Progress Report - February 2017

A couple weeks ago I participated in the weekly meme called It's Monday! What are YOU reading? (read my post here) and mentioned that I would be publishing this post last week, but I didn't get around to it. Whoops! I am going to try to make a habit of posting updates every month to summarize my reading progress.

 

As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I've set myself a Goodreads goal of 35, but am unofficially aiming to reach 40.

 

In January I read six books and had aimed, for February, to finish The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George, a few OwlCrate books, and some of my more recent acquisitions. It wasn't noted, but understood, that I also intended to read Anne of Avonlea, for my online book club reading challenge. Partway through the month, OwlCrate introduced their first annual OwlCrate-a-Thon reading challenge, which was to help us get through some of our unread OwlCrate books, and I decided to participate. The requirements for the challenge were 1) to read at least three books, 2) read one fantasy and one contemporary, 3) the one you've had the longest. The challenge ran from March 11-25.

 

So, in February I ended up reading five books: Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth, The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George (finally!), This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab (OwlCrate 1: fantasy), P.S. I Like You by Kasie West (OwlCRate 2: contemporary), and The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry (OwlCrate 3: longest owned). I also listened to  All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doer. I didn't mention in my January post that I had also listened to The Woman Next Door by Barbara Delinsky.

 

I barely read any of Anne of Avonlea, which I felt pretty bad about, so in March I am hoping to burn through both that and Anne of the Island. I am currently reading Ever the Hunted, I would like to read Caraval and a few others, but I'm kind of leaving it open. There are always books I'd like to read, but then when it comes time to pick up a new book, I'm not in the mood for those. So, we shall see!


So, my total books read in 2017 at this point is 13 out of 35, which is 37% complete - 8 books ahead of schedule! At this rate, I could potentially read over 70 books by the end of the year. That would be awesome! Especially if I could come to terms with getting rid of the ones I didn't love out of those I've read... *wink, wink*

Books of 2014

One post a year is not much of a blog, but in my defense, my efforts have been put into my other blog detailing my year of pastry school. And, because of school, I unfortunately didn't have much time for reading. The following is the sad, short list of books I read in 2014. Hopefully 2015 will produce better results (and more involved blogging)!

1. Forgotten - Catherine McKenzie
2. Poison - Sarah Pinborough
3. Divergent - Veronica Roth
4. Insurgent - Veronica Roth
5. Allegiant - Veronica Roth
6. The Dressmaker - Posie Groeme Evans
7. The Fall of Five - Pittacus Lore
8. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion
9. Cress - Marissa Meyer
10. Legend - Marie Lu
11. Prodigy - Marie Lu
12. The Italian Secretary - Caleb Carr
13. The Color of Tea - Hannah Tunnicliffe
14. The Puppet Master - Jan Coffey
15. The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules - Catharina I. Sundberg
16. Champion - Marie Lu

Books of 2013

Well, I think I'm just going to admit defeat and say that I am not capable of keeping a regularly updated blog, in any form. Furthermore, it seems nearly impossible for me to take the time to review each of the books that I've read. So, for now, until I can figure out how to discipline myself in this, I will just list the books I've read in 2013, and perhaps my own rating on a 1-5 (1=love it, 5=didn't love it) scale, and edit as the rest of the year progresses. Here goes:

1. The House of Silk - Anthony Horowitz (1.5)
2. Specials - Scott Westerfeld (1)
3. Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan (1)
4. The Beautiful Mystery - Louise Penny (2)
5. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (3)
6. Scarlet - Marissa Meyer (1.5)
7. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern (1)
8. Kisses From Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption - Katie Davis (2)
9. Butter Cream - Denise Roig (1)
10. Snap Happy - Fiona Walker (2.5)
11. Fat Chance - Julie Hadden
12. Deja Dead - Kathy Reichs (3)
13. Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick (3)
14. The Painted Girls - Cathy Marie Buchanan (1.5)
15. The Imposter Bride - Nancy Richler (4)
16. Eve & Adam - Michael Grant & Katherine Applegate (1)
17. Extras - Scott Westerfeld (2)
18. Pink Slip Party - Cara Lockwood
19. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry - Rachel Joyce (2.5)
20. Confessions of a Pregnant Princess - Swan Adamson (3)
21. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell (1.5)
22. Sheer Dynamite - Jennifer Skully (2)
23. Arranged - Catherine McKenzie (1)
24. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - Aimee Bender (1.5)
25. The Summer of Us - Holly Chamberlin
26. Spin - Catherine McKenzie (3)
27. Hidden - Catherine McKenzie (3)
28. Arcadia - Lauren Groff (2)

I also read 2 books in digital format: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.

July - December 2012

I'm just going to list the rest of the books I read in 2012 and get it done with... I wanted to write a bit of a description about each book I read, but it's been too long for some of them, and I've gotten rid of some, so... I'm not going to.

The Last Song - Nicolas Sparks
An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
Around the World in 80 Days - Jules Verne
We Bought a Zoo - Benjamin Mee
The Red Hat Club - Haywood Smith
The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Rise of Nine - Pittacus Lore
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley
The Story of Beautiful Girl - Rachel Simon
Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
A Trick of the Light - Louise Penny
Eight Minutes Idle - Matt Thorne
Journey to the Centre of the Earth - Jules Verne
The Wrong Boy - Willy Russell
My Name is Memory - Ann Brashares
Uglies- Scott Westerfeld
Secret Daughter - Shilpi Somaya Gowda
The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
The Soldier's Wife - Joanna Trollope
The Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick
Mating Rituals of the North American Wasp - Lauren Lipton
Room - Emma Donaghue
Pretties - Scott Westerfeld

Recap 2011

Well... I think we can safely say that I failed my goal of reading and blogging about 52 books in 2011. It was close, but... not quite close enough. There were 17 books I read but didn't blog about, which left me lacking 6 books to reach the reading goal. I'm still proud of the results, but admittedly I'm disappointed I didn't make the goal!! Better luck next time...


So, just to give a recap of the 46 books I did read (and yes, I counted the Sherlock Holmes series as 5 books), here they are in the order I checked them off in my notebook, which is definitely not necessarily the order I read them in (not including author's names - sorry!) :

1. Fly Away Home
2. Eye of the Beholder
3. The Suicide Club
4. 1984
5. Dancing with Butterflies
6. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
7. Eclipse
8. I Am Number Four
9. The Reader
10. The Mysterious Benedict Society
11. The Penny Tree
12. The Monk Downstairs
13. Jinxed (lol #13? funny stuff...)
14. Confessions of a Shopaholic
15. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan
16. Shopaholic Ties the Knot
17. Too Small to Ignore
18. The Prince Next Door
19. The Hangman
20. A Body to Die For
21. Elvis Takes a Back Seat
22. The Film Club
23. Rapid Descent
24. Jessica Z
25. Two Years, No Rain
26. To Save a Life
27. Then Again
28. Over Her Dead Body
29. My Wicked Vampire
30. Sherlock Holmes
31. "
32. "
33. "
34. "
35. Smart Girls Think Twice
36. Robinson Crusoe
37. Eat, Pray, Love
38. The Help
39. A Vintage Affair
40. If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home Now
41. Breaking Dawn
42. The Moneypenny Diaries
43. The Undomestic Goddess
44. Can You Keep A Secret?
45. The Power of Six
46. The Hunger Games

Anyway, so I'm going to try again this year (2012) to read 52 books! I won't make blogging part of the goal, because it's a lot of work, but I will still try to at least mention the books I've read and maybe 1 or 2 lines about  them. :) Happy reading!