2017

I left off doing reviews these last 2 years and I miss doing them.  It takes a lot of extra time, but so often, I see the title of a book and I can't remember anything about it, or, I am looking for a book and can't remember the title.  I have read 119 books already this year and I have written a few reviews.  I'm gong to try to go back and review some others and continue to do reviews for the rest of the year.

This year I have done many Goodreads challenges and I am amazed to see how much I have been missing.  PopSugar has made me look outside my comfort zone (Steampunk for example) and I have read a lot of good books that I otherwise would not have read.  I have also cleared 30 books from my "Currently Reading" shelf, many of which have been there for a couple of years.  There are still 65 books on the list, but those are frequently ebooks or audio books from the library that I check out to see if I really want to read them.  If the answer is "yes" I put them in the order I want to read them.

I am also doing a "Dewey Decimal" challenge where I have to read 1 book from each ten categories.  That has made me look out of my comfort zone also.  I have 7 of them done, but I am faltering on a book from the 400s and 500s.  I also haven't chosen one from the 900s, but I plan to read one of the many books I have on Hitler.  I just have to decide whether I want to read one that has 800+ pages (also a PopSugar prompt) or finish Les Miserables for the PopSugar and pick a shorter Hitler book.  I have already read over 500 pages in Les Mis, but I slogged down in the Napolionic War...just like Napolean did!

The main challenge is to read a certain number of books during the year.  I chose to read 150, but I am ahead by 37 books, so I should be reading both a Hitler book and Les Mis. but I also am doing a "Serial Challenge" for what has turned out to be a pretty huge number of books.  In this challenge, the point is to fill in the book in a series that you haven't read and there are some that new books are coming out in and I am behind.  I have to finish 11 series and start and finish 4 new ones.  The 11 I have already started ended up having more books missing than I thought, so it amounted to over 50 books.

While this all seems an enormous number of books, many books can fit more than one category.  All books go into the 100+ category and then I try to put them in at least one more category.  For example, A book from the  Hamish Macbeth series also fits the "a book by an author who uses a pseudonym: Death of a Ghost by M.C. Beaton.  Another book in that series, Death of a Dreamer, fits the "book with an eccentric character" to fit another PopSugar prompt.

All of this has been a lot of fun and in searching for help with some of the PopSugar prompts, I have met a lot of nice people who share my love of reading.