My March 2025 TBR

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February Beginning TBR: 459
February Ending TBR: 457

February 2025 TBR

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My January TBR

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December Beginning TBR: 456
December Ending TBR: 466

Happy New Year! Last month was way more than I bargained for, so I had to stop doing everything that wasn’t necessary to keep me employed and my kids fed and where they’re supposed to be. I’m excited to be back journaling what I want to read and what I’ve actually read. (Totally different lists most months.)

Here’s 20 books I’m hoping to read in January:

1) Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

2) The Mysterious Affair At Styles by Agatha Christie

3) The Haunted Bridge by Carolyn Keene

4) Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall

5) Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

6) Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

7) Whose Body by Dorothy L Sayers

8) What The Wild Sea Can Be by Helen Scales

9) The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden

10) The Cat Who Went Bananas by Lilian Jackson Brown

11) Becoming a Matriarch by Helen Knott

12) Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir

13) Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us by Joe Palca

14) Your Teenager Is Not Crazy by Jerusha Clark

15) The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy

16) Fire Weather by John Vaillant

17) There Is Nothing For You Here by Fiona Hill

18) The Book of George by Kate Greathead

19) Fix Your Fashion by Laura Strutt

20) The Girl Without Skin by Mads Peder Nordbo

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My December TBR

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November Beginning TBR: 417
October Ending TBR: 456

It’s the end of the year, and my TBR has exploded. I’m not mad. The Tournament of Books long list had so many good sounding books that I had never heard of. I’m really excited to see the short list. It must be a hard job to decide!

My December reading list is super-sized as well. I decided to do one list for my regular TBR and one for holiday/winter reads. I know this is ridiculous, but it’s fun to try!

Here are 40 books I want to read in December:

The Cat Who Went Bananas by Lilian Jackson Braun

Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Pearly Everlasting by Tammy Armstrong

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

Paying the Land by Joe Sacco

The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng

The Mystery of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Joy In The Morning by Betty Smith

A Stroke of the Pen by Terry Pratchett

Sugar Birds by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

Not What She Seems by Yasmin Angoe

Moonflowers by Abigail Rose-Marie

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

Tortise for the Queen of Tonga by Julia Whitty

Central Asia by Adeeb Khalid

The Meeting Point by Lucy Caldwell

King of the Yukon by Adam Weymouth

Six Cats A Slayin by Miranda James

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

The Healer by Antti Tuomainen

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

The Secret of Winterhouse by Ben Guterson

A Terrible Country by Keith Gessen

Below Zero by CJ Box

Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson

A Christmas Memory by Truman Capote

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

The Mistletoe Murder by PD James

The Gingerbread Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

The Sphynx Who Stole Christmas by MR Diamond

Killer Christmas by Harper Lin

An (Un)Orthodox Christmas by Ana T Drew

Resting Scrooge Face by Meghan Quinn

Walking The Himalayas by Lev Wood

Mission: Nutcracker by Cecelia Dominic

Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton

Plus 4 books from the Tournament of Books list TBD

Whew, thank you very much if you stuck with me through that.

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My November TBR

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On My Nightstand October 26, 2024

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someone we ran into on a walk

Can you believe it’s the last weekend before Halloween? There’s so much fall stuff I wanted to do that I didn’t get to. Excuse me while I enter a corn maze while eating a caramel apple dressed like a Gilmore Girl. I haven’t even watched The Great Pumpkin yet!

Have a great week everyone!

Quote of the Week

“You can go through life and make new friends every year - every month practically - but there was never any substitute for those friendships of childhood that survive into adult years. Those are the ones in which we are bound to one another with hoops of steel.”
— The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

my neighbor’s amazing trees

On My Nightsand This Week

Kindle- Rocket Boys by Homer Hikam - I’m re-reading this one. It holds up!

Audio- The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith - Another re-read. We’re doing Botswana for #FoodAndLit on Litsy this month.

Paper- The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin - I needed a book set in Connecticut for my #ReadingUSA challenge so decided to finally read this short classic.

physical book stack for the rest of the year

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

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August 2024 TBR

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June 2024 TBR

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May beginning TBR: 393
May ending TBR: 424 (hello summer reading guides!)

I’m hoping to get this back down under 300 by the end of the summer. There are so many good books that came out this summer! The TBR creep couldn’t be avoided.

20 Books I Want To Read In June 2024:

1) My Own Country by Abraham Verghese

2) The Exchange by John Grisham

3) Cultures of Growth by Mary Murphy

4) Clear by Carys Davies

5) Butter by Asako Yuzuki

6) Betrayal by Lilja Sigurdardottir

7) Orphans of Bliss (Short Stories)

8) Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes

9) It’s Up To The Women by Eleanor Roosevelt

10) All We Can Save (Various authors)

11) Songs In Ordinary Time by Mary McGarry Morris

12) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

13) The Guncle by Steven Rowley

14) The Titan’s Curse by Rick Riordan

15) The Silence of the Library by Miranda James

16) Wolf Trap by Connor Sullivan

17) Litsy Mark Up Postal Book Club

18) Little Women Chapter A Day

19) Nancy’s Mysterious Letter by Carolyn Keene

20) Dead Upon Arrival by Kat Bellemore

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December Reading Goals

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November beginning TBR: 349

November ending TBR: 367

Next year I really got to work on that TBR. Oh well, at least this includes books for a lot of the challenges I’ve signed up for in 2024. But more about that next month. For now I’m working on finishing up a few challenges, some seasonal reads, and a re-read or two for December.

Here’s what I plan to read:

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn

Key Lime Crime

March

Five Winters

Homecoming

The Hidden Staircase

One of my ARCs

The Dark

Last Christmas In Paris

Jayber Crow

The House Without A Christmas Tree

Prey

Nora Webster

The Haunting Season

An Unfortunate Christmas Murder

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat

The Bear and the Nightingale

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November 2023 Reading Goals

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October beginning TBR: 332

October ending TBR: 349

I thought that number would have gone down since I read so much last month, but I guess I’m still adding faster than I read.

My goals for November are to read two ARCs, take part in #NonfictionNovember, make progress on my #ReadingUSA challenge, and to keep up with a Don Quixote and A Glass Of Blessings buddy reads.

Here’s my reading plan for the month:

One Man's Wilderness by Sam Keith

From Beer To Eternity by Sherry Harris

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

They Called Us Enemy by George Takei

High by Erika Fatland

President Garfield by CW Goodyear

Blood From A Stone by Adam McHugh

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Collaboration is the New Competition by Priscilla McKinney

The Mystery of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene

The Bill of Obligations by Richard Haass

The Ice at the End of the World by Jon Gertner

The Suspect by Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen

My Life In France by Julia Child

Moontiger by Penelope Lively

Don Quixote (Part 1) by Miguel de Cervantes

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym

Llama Drama by Anna McNuff

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Big Burn by Timothy Egan

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March Reading Stats

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Mabry Mill

Mabry Mill

March was a great reading month. We had a few days that were perfect for reading outside, plenty of audiogardening, and a short road trip that supported my reading habits. I noticed I was quick to bail on books that didn’t grab me right away. I have mixed feelings about bailing on books, but overall I do think it allows me to read more books that I like.

Total Read: 17 books read - 6 audio and 11 print. As I mentioned I bailed on five others.

TBR: Started at 849 and ended at 852. Could I have really added 26 books to my TBR? I guess so. I really need a month off to read.

Challenges: Reading Asia -1 (Nepal), Food and Lit - 1 (Ethiopia), Bookspin Bingo - 5 Bingos!, Reading Canada - 1, Chunkster Challenge - 52% done with Les Miserables

April should mean warmer weather for gardening and reading outside, but it also means spring sports for the kids so we’ll see. I have some good books planned for the month, so that should keep me motivated!

The Saga of my TBR

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IMG_0243.JPG

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.

The 20 oldest books on my TBR

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I started using Library Thing in 2014 to track the books I've read, and to track the books I want to read. This makes me sound like Angela from The Office, but I find Goodreads to be a bit too flashy for my tastes.

Today I was shuffling through my TBR and realized I had books on there that dated from the inception of my account in 2014. That inspired a new reading challenge. If I don't read these 20 books by the end of 2016 I'm taking them off my list.

I'm going to post the covers here. If you want the amazon.com description click on the cover.

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Books that make me want to read other books

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Everything I've read about Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir has been positive, but I've put off reading it because someone said it would cause me to add dozens more books to my TBR. Since my list usually hovers around 400 books, I'm a little scared to read a book that will add to it. So, I'm putting that one off until I can get my list down to 375 or so.

It wouldn't be the first time a book forced me to add to my TBR. It was Kelly Corrigan's Glitter and Glue that got me to try My Antonia, and Katherine Reay's books always have me tempted to spend my whole paycheck on Barnes & Noble Classics. So, it's not a bad thing that a book will cause me to read other books. I just need to put it off for a while. For the sake of my family. And my future employment prospects.

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