Books

Another reading year has come to an end and here’s the tally for the year. Fun Fact: I read the exact number of books this year as last year! What? My re-reads were down, audio-books up, and series books really up. Looking forward to a great reading year in 2018!

Books read: 162
Pages read: 49,126
Of the books read:
Non-fiction: 14
New-to-me authors: 32
Continuing series books: 94
Re-reads: 22
Audio-books: 78
Various book club reads: 9
Challenges completed: 14 of 14
Ongoing tally of Newbery winners: 75 of 96
5 star ratings by me: 20 [Read more…] about 2017 Reading Stats

Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2017

I’ve done this challenge every year of its existence so this was year #5. I sign up every year for Mt. Ararat at 48 books and manage to wheeze to the top by December. I stuck with the same level this year and hiked quite steadily up to Mt. Ararat, reaching it in the fall, but my reading stalled out in December. I managed 59 books by finishing a TBR on New Year’s Eve, but missed that elusive Mt. Kilimanjaro level by one book! I’m proud that I got so many books off my shelves, though.

Thanks to the host of this challenge, Bev at My Reader’s Block. [Read more…] about Mount TBR Reading Challenge 2017 wrap-up

2017 Monthly Keyword Reading Challenge

This challenge was hosted by My Soul Called Life and is a challenge I’ve done in the past but took off a couple years to do other challenges. I did it again this year, but during the year the host disappeared and we haven’t been able to post monthly reviews. Her blog is now gone. But I decided to carry on and finish it up anyway.

Six keywords are associated with each month in 2017 and we read one book each month whose title includes one or more of the keywords for that month. The book title chosen can be a variation on one of the keywords. Meaning, we can tweak the keywords. At the beginning of the year I looked at my stacks and chose books to fulfill the challenge. Those are in italics. Actual books read are in red. You can see how well I stuck to my original plan, 5 of 12. On the bright side, 3 of the others were from my TBR stacks, so still a win in clearing out shelves.
[Read more…] about 2017 Monthly Keyword Reading Challenge wrap-up

2017 Newbery Reading Challenge

This is the fourth year of the Newbery Reading Challenge and I’ve participated every year at the L’Engle level, which is 15-29 points. This year I read 18 points. It’s helping me accomplish my perpetual challenge to read all the winners, although this year I read more Honor books and got them off my shelves. Thanks to Julie of Smiling Shelves for hosting. 
Each book you read is worth points. You get:
3 points for a Newbery Medal Winner, 2 points for a Newbery Honor Book, 1 point for a Caldecott Book [Read more…] about 2017 Newbery Reading Challenge wrap-up

Cruisin’ Thru the Cozies 2017

This is the seventh annual Cruisin’ thru the Cozies hosted by Yvonne at Socrates’ Book Reviews and 2017 is my 5th year to participate. Usually the levels are to read a certain number of books but this year Yvonne changed it up by making us move out of our comfort zone and read several genres. I did the highest level: Level 4 – Sleuth Extraordinaire, which required us to read two books from each sub-genre plus an additional 20 cozy books of my choice, for a total of 40 books. I planned out my category books at the beginning of the year and ended up reading 4 of the 20 I had planned. But I still moved many off my shelves, so it’s all good. I’ve also been listening to the M.C. Beaton audiobooks from the library, so I went through lots of those. [Read more…] about Cruisin’ Thru the Cozies 2017 wrap-up