Tag Archives: reading goals

2017 Monthly Status Update: March

Posted in For the love of books by

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Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 15
# pages read this month: 2,722
# books read year-to-date: 28
# pages read year-to-date: 7,156

Favorite Books I Read:

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If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – 4.5 stars

Other Posts this month:

Last Night with the Duke BLOG TOUR!!
The Enemies of Versailles BLOG TOUR!!
Wine and Cocktails – New Releases!

Status of 2017 Reading Challenges:

  1. Finish 2016 ARC’s from NetGalley that I missed – I got a chance to read one this month, so one down! Only 27 to go
  2. Participate in 2 reading challenges – Scheduled for May and August
  3. Other goals:
    1. Write shorter reviews – I’m trying! I think this past month I was able to get out a few shorter ones
    2. Continue establishing relationships – I think I’m doing it, we’ll see how it goes I guess!

Next Month TBR List:

-Windswept by Sabrina Jeffries (part-way through now)
-My One True Highlander by Suzanne Enoch
-I Sared the Duke by Anna Bennett
-The Lady and the Highlander by Lecia Cornwall
-Geekerella by Ashley Poston
-Hannah’s Moon by John A. Heldt
-The Young Widower’s Handbook by Tom McAllister
-Running With Scissors by Auguston Borroghs
-Seven Days of You by Cecilia Vinesse
-The Whole Art of Detection by Lyndsay Faye
-The Fall of Lisa Bellow by Susan Perabo
-Never Let You Go by Chevy Stevens
-Dead Letters by Caite Dolan-Leach
-The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

That’s the general reading plan. Fortunately, tax/busy season will be ending for me in less than 3 weeks (only 16 more workdays!!!!!!) and then I have about a week and a half off where I will be spending a lot of time reading. So I am hoping to read everything in the list above and maybe catch up on a few other ones I missed in March as well!! Plus my husband and I are taking a couple trips that I’m really looking forward to, including a new quilting retreat in Ogunquit, ME! So stay tuned for some serious reading in April!

2016 Status Update: May

Posted in 2016, Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge 2016, Bout of Books 16, For the love of books, Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Challenge, Pop Sugar Reading Challenge 2016 checklist, Reading Challenges by

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MAY ROCKED! I got SO much reading done and I was able to participate in some great read-a-thon events, one of which I had never participated in before. May’s TBR list was intimidating but I think I really did a great job of keeping up with the schedule as much as I could. I gave myself a couple nights off to drink too much wine but having so many days off that I could devote to reading I think offset any breaks I took. And I had retreat for the last weekend of the month with pretty much two full days devoted to reading. Retreat was great this year and I loved spending time with my quilting ladies, be sure to check out my post about retreat below!

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 18
# pages read this month: 6,228
# books read year-to-date: 57
# pages read year-to-date: 18,380

Favorite Books I Read:

The California Wife by Kristen Harnisch – 4.75 stars
People Who Knew Me by Kim Hooper – 4.5 stars
The Beast of Clan Kincaid by Lily Blackwood – 4.5 stars
Lana and the Laird by Sabrina York – 4.25 stars

Books I Didn’t Particularly Enjoy: 

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I didn’t really like Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave (2.75 stars). I just couldn’t really get into the story line on this one and it fell flat for me. I also didn’t particularly like Duke of Sin by Elizabeth Hoyt (3.25 stars) which was a HUGE disappointment for me because I usually LOVE her novels in the Maiden Lane series.

Other Posts this month:

Tall Poppy Book Giveaway
Author Interview!  – Mary Waters-Sayer – Author of the Blue Bath
Bout of Books 16 – Read-a-thon, contests, giveaways, and more!!
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 1
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 2
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 3
Bout of Books 16 Day 4 – If You Like This, Try This
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 4
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 5
Bout of Books 16 Update – Day 6
Bout of Books 16 Update Day 7 & WRAP UP
Reading Retreat! 2016
Reading Retreat Read-a-thon Wrap up!

Status of 2016 Reading Challenges:

PopSugar Reading Challenge 2016 Checklist – 17/20 books read
Book Riot Read Harder Reading Challenge – 3/24 books read
Penguin Random House: Challenge Your Shelf A-Z Reading Challenge – 0/26 books read

June TBR list: 

-Behave by Andromeda Romano-Lax (NetGalley) (rolled from April TBR – didn’t get to)
-The Good Kind of Bad by Rita Brassington (NetGalley) (rolled from April TBR – didn’t get to)
-Nobody But You by Jill Shalvis (The Reading Room)(rolled from May TBR – I haven’t received from the publisher yet!)
-I Take You by Eliza Kennedy (LibraryThing)(rolled from May TBR – I haven’t received from the publisher yet!)
-How the Duke Was Won by Lenora Bell (The Reading Room)(rolled from May TBR – didn’t get to)
-Frayed by Kara Terzis (NetGalley)(rolled from May TBR – didn’t get to)
-Quarter Life Poetry by Samantha Jayne (NetGallley)
-Anything For Her by Jack Jordan (NetGalley)
-The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell (NetGalley)
-The Girl Who Came Back by Susan Lewis (NetGalley)
-The Creswell Plot by Eliza Wass (NetGalley)
-The Wedding Sisters by Jamie Brenner (NetGalley)
-I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid (NetGalley)
-The Girls by Emma Cline (NetGalley)
-If You Left by Ashley Prentice Norton (NetGalley)
-The Vintner’s Daughter by Kristen Harnisch (own – for Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion)
-Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (NetGalley)
-Beauty and the Highland Beast by Lecia Cornwall (NetGalley)
-Thirty Days to Thirty by Courtney Peak (NetGalley)
-First Comes Love by Emily Giffin (NetGalley)
-All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda (NetGalley)
-The Killing Game by Nancy Bush (NetGalley)
-Missing, Presumed by Susie Steiner (NetGalley)
-Stormswept by Sabrina Jeffries (NetGalley)
-Once a Soldier by Mary Jo Putney (NetGalley)

So that is the plan for June. Similar to my May TBR, June seems daunting with the amount of books I have on the list. I feel pretty confident in how well I did on the May list though, so I think June will (hopefully) be a successful month as well!

Happy reading everyone!

Bout of Books 16 – READ-a-thon, contests, giveaways, and more!!

Posted in Bout of Books 16, For the love of books by
Bout of Books

So over the past year I’ve periodically seen fellow bloggers participating in something called “Bout of Books” and reading their posts it has always seemed interesting/fun to me. So I decided to sign up for this coming one! I am excited to try it, though I’m still not 100% sure how it works. I do know that I’m supposed to read, which works out well for me since that is one of my favorite things to do! 

For those of you who don’t really know much about Bout of Books (including me), it is basically a week-long, no pressure read-a-thon that has been going strong since 2011! Here is a description directly from the Bout of Books blog:

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 9th and runs through Sunday, May 15th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 16 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

All in all it sounds like a great time to me! It isn’t required but I am nothing if not goal-oriented so I’ve decided to set some goals for the week. And luckily this time of year is pretty much my only slightly-slow season so I was able to take a couple days off to devote entirely to reading!! If you’d like to participate and would like to post goals (optional) they have a nifty template/help page that you can find here. Below are my TBR/Other goals for the week: 

Time Devoted to Reading

I plan to read at least 2 hours each day, with additional hours on the 2/3 days I am home during the week. Also the Saturday during Bout of Books is Goal Day for me so I can read all day (approx. 8 hours). 

My Goals

My goals for this read-a-thon are pretty much to learn the ropes. I’d like to participate in as much as I can: the daily posts plus reading every day plus whatever else there is (if there is anything else?). 

Books to Read

 

SO! That is Bout of Books and that is my plan! I am really looking forward to participating, it lined up perfectly with my busiest ARC month to date so I am really appreciative of the extra encouraged reading time!!! Hope you guys check it out and join up! If you do want to join make sure to add yourself to the page’s Sign Up Post by Tuesday, May 10th at 11:59pm! Happy reading!