Bout of Books 27 (January 2020) Goals and Daily Progress Updates

January 5, 2020January 13, 202011 Comments

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, January 6th and runs through Sunday, January 12th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure. There are challenges, Twitter chats, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 26 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. – From the Bout of Books team

What better way to begin a new year of reading than with a good Bout of Books. I enjoy participating in this read-a-thon, and keeping track of my reading progress over the week. I’ll be using this blog for updates during the read-a-thon.

Time Devoted to Reading

I always say half an hour per day, but that’s hopefully just a starting point. I’d like to read more if possible.

My Goals

To read at least some of The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
To continue Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
Keep track of progress with daily updates
To visit other blogs

Books to Read

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

Updates

Monday

It’s read-a-thon time! There are two books I’d like to read during this week. I don’t know whether I’ll finish both of them, but I’m hoping I might manage one. The first is Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. I haven’t read any Christie for a while and it seemed a good pick for this time of year. The second book, and one I’ve been looking forward to for a while now, is The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.
Let’s see how I get on…

Tuesday (Monday’s Progress)

Bout of Books is off to a good start, I think I’ve picked a good one with The Starless Sea. The cover of the book is lovely, and the story within is so far totally intriguing. I think it’s a book I’m going to want to take my time with, so I don’t know how much I’ll have read by the end of the week, but then it’s so good that I don’t want to put it down either!

Number of pages I’ve read today: 100
Total number of pages I’ve read: 100

Wednesday (Tuesday’s progress)

Still really enjoying The Starless Sea. I haven’t read quite as much today, but it’s still a great read.

Number of pages I’ve read today: 25
Total number of pages I’ve read: 125

Thursday (Wednesday’s progress)

I don’t want to put The Starless Sea down. I love the mix of stories and can’t wait to see when and how they all come together. I still don’t want to read this book too quickly so I gave some of my reading time today to Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. I do try to work out whodunit in these novels but I’ve very rarely been right, and so far with this one I have no idea. Well, I have a few potentials but can’t narrow it down beyond that!

Number of pages I’ve read today: 135
Total number of pages I’ve read: 260

Friday (Thursday’s progress)

I read more of The Starless Sea and I wonder now whether I will actually finish it before Bout of Books ends. I’ve been reading quite slowly but I still ended up reading 80 pages, and have passed the halfway point with the book now. It’s all starting to come together and I wonder how it’s going to end…

Number of pages I’ve read today: 80
Total number of pages I’ve read: 340

Saturday (Friday’s progress)

Oops! No progress to report today.

Number of pages I’ve read today: 0
Total number of pages I’ve read: 340

Sunday (Saturday’s progress)

Another quiet day for reading. Hopefully I’ll have a good final day tomorrow!

Number of pages I’ve read today: 40
Total number of pages I’ve read: 380

Monday (Sunday’s progress and final thoughts)

Final Summary posted HERE.

Reading Resolutions 2020

December 30, 20199 Comments

Welcome to my 2020 Reading Resolutions post.

It’s become something of a little tradition on my blog to set out a few general reading hopes and goals for the coming year. Nothing too rigid, my Resolutions are general ideas and reminders about reading events and books I’d like to read soon.

As always I will participate in the Goodreads Challenge, setting myself a fairly low target. I enjoy keeping track of my reads and this challenge allows me to do that.
Beat the Backlist will also be making another appearance, to encourage me to stop neglecting books that have been on my TBR list for a while but never made it to the top.

General Goals

My own books. I want to try and give attention to books I already own by reading at least one of my own books, either e-book or real book, per month.
Participate in reading events and readathons and update my blog regularly throughout. In particular I’m looking out for Bout of Books and Reader’s Imbibing Peril. I’d also like to find more readathon events to participate in.
Read a variety of genres, but continue indulging my love of Fantasy/Dystopia/Post Apocalypse stories.
Particular authors…
Read at least one book by Agatha Christie, perhaps Death on the Nile.
Read at least one Discworld book by Terry Pratchett.
Read another book from the Charlie Parker series by John Connolly.
Read at least one backlist title by Stephen King. I already have copies of Different Seasons, Christine and Misery.
Read some Sci-Fi as I haven’t read much at all in this genre. Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill and the Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers may be my starting point.
Try an audio book. Specifically, try one audio book per month, assuming I enjoy my first experience. I might start with The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman.
Continue my monthly update posts to record my reading and any challenge progress.

Reading Challenges:

The Beat the Backlist Challenge

Goodreads

I want to read 20 books during the year

Possible Books to Read:

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman
The Colour of Magic or Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
Every Dead Thing by John Connolly
Different Seasons, Christine or Misery by Stephen King

I also have a further list of potential reads for the year which I’ve included in my Beat the Backlist sign up post.

Beat The Backlist 2020

December 29, 20197 Comments

Overview

A new year, a new TBR pile, and a new set of readers tackling their backlist!

Welcome to Beat the Backlist (the 2020 edition)! This reading challenge is dedicated to helping you knock those backlist books off your ever-growing to-read list. Head over to Novelknight for full details.

Any genre, any format, any length.
Any book published in 2019 or earlier is fair game.
Re-reads count. And you don’t have to own the book!

Guidelines

The book must have been published in 2019 or earlier to count. It can be in any format (including an ARC/eARC) as long as the release date is 2019 or earlier (i.e. 2020 releases are not allowed).

You have to start and finish the book in 2020 to count it. Any books started in 2019 and finished in 2020 do not count. Any books started in 2020 and finished in 2021 also do not count.

The challenge runs from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020

BEAT THE BACKLIST BINGO

It’s back! Beat the Backlist Reading Bingo was something I attempted last year, and I fancy having another go. It’s an added element to the challenge. There are two bingo cards available, you can find both over at Novelknight. One card features 24 general prompts. The second features 80 prompts total for readers wanting an EPIC challenge!

Potential Reads

2020 marks my fourth time participating in Beat the Backlist. As I did last year, I’ll set an initial target of 10 books to read, but hopefully will be able to manage more. My TBR pile is HUGE so there’s no shortage of books to choose from! Here is just a short selection of potential reads for this challenge…

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
Dracul by J. D. Barker and Dacre Stoker
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
The Kingdom by Jess Rothenberg
Tomorrow by Damian Dibben
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Red Sister by Mark Lawrence
Sorcerer to the Crown by Zen Cho
Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz
Different Seasons by Stephen King
The Mitford Murders by Jessica Fellowes

There are so many more books I could have mentioned above, so I look forward to seeing how many books I manage to read for Beat the Backlist.

Monthly Progress

January

Beat The Backlist Bingo

Beat the Backlist Reading Bingo was something I attempted last year, and I fancy having another go. It’s an added element to the challenge. I’m going for the card with 24 general prompts. Let’s see how I progress:

Reading Review: December 2019

December 27, 2019Leave a comment

Welcome to my Monthly Reading Review.
This post is my attempt to keep track of how I’m doing with my reading challenges and resolutions.

BOOKS I’VE READ

Angel Mage by Garth Nix

Total Library Books Read This Month: 1
Total Own Books Read This Month: 0
Overall Total Books Read This Month: 1

Total Library Books Read 2019: 27
Total Own Books Read 2019: 3
Overall Total Books Read 2019: 30

MY READ OF THE MONTH

I only read one book this month, Angel Mage by Garth Nix.

BEAT THE BACKLIST

My total for this challenge is currently 11 books read. So far I’ve read:

The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding (Poirot #35) by Agatha Christie
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths
The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
Taken at the Flood (Poirot #28) by Agatha Christie
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Poirot #4) by Agatha Christie
The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay
Shiang (Empire of Salt #2) by C. V. Iggulden
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

This year I’m having a go a something a little different – Beat the Backlist Bingo. I have no idea how many of these boxes I’ll manage to tick but it’s a little extra to add to my challenge.

Book with under 1000 Ratings on GoodReads – 830 for The Stranger Diaries at time of Completion.

Part of a trilogy – The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

New-to-me Author – Kate Mascarenhas with The Psychology of Time Travel

Cover with your Favourite Colour – Taken at the Flood (Poirot #28) by Agatha Christie

Title is a Name – In this case, the title contains the name – The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (Poirot #4) by Agatha Christie

Over 400 pages – The Woman in the Woods by John Connolly is 496 pages

Book to movie/show – Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Cover art redesign – A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay

One word title – Shiang (Empire of Salt #2) by C. V. Iggulden

On your TBR for 2+ years – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

GOODREADS

This year I’ve read 30 books.

GOALS

I’ve managed to keep up with my reviews and post quite promptly this month.

So concludes December’s Reading Review. See you again next month.