Books to Read in 2017

With the new year at hand, I’ve started to think about the books I want to read in 2017. As with any list of books that I want to read, it is based on my mood and interest at the time I create the list. Reading is like a scavenger hunt for me. One book will lead unexpectedly to another. (Case in point: Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run has led me to Guitar: An American Life by Tim Brookes.) I have an idea of what I want to read, but sometimes things get put on the back burner in favor of something more immediately relevant.

With that caveat in mind, here is a list of books that I’d like to read this year. They are in no particular order.

  • Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen. Yes, I just finished reading it. And I am in the process of reading it again. I can’t think of another time when I finished a book and immediately started reading it again. It was that good.
  • The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher. I’d been planning on reading this anyway, but obviously, it has moved up on the list. We’re planning on listening to the audiobook on our drive back home from Florida.
  • Bing Crosby: The Early Years by Gary Giddins. I’ve read this book before, but there is a rumor that the second volume will be coming out later in 2017, and so I am reading it again in the hope that the second volume will show up this year.
  • Assignment in Hell: The War Against Nazi Germany With Correspondents Walter Cronkite, Andy Rooney, A.J. Libeling, Homer Bigart, and Hal Boyle by Timothy M. Gay. World War II and journalism is one of those intersections that pushes my buttons.
  • Guitar: An American Life by Tim Brookes. See above.
  • Tune-In: The Beatles: All These Years by Mark Lewisohn. I am not a huge Beatles fan, but I enjoyed Bruce Springsteen’s memoir so much that I need more rock and roll history. This is the first of 3 definitive volumes.
  • FDR by Jean Edward Smith. I read Smith’s excellent biography of Dwight Eisenhower, and wanted to give this one a try based on the merits of that one.
  • Frank: The Voice by James Kaplan. Outside of his singing, I know very little about Frank Sinatra. This is volume one of a 2-volume biography that looks to be pretty good.
  • Sinatra: The Chairman by James Kaplan. Volume 2
  • An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963 by Robert Dallek. I’ve never read a Kennedy biography. It’s about time to correct that omission.
  • Reagan: The Life by H. W. Brands. I’ve enjoyed several of Brands’ presidential biographies. As someone who grew up in the 80s (I was 8 in 1980), Reagan’s biography seems particularly apt.

I’ll discover other books along the way, and some of these will get shunted aside (temporarily) for those. But I think this is a good reflection of my reading interests at the dawn of 2017.

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