30 Before Thirty
The books I'm reading before my 30th birthday.
Not only is this my 100th newsletter, but in exactly 100 days from today, I’ll be turning 30! There’s a shift (existential? spiritual? horrifying? exciting?) when moving from one decade to another, as our age gets to be defined by, and start with, a different singular digit. We spend ten years with our age starting with said number, getting used to it, and building a personality-defining parasocial relationship with it. The power a single digit wields over public perception and societal construction is certain interesting, if nothing else.
As my time where my age starts with a ‘two’ comes to a close, I’m realizing my twenties have been exactly what I’ve needed them to be. I graduated college, moved to a new city on my own, experienced hookups and heartbreaks, traveled to seven countries, got married, had two children, surpassed my reading expectations…and I’m still not even 30 yet.
Overall—excuse the book pun—it truly feels like I’m ready for a new chapter in this new decade I’m heading into. For the first time, I feel like my age matches my personality (old soul? maturity? aura? vibe?). I always joked I was 25 going on 35, and now 30 finally fits. Plus, 29 feels like such an awkward, filler year.
In this time leading up to my birthday, I really want to set the tone right, right now, and get excited for what’s to come. Becoming a Reader again has been such a pivotal shift in my personal life, and with the reading year I had in 2024, things are starting to fall into place with what I read, how I read, the influence I have, the conversations generated, the friendships built, and the intentionality behind everything I do. Which leads us to my plans for the next few months.
We've all seen people make number-related, year-correlated goals of some kind, in anticipation of an upcoming milestone (10 Before the End, 24 in ‘24, etc.). Now, I’m joining the people who have previously made age-related-reading-specific goals. My 30 Before Thirty (yes, I know the technical AP grammar is ‘30 Before 30’, but I’m breaking the rules!) is a challenge I’m setting for myself to focus on the 30 books I’ve wanted to read for so long. It’s borderline embarrassing that I haven’t gotten around to these, as I just haven’t prioritized them (so no shade if you haven’t read any yet, too).
The guidelines I followed were: 15 fiction, 15 nonfiction, and no repeat authors. I didn’t care about format or genres or much else outside of that basic criteria, as you can only fit in so many books. I’m focusing on what I want to read right now in this period of my life, and ones I think I’ll love and give five stars to. And if you wonder, well, what about [this] book?, please know I am missing a ton of books I still want to prioritize (notably absent: Iranian fiction authors and genre fiction). I truly could have made thirty different versions of this list! So yes, some major titles and authors and genres weren’t included, but I can’t wait to get to them at a different time.
I know 30 sounds like a lot, especially in 100 days, but 1) I’m an Aries and 2) It almost perfectly works with my general ‘one fiction and one nonfiction a week’ habit I informally want to maintain in 2025. From now until my birthday, it’s 14 weeks and some-odd days, which is just shy of the 15 weeks it’d take to make the full list of 30 work perfectly (math!). It also seems more manageable, as it’s an average of 10 books per month, and I’m already averaging nine (okay, 8.75 rounded up). And I’m not following any particular reading order—I’m fully Mood Reading and picking up whatever sounds good in the moment. I’ll provide progress through my usual Reading Updates on Mondays, and I want to publish additional in-depth challenge check-ins, but I’m not entirely sure how that’ll look (written newsletter or podcast episode? every six books or every ten?), but I will let you know!
So here’s to getting ready for my age to start with a ‘three’.
If you’re interested in owning any of the titles below and supporting this newsletter at no additional cost to you, please consider shopping from my 30 Before Thirty book list on Bookshop.org (as an affiliate, I’ll earn commission).
Fiction
In alphabetical order by title.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from the French by Ros Schwartz
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
There There by Tommy Orange
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Nonfiction
In alphabetical order by title.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Educated by Tara Westover
Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics by Olúfémi O. Táíwò
Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
How the Word is Passed by Clint Smith
The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 by Rashid Khalidi
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes du Mez
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariam Kaba
Poverty, By America by Matthew Desmond
“Prisons Make Us Safer” and 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration by Victoria Law
The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo
Woman Life Freedom by Marjane Satrapi, translated from the French by Una Dimitrijevic (graphic novel)
If you’ve read any books, what did you think? Have you ever done a challenge like this, and how did it go? I’ve already started my first book on this list as my first read of the year: Bel Canto (I received the annotated copy for Christmas!).
-Olivia
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