides by Pascale Lacelle
• Maid by Stephanie Land
• A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
• The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
• I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music As Medicine by David J. Levitin
• Attached by Amir Levine, Rachel Heller
• In Praise of Mystery by Ada Limón
• The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón
• Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón
• The Carrying: Poems by Ada Limón
• True Story: What Reality TV Says About Us by Danielle J. Lindemann
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo
• On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen

M

• Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane
• Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
• The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves by J.B. Mackinnon
• Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
• Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon by Xander Manshel
• The Existentialist's Survival Guide by Gordon Marino, PhD
• For the Love of Music: A Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening by John Mauceri
• Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
• We Are All So Good at Smiling by Amber McBride
• Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
• Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
• The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World by Linsey McGoey
• Psyche and Eros by Luna McNamara
• Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin
• Benito Cereno by Herman Melville
• With a Little Luck by Marissa Meyer
• Paradise Lost by John Milton
• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
• Dear Life by Alice Munro
• Family Furnishings by Alice Munro
• A Wilderness Station by Alice Munro
• Carried Away by Alice Munro
• My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir
• Travels in Alaska by John Muir

N

• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cure by Emily Nagoski, PhD, Amelia Nagoski
• When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson
• Living in Flow: The Science of Synchronicity and How Your Choices Shape Your World by Sky Nelson-Isaacs
• Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychology by Randolph M. Nesse, MD

O

• Overdue: Reckoning with the Public Library by Amanda Oliver
• A Brief History of Time-Keeping by Chad Orzel
• Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
• The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
• Wayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World by M.R. O'Connor
• The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O'Rourke

P

• Murtagh by Christopher Paolini
• A Molecule Away from Madness: Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Paskin
• The Grimrose Girls by Laura Pohl
• This Is Not a Ghost Story by Andrea Portes

R

• Waves by Fredric Raichlen
• What Are We Doing Here? Essays by Marilynne Robinson
• Normal People by Sally Rooney
• Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
• Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney
• Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson
• This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas
• The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford

S

• Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks
• Everything In Its Place by Oliver Sacks
• Letters by Oliver Sacks
• For Small Creatures Such as We by Sasha Sagan
• Secrets So Deep by Ginny Myers Sain
• One Last Breath by Ginny Myers Sain
• Delicious Monsters by Liselle Sambury
• Art & Physics: Parallel Visions in Space, Time, and Light by Leonard Shlein
• Kicks: The Great American Story of Sneakers by Nicholas Smith
• Devotion by Patti Smith
• On Beauty by Zadie Smith
• And I Do Not Forgive You: Stories by Amber Sparks
• The Good Enough Job: Reclaiming Life from Work by Simone Stolzoff

T

• All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir
• The Incurable Romantic and Other Tales of Madness and Desire by Frank Tallis
• Every Word Is a Bird We Teach to Sing: Encounters with the Mysteries and Meanings of Language by Daniel Tammett
• Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor
• Everything I Need I Get from You: How Fangirls Created the Internet As We Know It by Kaitlyn Tiffany
• Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living by Krista Tippett
• Ocean of Sound: Ambient Sound and Radical Listening in the Age of Communication by David Toop
• On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui

W

• Long for This World: The Strange Science of Immortality by Jonathan Weiner
• The Wickerlight by Mary Watson
• For the Wolf by Hannah Whitten
• To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick by Alden Wicker
• Only If You're Lucky by Stacy Willingham
• The Beauty Myth: how Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf

Y

• The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
• Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women Athletes by Christine Yu

Z

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
• A Feeling of History by Peter Zumthor and Mari Lending