Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Want to Read in 2013

Today I thought I'd participate in the Top Ten Tuesday meme, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Today's topic is the top ten books I'd like to read in 2013.

Paved With Good Intentions by Nikolas Barry-Shaw and Dru Oja Jay. A friend lent me this book, so I need to read it and get it back to her. I've just started the first few pages and it looks like its going to be a bit of an emotionally challenging book, talking about the role in which Canada's development NGOs are promoting imperialism, and challenging Canadians to accept responsibility for what we allow our government and NGOs to do in our name.

Robin Hood by David Baldwin. I was sent this book to review and I want to do justice to it. It looks like an amazing look into the history and possible settings fro the original Robin Hood. All I've read so far is an introduction, which stunned me with the way in which it explains the changes that took place in Britians middle ages. Popular culture lumps it together, but no time period is ever truely standing still. I'm hoping to read the book and design a bit of a homeschool unit study around it.

Mud Books by Michael Clay Thompson. These are books I plan on reading with my children. We've been using MCT's grammar program to learn about how to break apart sentences and to watch for poetics in writing, and I'm excited about the idea of reading through these vocabulary expanding books.

Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard by Richard B. Wright. Really, I just want to make a point of including more fiction in my reading.  Read.It has an interesting way of communicating the story, with it being a story of a story, and in some places a story of a story of a story, but the story itself is unremarkable.

The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi. This is a book about economics and politics. I've had this book sitting on my bookshelf for a couple of years now but never made it to reading it. This year I will. Somehow.

Talking Radical: Canadian History Through the Stories of Activists by Scott Neigh. I know Scott! Not well, but I've met him a couple of times. He wrote a two book series with the stories of activists and I've been meaning to read and blog about them for the last few months. I've read the first two chapters of one and found it very readable and meaningful, but then I lent my copy of the book out and I'll get it back or replace it one of these days.

Kafka's short stories - I've got a book of his short stories, and I've read some but not all. I should read them this year, if for no other reason than life with three kids feels sometimes like I'm living in a Kafka story.

Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud by Peter Watson - This is another of those big huge books sitting on my bookshelf. My husband has read it and told me it is worth reading, but the size makes it a little intimidating.

A Little History of the World by E. H. Gombrich. This is a history book written for adults to read to children. I've heard good things about it and am looking forward to sharing it with my children.

Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit by Parker Palmer. My mom gave me a copy of this book, after she attended a workshop led by Marti Tindale based on the works of Parker Palmer. It looks like the book will tie in with my continual quest to escape echo-chambers and encourage real communication.


Of course this is only ten books (or book-sets) and I'll read many more than that this year, but having a list of ten goals is a good start. What are you planning to read this year?