I went an entire month (mid-July to mid-August) without reading a single book, so let’s see how this goes.
My goal for August:
August doesn’t involve any travel so I’m going to go for 5 books. Including that short story book that I’ve been reading forever.
How optimistic of me! How foolish!
What I read: (Link to my Goodreads 2018 Reading Challenge)
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The 17th Suspect (Women’s Murder Club Series) James Patterson & Maxine Paetro 3* (August 22) Review |
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Blues for a Black Cat and Other Stories Boris Vian 1* (August 23) Review |
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The Travelling Cat Chronicles Hiro Arikawa 5* (August 27) Review |
Excuse(s) for Not Reading More: Eh.
Diversity? A “quick and easy” thriller, a rather awful short story collection, and an absolutely amazing novel translated from Japanese.
Star Ratings: I base this on the flat stars Goodreads displays in list-view, not the quarter-star system I assign in my reviews.
- 5 stars: 6 books
- 4 stars: 5 books
- 3 stars: 9 books
- 2 stars: 1 books
- 1 star: 1 books
- 0 stars: 0 books
- Abandoned: 5 books
Pages Read: (does not include abandoned books)
- January – 849
- February – 1122
- March – 1268
- April – 980
- May – 915 (ugh, it gets worse and worse)
- June – 759 (keeping the downward trend alive!)
- July – 1012 (wow, what a jump – that’s actually not so bad)
- August – 720 (and I had already read about half the cat book in previous months)
Coffin Bell Submissions: (I’m going to include this because it takes so much of my time)
- June
- 25 short stories
- July
- 31 short stories
- 2 CNF
- 7 poetry
- 5 flash
- August
- 46 short stories
- 1 CNF
- 1 flash
Reading Goals:
1. Read 40 books – I’m still behind by 1 book. At one point, I was behind by THREE BOOKS!!! Who even am I?
2. Decrease my TBR – As of May, I’m trying to be more ruthless about abandoning books that have been on my shelf for a long time and/or that don’t draw me in quickly when I pick them up.
- Jan 1 – 88 physical / 19 Kindle
- Feb 1 – 89 / 19
- Mar 1 – 80/20 (I purged a LOT of books, but some were previously read and 3 were gifts)
- Apr 6 – 85/22 (It was my birthday and I like to buy books as souvenirs)
- May 1 – 86/21
- June 4 – 81/22
- July 6 – 80/22
- August 1 – 82/22
- August 31 – 78/22 (I found a discrepancy on my shelves)
So very short of my goal. In September, I’ll set a goal of just 3 books. It would be nice to not fail for once.
