On My Nightstand September 10, 2023

Good morning! We had thunderstorms yesterday and overnight. Finally we got some rain! I’m really looking forward to getting some fall veggies into my garden over the next couple of days. Soccer games start this week as well, so its busy, but fun busy.

Have a great week!

Quote of the Week:

“How unfortunate for public morals that being unladylike feels so...exciting.”

— The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray

On my nightstand:

Holly by Stephen King -- I have been waiting for this for a long time, and now that it’s here I am loving it! I’m about 30% in.

Deadly Quiet City by Murong Xuecun -- I just started this book, but so far it’s fascinating. It’s a first hand look at early 2020 in Wuhan, China.

Bette and Joan by Shaun Considine -- This audiobook about the feud between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis is so fun. I loved this a few years ago when it first came out, so it was time for a re-listen.

Note: links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

This post is linked to The Sunday Post on Caffeinated Reviewer.

On My Nightstand September 3, 2023

Hi everyone. It’s September at last. I hope that means cooler weather. It also means a new reading month.Each month I set up goals and a reading list, and I’m going to try and start posting that here. My first post went up Friday.

Have a great week!

Quote of the Week:

“At funerals, people lie about the past. At weddings, they lie about the future.”

— Keep Calm and Collie On by Lane Stone

On my nightstand:

Every Summer After by Carly Fortune -- I just barely started this one last week and then got distracted. I have high hopes for this week.

The Dim Sum of All Fears by Vivien Chien -- This series is so fun.

Saturday Night At The Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal -- We once stumbled upon a supper club in Wisconsin where we ate and then watched a water skiing show as the sun set. I’m hoping this book brings back those vibes.

Note: links to amazon.com are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!

This post is linked to The Sunday Post on Caffeinated Reviewer.

My Reading Year (So Far)

Strangely enough, by the end of June I had read exactly 100 books. That’s 16 fewer than this time last year, but I love the even stopping point. Now that we’re halfway through I like to look at my goals and see what I would have to do to meet them all. (Note: I never meet all of my goals. All the fun is in setting them.)

Goal: Read one book that begins with each letter of the alphabet.
I’ve done pretty well with this. The only letters I have left are the hardest ones: ‘J’, ‘U’, ‘V’, ‘X’, ‘Y’, ‘Z’. I should finish this one so long as I have the fortitude to force myself to read one of the few books that begins with ‘X’.

Goal: Read one book from each state.
I’ve read from 23 of 50 states. I’m almost halfway on this one! I met this goal last year and I’d like to do it again. That said I’ve done it once before, so if it comes down to a choice between meeting two goals I’ll prioritize the other one.

Goal: Read a book from each country in Africa.
I’m at 12/52 countries. I really need to step it up here! This has been a really interesting challenge, so I’m hoping to finish this one. It’s going to be tough though!

I was going to do a post on my favorite books so far this year, but I don’t really have one yet. I’m hoping for something that blows my mind in 2H22!

2022 Reading Goals

Or 2022 non-goals? I don’t know. I had meticulously scheduled reading goals in 2021 and I actually met most of them. Figuring that had gone so well I did the same thing for 2022. Yay! But these last few weeks I just haven’t been feeling it. I just want to read novels and what my friends are reading so we can trash talk the characters.

So, new goals.

1) Track reading in story graph, and see what conclusions I can draw from that.

2) Re-read some of the old mysteries that made me first fall in love with reading.

3) Make my TBR more manageable. Right now I have 761 books on there. I’d like to get it down to 500, either through reading, bailing, or just plain deleting.

4) Stop signing up for activities that make reading feel like work.

That’s it!

February 2021 Stats

Stock photo that is way more pretty than the endless frozen rain/sleet/mush that fell in February here

Read: 19 books (8 audiobooks, 11 print)

Challenges:

Reading Asia: 3 books

Reading Europe: 0 books

Food and Lit: February was Vietnam. I read 1 novel and 2 cookbooks. I cooked three dishes. More on that later.

Bookspin BINGO: 19 read, 1 bail, 2 BINGOs

Chunkster Challenge 2021: 40% through Les Miserables (We’re kind of slowing down through this section, but still plugging along)

Beginning TBR: 839

Ending TBR: 849

Great reading month! Thank you weather.

Year End Reading Stats And Goals For 2021

So, I don’t really care about my stats this year. I read 208 books, but for some of them I was so distracted and checking Twitter every 1.5 seconds. It’s a high number, but it doesn’t mean much. Still it is interesting to me to see what my reading year looked like so that next year I can compare.

I like to binge read certain authors

There were 8 authors that I read three or more books from this year. In 2020 these eight authors made up 18% of my reading: Stephen King (8), LM Montgomery (7), Louise Penny (7), Jane Austen (4), Frederik Backman (3), William Kent Krueger (3), Ann M Martin (3), Colson Whitehead (3)

Audiobooks Were My 2H2020 Coping Mechanism

I went crazy with the audiobooks this year, mainly in the 2nd half of the year. When I couldn’t sit still to read I could put my ear buds in and listen while I walked or puttered. In 2020 45% of my reading was via audiobook.

I Felt Like All I Did Was Re-Read, But It Wasn’t As Much As I Thought

My re-reading this year wasn’t as high as I thought it was- only 17%. I don’t take issue with re-reading like some people do, but I am glad to see that more than 80% of the books I read helped take some of the stress off my TBR.

Non-fiction Isn’t That Hard

Again, this stat surprised me. I didn’t think I would have had the patience to read much non-fiction this year, but it was actually 22% of my reading.

2020 Challenges

No I’m not talking about the challenges of a crazy year. I’m talking about the challenges I signed up for.

• I read books from 20 countries and 34 states

• I read and cooked from 9 different cookbooks (dropped this one when getting groceries got hard)

• I read books from 11/12 #AuthorAMonth authors from Litsy. I skipped Mary Roach. One of her books almost made me vomit on metro once. This was my favorite- it was challenging and fun at the same time.

• I read books that started with every single letter of the alphabet.

2021 Goals

I set my overall goal for 200 books again, but in 2021 I want to read more chunky books, be more intentional about reading from my TBR, take part in #AuthorAMonth again, and take part in various Litsy challenges like Litsy A to Z, Food and Lit, Reading Asia, and Reading Europe.

I’m looking forward to a better year in all sorts of ways for 2021!

My 2020 Reading Goals

Every year I set way too many reading goals, and I don’t meet half of them. That’s okay - I have fun setting the goals and then give them up when I stop having fun meeting them. After all reading is my hobby not my job.

This year I set three new goals:

• Read 200 books (around 16 or 17 books a month)

• Read books from 20 different countries

• Read 20 new to me cookbooks and cook at least one recipe from each one

I also took note of a few reading challenges. Mr. Book on Litsy, the Reading Women Challenge, and Modern Mrs. Darcy’s challenges all caught my eye. I’ll cross check each of these lists against what I read, but probably won’t seek out any books to finish them.

I also keep track of states I’ve read from and like to see if I can read a book that begins with each letter of the alphabet.

Oh, and I have my project re-read to work on, and I really should finally read In Cold Blood. Not to mention the 50 new releases I have on hold at the library, and the 10 audiobooks I’ve anxiously been waiting for on Libby.

So yeah, 2020 should be a pretty good reading year. I can’t wait to see what happens!

Goal!

My Reading goal was 100 books this year, and some how I hit it a bit early. I’m really happy to be reading so much after my epic 2018 slump.

I think what’s working for me this year is reading a nice mix of what I feel like, and what I need to to meet reviewing and book club obligations. I have my mood reads for when I want to veg on my lounge chair, and my have to reads to keep me going when I might otherwise pick up my phone to play a game.

The Saga of my TBR

My main bookish goal from 2017 was to reduce the size of my TBR list from 363 to 300. It looked like I was going to do it too. I read a lot of books this year, and weeded out the books from my TBR that I figured were never going to get read. Then I really started using the Litsy app, and discovered a search function on my library's website that showed which books were getting a lot of holds. A few 2018 book challenges, and going through my bookshelves and finding a stack of books I own, but have never read...

Today I forced myself to do a year end accounting, and tallied up all of the books I had on my to read list on Litsy, and on my holds list at the library, and added them in to my LibraryThing TBR. 

I'm up to 427 books on my TBR.

So, I very enthusiastically failed my reading goal this year. The good news is I have 427 books to choose from in 2018. My goal remains the same as in 2017- get my TBR back under 300 books.

My 2017 Reading Goals

Last year I had meticulous reading goals that I broke down by category. This year I'm exhausted, and don't feel like giving myself any kind of required reading. After all, I pretty much abandoned those goals half way through the year.

***This year, I'm keeping things simple***

In 2017 I have 3 goals in my reading life.

2017 Reading Goals

1. Read down my TBR list. I spend way too much time lusting after the books I want to read instead of actually reading books. I need to spend less time on social media finding new books, and more time reading the books on my TBR. I'm starting the year at 363 books. By 2018 I want it down to 300.
2. Complete both lists in Modern Mrs. Darcy's reading challenge, and complete a Books on the Nightstand BINGO square. (I'm assuming BINGO squares will still be available even thought BOTNS is no longer.)
3. Finish reading through the Little House on the Prairie series.

Three goals, one year. Should be do-able.

Note: Since I first wrote this piece, I have added 2 books to my TBR.

My 2016 reading goals

I read a lot of books in 2015. All together I read 37 non fiction books, 5 classics, 5 read out loud chapter books, and 78 other works of fiction. So, when I tell people I want to set some reading goals for 2016 they might think I'm a little crazy. I know my bookworm friends will understand my intention to read with more purpose though. Assuming that I will keep up about the same total, I'd like to bring my non-fiction numbers up to 50 and replace a lot of the cookbooks and celebrity memoirs with books about brain science, presidential biographies, books on goal setting, and books that will help at work. I would also like to keep on reading more of the classic books that I either missed or didn't appreciate in high school. Finally, now that my kids are older and can better appreciate reading chapter books out loud, I'd like to increase that number to eight.

Because I read like it's my job, and not because it is my actual job, I want to leave some room for whimsy in my reading life. If someone gives me the title of a book that they think I need to read RIGHT AWAY I'm not going to tell them no because I have 50 works of non-fiction to read first. Plus fiction will always be a large part of my reading life. For that reason, I'm going to "assign" myself 40 non-fiction books, 5 read out louds, and 8 classics to read in the year 2016. To read my assigned reading lists, click on the links below:

Non-fiction

Classics

Read-Out-Loud