Remember chain letters? You’d drop a letter into the world with instructions to send it on again, and return mail was promised to everyone in the chain as their reward. Optimists imagined an epistolary chain forging bonds across the country. Pessimists like me fretted at being the next link in a Ponzi scheme designed to fund the Post Office through purchases of stamps.

Imagine building a reading list this way.

Last month, one of my colleagues started an email chain sharing his favourite books. They were books that, as he said, he “could remember where I was when I read them – they were that important.”

He should have known better than to start that chain. The team jumped in with their books. All we got in return was a fascinating, personal, and growing list of books that taunted us with the call of all books: “Read me!”

The List as we’ve creatively called it, stands at forty-four books of no obvious theme or taste. Disproving any argument for “classics” or “essentials” – because eight hardcore readers offered up not a single duplicate. Not. A. One. Not even Harry Potter or Shakespeare.

I have foolhardily taken up this challenge. You might almost call it a quest. Possibly even Quixotic. By the end of 2019 I want to read all forty-four books and anyone is welcome to jump in and out along this journey. Am I looking for more books? Please, no! Do I need advice on where to start or how to conquer the list? Absolutely.