It’s up! Powell’s just posted their Staff Top 5 Picks of 2019! Since it has become an annual tradition of mine to crunch the numbers* on the staff picks, I couldn’t resist doing it again this year. (Click any of these to see previous years’ posts: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015.)
The results are in. Below is the consensus top ten list of the books most mentioned in individual lists. Presented in order of most to least total points, the top ten highest rated books of 2019 according to the staff at Powell’s Books (in Portland, Oregon) are:
(Links below take you to Powell’s, because that seemed appropriate.)
The thing that surprised me most about this year’s list is that Sorcery of Thorns landed on it, and ended up in the #4 spot. I’ve been hearing a lot of mixed reviews about this one from BookTubers and elsewhere online. Now I’m even more curious to read this for myself. It is the only one on this list that was already on my TBR.
Least surprising were the number of memoirs on the list. I’ve come to expect interesting memoirs to be top picks from the staff at Powell’s. But, after last year, I’ve really started trusting their taste in memoirs. Some of my favorite non-fiction books I read in 2019 were memoirs recommended by Powell’s staff.
If you want to add these books to your TBR, I’ve added them to a Goodreads shelf called PowellsBestof2019. If you do add any to your TBR, let me know in the comments which you plan to read. Alternatively, if you have already read any of these, let me know what you think/recommend in the comments.
* In case you’re interested, here’s how I came up with the total points… I did some good old “copying and pasting” of all the lists into a spreadsheet. Then I assigned points to each mention of each book based on where it appeared in each list (5 points for first place, 4 points for second place, etc.). Then I made a pivot table and sorted the results by total number of points in descending order. There was an obvious cut-off after the first ten books. So I capped the list at ten books.
Disclaimer: I don’t work at Powell’s Bookstore. I have no financial affiliation to Powell’s Bookstore. I get no money from doing this post. I only do this because I have a tendency to like the books their staff recommends and because I like top five lists and crunching numbers. Enjoy! 🙂
Happy New Year, everyone! It’s time for me to do all of those fun end of year wrap up blog posts, starting with what I read in December, what books I hauled in to read, and what I plan to read first in January. Ready? Let’s do this!
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Let’s start with what I finished for the Winter Magical Readathon. If you’ve been following along with my blog posts, you are probably already familiar with the books I selected for the various reading prompts. I’m all read up through Chapter 4. The ones that have stuck with me the most are The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh.
I was really worried that I was going to be disappointed by The Starless Sea, but I think I liked it even more than I liked The Night Circus. It seems to be getting mixed reviews from folks, but I loved the story within a story structure of the book. I love her descriptions. A lot of times descriptions can bore me or take me out of a story, but hers always have a way of making me feel even more immersed in the story. The world-building was unique, and I loved the characters.
Saga vol. 2 reminded me how much I love that series and need to finish it. There There ended up being a page turner while still being a very literary novel and a great read (of course it was, given where it ranked on the Powell’s staff top five lists last year). The only two I was disappointed with were Fantastic Beasts and Jean Grey vol 1. I’m curious to watch the Fantastic Beasts movies now that I’ve read the book and realized that it’s basically an encyclopedia of creatures and there isn’t much of a story. I probably won’t be continuing with the Jean Grey series.
Besides my reading for the Winter Magical Readathon prompts, I did finish two other books: The Barefoot Bandit by Bob Friel and A Prince on Paper by Alyssa Cole. The later is the last book in her Reluctant Royals series, and it’s just as good as all the others in the series. I think book two (A Duke by Default) is still my favorite, but this one is a close second.
I read The Barefoot Bandit for the “read a book of nonviolent true crime” task in the Read Harder Challenge. I chose that book for this task because a good portion of the story takes place on the island where I live, and the author also lives on this island. It was a very entertaining read, and I definitely recommend checking it out if the description sounds interesting to you.
In the end, I didn’t finish all the Read Harder Challenge tasks before the end of the year. But… I think I got closer than I ever have before. I finished 21 of the 24 tasks. This challenge (like the readathons I participated in) definitely helped me read through some of the books I’ve been meaning to read for a while. Still, I don’t think I’m going to attempt it again in 2020.
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Most of my book haul this month are ebooks that I got off hold from the library, but I did buy one book, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I really like political space operas, and it sounds like this is going to be a good one.
I’ve been comparing bookish subscription boxes for months, mostly via unboxing videos on YouTube. I’ve been trying to decide on one that will have just the right mix of usable bookish swag with a book that I’m actually interested in reading. Based on the videos I’ve watched of previous boxes, I decided to go with Fairy Loot. My first month’s box came with a mix of really cool stuff and stuff I’m not likely to use. But, I had a pretty good idea what the book was going to be, and I was right. It was A River of Royal Blood by Amanda Joy, and it’s one that I wanted to read anyway, so I’m glad I got it. Depending on what this month’s box contains, I may not continue with this experiment, but I wanted to give it a try as a holiday present to my self.
Since I’m still not done with the Winter Magical Readathon prompts, the first order of business for January is to read the last three books I planned to read for that readathon: The Reluctant Queen, The Art of Theft, and The Right Swipe. Luckily, they all fit really well with my reading goals for 2020. More on that in a future blog post.
While I work on that post, tell me what is going to be the first book you’re reading in 2020? Let me know in the comments.
All right. It’s time. Now that December is over, it’s time to take a look at my 2019 reading stats. (For 2018 reading stats, check out this post.)
Ready for some numbers? Cool. Let’s do this.
I read a total of 81 books in 2019. That is a HUGE number of books for me. The most books I’ve read in one year prior to this was 76 books in 2015. On average, between 2008 and 2018, I read about 42 books per year. So, this year was nearly twice that. Wow.
Here’s how my 2019 reading stats break down:
New vs. backlist: 17% of the books I read (14 total) were books published in 2019 vs. 83% (67 books) published prior to 2019. I read fewer new releases this year than I did last year (2018 was 39% new releases).
Fiction vs. non-fiction: I read quite a bit more non-fiction this year than I usually do, but fiction still dominated with 80% (65 books) fiction books and 20% (16 books) non-fiction. Usually, it’s closer to 90% or more fiction.
Author genders: I have to make some assumptions for this stat because not all authors are clear about their pronouns. 75% (61 books) were written by female-identifying authors, 20% (16 books) were written by male-identifying authors, and 5% (4 books) had one of each. None were written by non-binary authors, as far as I can tell.
Book format: I listened to 12% of the books I read this year (10 total). Ebooks made up 54% of my reading (67 books), and print was 21% (17 books). So audiobooks continue to be a thing I enjoy, but less than I did in 2018 when 20% of my reading was audiobooks due to an eye issue that made listening my only option. Also, print is making a comeback for me! That’s a much higher percentage of print books than I read in 2018 (7%) or 2017 (17%).
Age category: This year I made a big move toward adult books. 73% of the books I read this year (59 total) were “adult” vs. 23% “young adult” (19 books) and 4% (3 books) were “children’s or middle grade.” In the previous two years the split between “adult” and “YA” was 57% and 39%.
Genre: The majority of what I read was sci-fi and fantasy (56%). However, the total of these two genres is actually down a bit from previous years. Romance came in at 16%, followed by self-help/business books at 11%. Next was contemporary or general fiction at 7%, then memoir/autobiography at 4%. The remaining 6% were a bunch of one-off books that ended up lumping into one category of “other.”
AOC: As with the gender stat, this one can sometimes be difficult to determine. As best as I can tell, 31% of the books I read (26 books total) were written by an author of color (aka one that does not identify as “white”). That’s down from 2018 (43%), and I’m not happy about that.
LGBTQA: Please note, I’m not always sure how an author identifies, and I don’t think that I need to be. That said, I think only 9% of the books I read (8 total) were written by an author who I knew identified as something other than “straight.” Again, I’m not thrilled with this stat. It needs improvement.
Okay, data geek-out is over. For now. You’ll see me reference some of these as metrics for my 2020 reading goals when I publish that post. But first, before we leave 2019 behind completely, I want to share my favorite books and my most disappointing books of 2019. Stay tuned for those posts, coming soon!
I’m curious, do you track your reading stats? If so, do you track these same types of metrics? What do you like to keep tabs on, and why? I’m always looking for ways I can improve my process, so I’d love to know your thoughts.
I am almost done with Silver in the Wood. I think I’ll be able to finish it today, and then I’ll be all caught up and ready to start my reading for the final chapter of the Winter Magical Readathon! And that’s good because I got three new prompts this week!
Chapter 5 started with a party, and I chose dancing, because of course I did. If this was a real party, I’d be one of the first ones on the dance floor. The next day there was some helping of Neville with the Mandrogas. Then, because I followed the spiders in Chapter 4, I ended up with a rooster as my weapon of choice. And, I got my first prompt: “Read a book with a bird, winged creature or feathers on the cover!”
After scrolling through my Goodreads shelves and squinting at all the covers looking for wings and/or feathers, I came up with a couple of options. One is The Burning Sky by Sherry Thomas. The other is The Reluctant Queen by Sarah Beth Durst. I’ve been meaning to read The Burning Sky forever, but I’m not ready to start a new series right now. My plan for 2020 is to finish a bunch of series that I’ve started reading. Since The Reluctant Queen is book 2 in a series I want to finish in 2020, I think I’ll go with that one. It’s also shorter. by over 100 pages.
Armed with my rooster, I headed to Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom to find out how she died and (because I didn’t go to Nearly Headless Nick’s Death Day party) to tell her an embarrassing story to cheer her up. If you want my embarrassing story, click here for my tweet per the #MakingMyrtleLaugh prompt.
Then, because I never learned in an earlier chapter that I speak Parseltongue, I ended up with another reading prompt. This one was to “Read the first book you think about!” Of course, (predictably) as soon as someone says “think of a book,” my mind goes blank. It’s like, books? What are books? Then I thought of one. The Art of Theft by Sherry Thomas! This is one I’ve been meaning to get to since it came out in September. It’s book four in the gender flipped Sherlock Holmes retelling that I love. Makes sense that it would be the first one to come to mind.
I was kind of hoping that would be it for reading prompts. But, I hadn’t even made it to the Chamber of Secrets, yet. So, me and my trusty (sleeping) rooster continued. I turned right, immobilized the pixies, and found Ginny. In order to wake my rooster and fight the basilisk, I got another reading prompt. This one was “Read a book that starts with an R (for rooster).” For this one, I’m going with The Right Swipe by Alisha Rai.
That led me to the end of the story with a total of NINE prompts for the whole readathon! Woah. Luckily, there’s no real fixed end date. So I have as long as I’d like to read these three books. I think I’m going to try to get them done by next Sunday, though. We’ll see. I may not start any of them until the first of the New Year because I want to finish The Barefoot Bandit before I start any new books. I also have book 3 in my own series coming out at the end of January, and I have to finish the interior layout files and proof read it one last time.
I think I may do one final Winter Magical Readathon wrap-up post once I’ve finished reading all these books. So, stay tuned for that, if you’re curious. I’ve also got a bunch of end of year posts planned. I’m going to do posts on my favorite reads of 2019, my most disappointing reads of 2019, my 2019 reading stats, my 2020 reading goals, and (probably) another “Top 5” summary of the Powell’s Books staff top five lists, whenever those come out.
Let me know in the comments what you’re reading for these prompts (or whichever prompts you got in this chapter) and how many total prompts you ended up with for this readathon. Happy reading!
I finally completed the first two chapters of the Winter Magical Readathon! I finished reading The Starless Sea for my chapter one prompt (and I loved it). I also finished reading There There (another really good book) for the first of my two chapter two prompts (“book with an orange cover”) and Jean Grey, Vol. 1: Nightmare Fuel for the second (“read a comic, manga, or graphic novel”).
Lucky for me, I just found and borrowed the audiobook of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them from my library, so I can get to work on my chapter three reading prompt (“read a book published in 2001”). Fantastic Beasts is pretty short, so I should be able to finish that in a couple of long walks. Which means I’m almost caught up! Hooray!
Winter Magical Readathon reading for chapters one through three…
That (plus the fact that it’s Sunday) also means it’s time to find out what chapter four has in store for me… The short answer is spiders plus two more reading prompts. Yep. #IFollowedThe Spiders.
First up, since I didn’t join Hermione’s book club (what a bummer, I totally would have joined if I’d chosen that path), I ended up with a prompt to “read a book that starts with the letter S, for Slytherin.” My mom just sent me Spaceside by Michael Mammay for Christmas, so that was the first book that came to mind. But, then I remembered that Saga also starts with an “S” and volume two (which was one of my options for my chapter two prompt) would be a fast read. Alternatively, I have Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh on my Kindle. That one is a novella and would also be a fast read.
Some options for my chapter four reading prompts…
I’m thinking I might go with Saga, Vol. 2 for the Slytherin prompt because the other two books will also work for the second prompt I got for chapter four. See, I decided not to go with the Pollyjuice potion, and I didn’t already have the diary, so I had to go fish it out of the toilet (yuck!). That landed me with the prompt to “read a book that has been written by an author who’s last name starts with either T, M or R.” So, Silver in the Wood (Tesh) and Spaceside (Mammay) will both also work for this prompt.
Right now, I think I’m going to go for a walk and listen to some Fantastic Beasts. Then I’ll probably do a little non-Magical Readathon reading. I’d like to make some progress on The Barefoot Bandit because I hate ending the year with partially finished books. I was really hoping that it would qualify for one of these prompts, but so far it hasn’t been an option. Maybe next week…
Once I finish with Fantastic Beasts, I’ll probably start reading volume two of Saga and see what I feel like after that. I think it will depend on how close we are to next Sunday by the time I finish. Until then, happy holidays and happy reading! Wishing you all a warm beverage and an excellent book!
I’m still not done with my Chapter 1 & 2 prompts. I figured out that I messed up reading Chapter 2 and the comic book prompt was actually part of Chapter 2, not Chapter 3. So, I went back and read Chapter 3 for real this time (and fixed my previous post).
First choice in Chapter 3? Breakfast. Even though I love toast, I don’t really like eggs all that much. So, I went with the corn flakes. Of course, just the mere thought of toast got me craving some. There may have been a pause to go make myself second breakfast before returning to the readathon text.
My decision to go with corn flakes and toast with jam (both IRL and in the text) landed me in Herbology class. After planting Mandragoras, I had three options for my evening activity: dueling club, Nearly Headless Nick’s party, or Quidditch practice. If this were really me, I’d definitely go with Quidditch. I agree with Wood. We should totally be practicing daily.
And that, my friends, is how I ended up with the Chapter 3 prompt of reading a book published in 2001. There are two books published in 2001 that I’ve shelved on Goodreads, but haven’t read yet. I’ve been meaning to read both of them forever, but one (Kushiel’s Dart) is over 900 pages long. The other, Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, I had in paperback and just unhauled it.
So, now I’m stuck. I tried searching the Googles and tried to find another option, but I couldn’t find anything appealing other than Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. It turns out that both were published in 2001, and I’ve never read them. I may go with one of them since they are both Harry Potter books, and it’s a good excuse to watch the Fantastic Beasts movie after I’ve read the book, right? The only problem is, I don’t own either of those books and my local library doesn’t have them, either. See? Stuck.
I suppose I don’t need to worry about this at the moment because, as I said at the beginning, I’m still working on my Chapter 1 & 2 prompts. As of right now, my Winter Magical Readathon TBR looks like this:
Winter Magical Readathon TBR for chapters one through three…
If you have any thoughts on other (short) books published in 2001, let me know in the comments. Did anyone else get that prompt? What book did you choose? And who else is excited for the feast next week?
One downside of starting Book Roast’s Winter Magical Readathon with a 500 page book is that I’m not done with it yet! I am currently not quite halfway through reading The Starless Sea to complete my chapter one prompt.
But… I really wanted to see what happens next in the Magical Readathon choose your own adventure version of Chamber of Secrets. So I decided to peek ahead. That’s not cheating, right? I hope it’s not.
For chapter 2, I woke up at the Burrow and stuck with Ron. That landed me with a somewhat challenging reading prompt: “Read a book with an orange cover (or the word “orange” in the title).” I didn’t think I had a lot of books on my TBR with an orange cover, but, it turned out I had three to choose from. I went with There There by Tommy Orange because, in addition to the cover being orange, it’s less than 300 pages long and the author’s name is Orange.
Then, for the next choice in that chapter, I decided to deviate from the book a bit. When I couldn’t get through to platform 9 and 3/4, I probably would have tried to convince Ron to wait for his parents. Luckily, my good behavior landed me with an excellent reading prompt: “Read a comic book, manga, picture book or a graphic novel.”
I haven’t decide yet which of three comics I’m going to read for this prompt. I have 3 that I’ve been meaning to read all year. Jean Grey, Vol. 1: Nightmare Fuel, Bitch Planet, Vol. 2: President Bitch, and Saga, Vol. 2 (so I can finally get started on finishing Saga). If you have thoughts on which I should go with for this prompt, let me know in the comments.
Comics on my TBR…
Hopefully, I will finish The Starless Sea this week and then read There There and the comic relatively quickly. Then it’s on to Chapter 3. I’m pretty sure there’s no chance that I’ll be all caught up by next weekend.
Are you participating in this year’s Winter Magical Readathon? How are you doing? Which prompts have you been getting? Let me know in the comments!
UPDATE (12/17): Apparently I messed up. This is just Chapter 2 and not Chapter 3. I’ve corrected this post to reflect that.
I managed to finish six books while also writing over 50k words for NaNoWriMo in November. Before you get too excited, I should point out that three of those books were already in-progress before November started and one of the remaining three was actually a novella. Still, that’s a lot of reading during a very busy month.
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I started off the month by (finally) finishing Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. So, here’s the thing… I don’t like zombies, and I don’t like alternate history. I read this for the Read Harder Challenge. I also read it because a lot of people whose bookish opinions I trust really liked this book and said specifically that it wasn’t really a “zombie” book. So I made this my pick for the alternate history task. I’m glad I did. It’s objectively a good book, it’s just not my jam. If you like Westworld (the TV show) and alternate history, you might really love this book. I just realized that I also burned out early on Westworld. So yeah. Reading Harder accomplished. Moving on.
Next up, or possibly while I was still trying to finish Dread Nation, I started listening to Educated by Tara Westover on audiobook. This book has had no end of hype, and I feel like I’m arriving pretty late to the party when I say, Wow. This was a page-turner of a memoir, folks. I keep saying I don’t like memoir, but some of the stand-out books I’ve read this year (topic for a future post) have all been memoir like this one with lots of meaty chewy bits to stew on. (Mixed food metaphor much?) I’ll also say that the audiobook was a good choice for this one.
I picked up Witchmark by C. L. Polk immediately after (finally) finishing Dread Nation. It sucked me right in with the atmosphere and the world-building and the hints of mystery, not to mention the slow-burn romance. I’d been wanting to read this for a while and finally picked it up because my “Camp Book Club” crew decided to read it as our book club pick for November. Unfortunately, due to life drama combined with NaNoWriMo, I didn’t finish it in time for our meeting. I did finish it about a week later. I think the plot got a little convoluted and rushed at the end, but I still really enjoyed the characters and world. I think the problem was that this book is part secondary world fantasy, part romance, and part mystery. The problem is, that’s a lot for one novel (especially a first novel) and I don’t think the mystery part was as well done as the other bits.
After that, I read This is How You Lose the Time War by by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I hadn’t realized this was a novella until I looked at the page count. I had a different book picked out for the “Read an Epistolary Novel” task in the Read Harder Challenge, but I decided to read this instead because I’ve been hearing a lot about it. I’m glad I did. The writing in this book is so good. At one point I was listening to it on audiobook and then going back to re-read sections in the hardcover I bought because there’s just so much going on with the language and the plot and the way the story is interwoven. I think I was most impressed by the fact that the language and the structure reinforce the time travel premise and this story about messages that forge a relationship between two individuals on opposite sides of a time war. I don’t want to give too much away, but I haven’t been this impressed by form matching substance in a story since Cloud Atlas.
I mentioned in a previous post about how I wanted to try to finish this book of short stories that I started earlier in the year but keep forgetting to read. Meet Cute is a YA short story anthology with contributions from a lot of really popular YA authors. Every story is the origin story for a couple. Many of the characters are LGBTQ and/or not white. Almost all of the stories are contemporary. There’s one (the one by Dhonielle Clayton) that has a speculative bent to it involving magical true love tattoos and a bit of seeing into potential futures. The one by Kass Morgan could probably be categorized as near-future sci-fi, but it takes place on Earth. The stories are all good. I’m still trying to decide which one was my favorite. I really liked “Print Shop” by Nina LaCour, “Oomph” by Emery Lourd, “The Unlikely Likelihood of Falling in Love” by Jocelyn Davies, and “Somewhere That’s Green” by Meredith Russo. That’s nearly half of them, so I’m not doing a great job narrowing this down, am I? Bottom line, if you want warm and fuzzy YA contemp (plus a little Spec Fic thrown in for funzies) by diverse authors with good representation, get your hands on this anthology.
Finally (and really, it feels like I’ve been listening to this book forever), I finished The Future of Humanity by Michio Kaku. I started listening to this audiobook back in April on a road trip to Utah. I think I gave up because the narrator kept putting me to sleep. Eventually, I came back to it (in October? or earlier? I can’t remember…). Turns out this is much better listened to on walks or while doing the dishes. Still, it took me forever to get through it. I’ve had to renew it from the library way too many times to count. Luckily, no one else seems to want to listen to this audiobook. I get it. I think the audience must be almost exclusively sci-fi writers. It’s not going to make you a scientist or an expert on colonizing Mars or living forever, but I do think it’s a pretty great overview. I bought the paperback so I can use it as reference, but I don’t think I would have ever finished it if I’d tried to read it instead of listening. As dry as the narration is, it’s still better than reading the material, I think.
Before I get to my “Inbox” summary for the month, here’s an update on where I’m at with that Read Harder Challenge…
Read Harder Challenge Status:20 finished and 4 to go…
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My most expensive book purchase this month…
I purchased a hardcover edition of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. Not only did I purchase it in hardcover, but I bought it new from my local independent bookstore. That was a lot to spend on a book that’s only about 200 pages long. But, I didn’t want to wait for my library hold, and I wanted to support my local bookstore. I was going to give it as a gift when I finished it, but I like it enough that I think I may just keep it.
My most eagerly awaited book of 2019…
I’d intended to order a signed hardcover of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern, but I waited too long and they sold out. Then I couldn’t decide if I wanted a copy in hardcover or on Kindle. I have The Night Circus in hardcover because it’s one of my favorite books, but I bought it after I’d read it on Kindle. So, I decide to read this one first and see how much I like it before I buy a copy for my shelf. Luckily, I’d already put the ebook and the hardcover on hold at my library, so I don’t have to wait to read it. I had just started my borrowed copy last night, then the hardcover arrived today as an early Christmas present from my mom! Thanks, Mom!
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What’s on my TBR for December…
My December TBR is a little daunting. I have four books I need to read in order to complete the Read Harder Challenge, but three of those are non-fiction (The Barefoot Bandit, Guantánamo Diary, and The Middle Kingdom). The fourth one is the third book in a series I’ve been meaning to finish for several years now (Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante). I am pretty sure that I’ll finish at least two of these four. I really want to finish the challenge this year because I’m so close, but I’m not sure if I’m going to have time for all these books.
Other than that, I’m planning to read The Starless Sea for book club this month. I also want to read it now before I start hearing more about it and get psyched out by the hype (and/or spoiled). I’ve already started reading this, but it’s really long. Choosing to prioritize this may mean having to give up on finishing my Read Harder Challenge.
And finally, because I had that goal about reading the books I purchase this year within at least six months of buying them, I really should read A Prince on Paper before the end of the month. This one is going to be a fast and fun book that I’m very much looking forward to reading. I think I’m going to use it to keep me from going crazy with all those dry non-fiction books.
Somewhere in here, I’m planning on trying to keep up with the Winter Magical Readathon. I’m really hoping that I can use some of these books to meet those reading prompts. We shall see…
Stay tuned to find out how I finish the year and get all my 2019 reading stats. The most books I’ve read in one year up to this point was in 2015, when I read a total of 76 books (<– link goes to my Goodreads shelf that shows what I read that year). So far, I’ve read a total of 73 books this year. 2019 may be my biggest reading year since I started tracking this stuff. Wow.
It’s the first day of December and time to start Book Roast’s Winter Magical Readathon! I’m so excited! I just read “Chapter One” and got my reading prompt. I was going to share it here, but I don’t want to spoil the story if you haven’t started it, yet.
While I won’t say which path I chose through Chapter One, I will say that my prompt was to read a book on my TBR that’s over 500 pages! Yikes! What a way to start a readathon!
Luckily, I was just about to start reading The Starless Sea which is 498 pages long in hardcover. That’s close enough, right?
Are you participating in this year’s Winter Magical Readathon? Let me know in the comments, and tell me which prompt you got!
I read some really good sci-fi and some great sci-fantasy in October. Plus I grabbed another great batch of books from the library. Not that I’m going to be doing much reading in November due to NaNoWriMo. Which is a bummer because (as I mentioned in my previous post) I have way too many books on my end of year TBR.
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What I read in October.
I started the month with my re-read of The Rowan by Anne McCaffrey. Whenever I mention her as one of my early favorite sci-fi / fantasy authors, most people chime in “oh yeah, the Dragonriders books!” But, I never read those until much MUCH later, and then I stopped after the first three because I just didn’t like them as much as her other stuff. This series (really starting with the Pegasus prequels) were what got me initially hooked on her stories. Because of that, I’ve been a bit nervous to re-read The Rowan in case it didn’t hold up, but I enjoyed it as much on this re-read as I did when I first read it as a young teen. The writing and story-telling style (language, narrative structure, etc.) is definitely dated compared to modern sci. But the story and the characters and the world-building are all still just as awesome as I remembered.
Somewhere in there I also read Polaris Rising. It ended up being an interesting contrast to The Rowan because they’re both sci-fi romance with talented and tough heroines near the top of an established power structure. They are both dealing with political plots and ultimately fall in love with Alpha male heroes. The difference is they’re two totally different styles of story-telling. The Rowan starts when the main character is a baby and advances in about two major time leaps until she’s probably about the same age as the main character in Polaris Rising. These days, that kind of character development would happen in backstory reflections scattered throughout the story when and where they become relevant to the plot. The Rowan is also “quieter” in that (aside from the inciting incident) the main character is never in any real physical danger throughout the story. On the other hand, Polaris Rising takes place over a handful of days or maybe weeks and is much more action-packed with lots of escapes and combat and danger. While I liked Polaris Rising, and I cringed a bit at the old-school writing style of The Rowan, I still like The Rowan more. Even now, as I type this, I can’t quite put my finger on why.
Continuing with the sci-fi trend, I listened to Emergency Skin while on a walk. It’s a quick read (or listen). Normally, I don’t like polemics dressed as sci-fi, and could definitely be considered as one since it’s pretty heavy on the “message.” But, it’s short, and I really enjoyed the story structure and the humor. I highly recommend checking it out, especially if you have Amazon Prime, because both the audio and the ebook are free with Prime.
Another short audio “read” that I really enjoyed was Wolfpack by Abby Wambach. I heard about this book on Smart Podcast Trashy Books where Sarah recommended it as an inspiring read about owning your ambition and your strength and surrounding yourself with other ambitious, strong women. So, yeah. I was in. Especially when I heard that the audiobook was about the same length as a podcast and figured out that it was available to borrow at my library. As expected, it’s great. Very inspiring. I highly recommend you check it out.
As much as I enjoyed those short reads, the book that really took me by surprise this month, the one that gave me a new favorite author (or author pair), was Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews (a husband and wife writing team). I was expecting this to be a cute paranormal romance with a witch heroine and werewolf hero. Since I like but don’t love what I think of as “standard paranormal characters,” I was expecting to enjoy this but not love it. Holy wow was I wrong. The world-building in this book! Oh my. This isn’t fantasy, people. This is sci-fantasy and it’s amazing. The reimagined backstory for what I consider to be standard paranormal creatures got a solid boost from sci-fi that made this a whole new world that I instantly fell in love with. So, yeah. New favorite. Immediately reserved the rest of the series at the library. Though, I found out that this was initially released as a serial novel, and I think it’s maybe their only indie-published series. I’m not sure what that means for their other series, but I’m excited to check them out and see if I like them as much as I like this book.
Finally, I read book two in Scalzi’s Interdependency series, The Consuming Fire. I had a really hard time getting into this book. There’s so much “telling” at the beginning. Chapters and chapters of telling. The story doesn’t really get started until almost half-way through. Then it starts to build up to an ending takes a very Godfather-esque turn that I really enjoyed. The end is great. The middle is pretty good. The beginning was super meh. Kiva is still my favorite character. I’m looking forward to seeing how the trilogy (this is a trilogy, right?) ends, but I’m not running out to pre-order book three. I’ll get it from the library. Even with Tor’s stupid library ebook delay policy.
Before I get to my “Inbox” summary for the month, here’s an update on where I’m at with that Read Harder Challenge…
Read Harder Challenge Status: I started two books (Dread Nation and The Barefoot Bandit) but didn’t manage to finish either of them before the end of the month for a variety of reasons. So… I’m now behind schedule. I need to finish six books in two months, and one of those months is NaNoWriMo. It’s cool. I can do this. Everything’s fine. I am still determined to finish the challenge this year. It’s going to happen. If you’re curious about my reading list, you can check out my Goodreads Shelf here.
Inbox
What I bought and borrowed.
A large chunk of the books in this haul were ones that I’d reserved at the start of the year because of their position on the Powell’s Staff Top Five books of 2018 lists (Educated, There There, Red Clocks, Heavy, and The Third Hotel). Check out my post on that, if you missed it and want the details on those books.
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