This month I read 19 books for a total of 5,108 pages and an average of 165 pages. Holy crap! I had an unexpectedly great reading month. Granted 8 books were graphic novels, but if you didn’t count those (which, I of course, totally do), 11 is still impressive. I read some great books this month but tops were definitely A Closed and Common Orbit and The Sparrow. Least favorite by far was Tender Morsels.
This month I read 9 books for a total of 3,080 pages and an average of 103 pages per day. Long Way was by far my favorite book, but The Serpent King was a close second. The Burning Light was also a fantastic novella. I DNF’d yet another book this month, so it’s not counted in any of this.I DNF’d yet another book this month, so it’s not counted in any of this.
This month I read 10 books for a total of 2,705 pages and an average of 90 pages per day. I read some great books this month, but unfortunately a couple were really boring and terrible (reviews coming later this month on those stinkers.)
Reviewed:
Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver
First Sentence: On the third night after the day her father died, Liesl saw a ghost.
Notable Quotes: “People need other people to feel things for them. It gets lonely to feel things all by yourself.”
“When people were afraid, they did not always do what they knew to be right. They turned away. They closed their eyes. They said, tomorrow, tomorrow, perhaps, I’ll do something about it. And they said that until they died.”
A few thoughts on Goodreads:
The Book of Elsewhere: Spellbound by Jacqueline West
First Sentence: Everyone who lived in the big stone house on Linden Street eventually went insane.
Ship of Fools by Richard Paul Russo
First Sentence: We had not made landfall in more than fourteen years.
The Liszts by Kyo Maclear
First Sentence: The Liszts made list.
Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell
First Sentence: “Every day is ordinary,” Father Willibald said, “until it isn’t.”
The Pagan Lord by Bernard Cornwell
First Sentence: A dark sky.
Dingo by Charles de Lint
First Sentence: No one likes to think it of their father, but there are days when I can’t help but feel that somehow I got stuck with the biggest loster of all loser dads.
Notable Quote: “But that’s the problem with words. Once you let them out of your mouth, there’s no taking them back again.”
Reviews to come:
After Alice by Gregory Maguire
First Sentence: Were there a god in charge of story – I mean one cut to Old Testament specifics, some hybrid of Zeus and Father Christmas – such a creature, such a diety, might be looking down upon a day opening in Oxford, England, a bit past the half-way mark of the 19th century.
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
First Sentence: This morning on planet Earth, there are one thousand, six hundred, and eighty-six enhanced, gifted, or otherwise-superpowered persons.
The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan
First Sentence: There are three suns in the sky ad it is the last day of autumn – perhaps forever.
This month I read 9 books for a total of 3,079 pages and an average of 99 pages per day! I’m really happy with my stats this month, and more importantly I really enjoyed almost all of the books I picked up! I was especially enamored with The Wild Robot and Alias Hook!
My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
First Sentence: The exorcist is dead.
The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson
First Sentence: Micah brought the music box to her on the night of the meteor storm.
Emperor of the Eight Islands by Lian Hearn
First Sentence: “Did you see what happened?”
Sung in Shadow by Tanith Lee
First Sentence: “And do you not know, then?”
Risuko by David Kudler
First Sentence: My name is Kano Murasaki, but everyone calls me Risuko.
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
First Sentence: Our story begins on the ocean, with with and rain and thunder and lighting and waves.
Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen
First Sentence: Second star to the right of what?
Notable Quote: “Kindness freely offered that asks for no reward, love that values another above yourself, the wisdom to live without fear. This is the best of life.”
Wolf Road by Beth Lewis
First Sentence: I sat up high, oak branch ‘tween my knees, and watched the tattooed man stride about in the snow.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
First Sentence: Imagine a ruin so strange it must never have happened.
Notable Quotes: “Kissing looks like too much of someone else’s dental hygiene if you ask me.”
“Our mother used to have mystery under her skin, and we paid not the slightest attention.”
“…it’s still frightening when the things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.”
This month I read 10 books, for a total of 3370 pages (which is the 3rd highest total of the year) and an average of 112 pages per day. I also passed my Goodreads goal of 110 books this month by reaching 111!
Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
First Sentence: There are things that upset us.
Notable Quote: “Sometimes death is necessary, but it is always an evil thing.”
White Collar Girl by Renee Rosen
First Sentence: It was Voltaire and me.
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
First Sentence: It was night again.
Notable Quotes: “A clever, thoughtless person is one of the most terrifying things there is.”
“But we are all creatures of habit. It is too easy to stay in the familiar ruts we dig for ourselves.”
Challenge: A book a friend recommended
Pride and Prejudice (Manga Classics) adapted by Stacy King
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
First Sentence: I remember being born.
Bob’s Burgers: Medium Rare by various authors
Indigara by Tanith Lee
First Sentence: The problem was that on that day I was supposed to go in for my half-yearly service appointment.
Notable Quote: “Ben was perfectly all right. A bit empty, with a sort of shadowy personality, as if he wasn’t quite there, it is true. But some humans have unhappy lives. They lose their spark.”
Children of the Comet by Donald Moffit
First Sentence: Torris, son of Parn the Facemaker, sat a litte apart from the other initiates who were waiting for their turns with Claz the Priest.
Louisa the Poisoner by Tanith Lee
First Sentence: March Mire lay at the heart of the great moors, a swamp so dangerous that none but fools would venture into it and seldom did they come out.
If You Dare by A.R. Torre
First Sentence: “You know I love you.”
I read 7 books for a total of 1,884 pages and an average of 63 pages per day. My favorite book was by far The Color of Magic by A Darker Shade of Magic wasn’t far behind. Now that I’ve slowed down on reading comics, I’m back at my usual monthly average. This will probably be my pace for the rest of the year, but it’s fine because we’re a third of the way through the year and I’m already 49 books toward my 110 book goal! My problem is that I’m still reading a lot of new, borrowed or review books, and I’m not tackling the massive pile of books I already own – need to work on that!
The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl
First Sentence: Back in my salad days laboring for the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company, I would always keep an eye out to see if he would enter our car before the hour of departure.
Notable Quotes: “It is the real power of a book – not what is on the page, but what happens when a reader takes the pages in, makes it part of himself.”
“There are millions of average women and men who will refuse to take positions at the most important moments in their lives – moments that would have changed the course of their existences – for fear of being proven wrong. Fear is the impassable gulf between the ordinary and the remarkable.”
“The moral is this: authors do not create literature; they are consumed by it.”
Slash by Evan Kingston
First Sentence: The first bad one Alex reads opens with Ricky Coles hanging himself from their veranda with an extension cord.
Challenge: A mystery/thriller
Low by Rick Remender
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
First Sentence: There were stories in sweat.
Challenge: A book set in the future
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
First Sentence: In a distant and secondhand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part…
Notable Quote: “When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see it makes me feel, well, humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course.”
Challenge: A book you can finish in a day
The Evil of Oz by Ryan Fuller
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
First Sentence: Kell wore a very peculiar coat.
Challenge: A book written by someone under 30
I kicked off my new year by reading 21 books – most of them were comics, so it ended up being an unintentional Comic Month. I totaled 4,679 pages and averaged 151 pages per day. I’m happy with this progress, as my goal is to read 110 books this year. I’m also participating in a 50 book challenge, so as I go along, I’m seeing what books I read match the criteria. I chose not to use most of the comics I read this month for that challenge and I’m going to stick to just counting books going forward. I’ve also decided to document the first sentence of each book (not comics) that I read…just…because.
The King’s Curse by Philippa Gregory
First sentence: In the moment of waking I am innocent, my conscience clear of any wrongdoing.
Notable quote: The fiction, as always, is secondary to the history; the real women are always more complex and more conflicted, greater than the heroines of the novel, just as real women now, as then, are often greater than they are reported, sometimes greater than the world wants them to be.
Challenge: A book that made you cry
Paris by Andi Watson
Soppy by Philippa Rice
Challenge: A book with a one-word title
Through The Woods by Emily Carroll
Challenge: A graphic novel
Level Up by Gene Luen Yang
Seconds by Bryan Lee O’Malley
Days of Blood and Fire by Katherine Kerr
First sentence: Round Cerr Cawnen the meadows lay marshy, crossed by a thousand streams, most no more than rivulets, and dotted with pools and bogs.
Challenge: A book with nonhuman characters
Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Pride and Prejudice (graphic novel) by Ian Edginton
Saga vol 4 by Brian K. Vaughan
In Real Life by Cory Doctorow
American Vampire vol 7 by Scott Snyder
Game of Thrones vol 3 by Daniel Abraham
Amphigorey Again by Edward Gorey
Amphigorey Too by Edward Gorey
Repeat by Neal Pollack
First sentence: On the morning before his fortieth birthday, Brad Cohen woke up feeling bad.
Challenge: A book published this year
Y The Last Man: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan
Y The Last Man: Cycles by Brian K. Vaughan
Y The Last Man: One Small Step by Brian K. Vaughan
The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan
First sentence: The first Callanish knew of the Circus Excalibur was the striped silk of their sails against the grey sky.
Challenge: A book by a female author
The Paper Magician by Charlie Holmberg
First sentence: For the past five years, Ceony had wanted to be a Smelter.
Challenge: A book set in a different country
In November I read 9 books for a total of 2,540 pages and averaged 85 pages per day. Four of them were review books and my favorite was probably The Martian, though I also really loved Homeland and Horns.
Horns by Joe Hill
Pride & Promiscuity by Arielle Eckstut
Amphigorey Also by Edward Gorey
Homeland by Cory Doctorow
Notable Quotes:
“Move one step in the direction of your goal. Remember that you can change direction to maneuver around obstacles.”
“If you’re not prepared to learn from the teachers that life gives you, you’ll always be ignorant.”
Strong Female Protagonist by Brennan Lee Mulligan
The Genome by Sergei Lukyanenko
What-The-Dickens by Gregory Maguire
Notable Quotes:
“Belief in something, anything, may or may not make you a better person – depending on what that belief is – but it can make you different.”
C.O.W.L. vol 1 by Kyle Higgins & Alec Siegel
The Martian by Andy Weir
In October I read 8 books for a total of 2,321 pages and an average of 75 pages per day! One book was for review and my favorite book this month was probably…Bossypants, though More Than This is a close second!
The Knight by Gene Wolfe
American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
More Than This by Patrick Ness
Notable Quotes:
“People ask for what they need in different ways. Sometimes by not even asking for it at all.”
“But hell you make for yourself is still hell, maybe.”
“People see stories everywhere. We take random events and we put them together in a pattern so we can comfort ourselves with a story, no matter how much it obviously isn’t true. We have to lie to ourselves to live. Otherwise, we’d go crazy.”
Holding on to Georgia by Courtney Giardina – I also did a little author interview with this review, which was a first for me.
Gabriel Finley and the Raven’s Riddle by George Hagen
Amphigorey by Edward Gorey
The Muppet Show Book by Jim Henson
Bossypants by Tina Fey
I also ran out of space in my little notebook I use to keep track of my reading – yes, I write it all in a notebook first, then upload it into my nerdriffic spreadsheet.
This little guy has been tracking my reading since January 2011 and has now tapped out at the end of October 2014. I wish I’d been able to fit the rest of this year in there, but I didn’t want one notebook to stop in the middle of the month. I like that this came with a little pocket in the back and the ringed style made it easy to slip a pen into. I have since transitioned to this:
It doesn’t have a pocket and I have to clip my pen to the outside, but it’s almost the same size and it’s book-themed. Granted, I could have gone out and bought a new notebook, with more of the features I was looking for, but honestly, I have tons of unused notebooks and I wanted an excuse to use what I have. Yes, that’s me, turning down the chance to spend money on something book related! Wow! Don’t worry, I’ll make that up somewhere else. :]
~
While I’m on the subject of book notebooks, does anyone else use one to keep track of their reading? Or do you maybe write down books you want to read, or quotes/thoughts on your current reads?
In Satrapi September I read 8 books for a total of 1,910 pages and an average of 64 pages per day. Two of these were review books and four of them were actually graphic novels, so not a lot of heavy reading this month.
The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter
Sand by Hugh Howey
Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi
The Sigh by Marjane Satrapi
Embroideries by Marjane Satrapi
A Time of Omens by Katharine Kerr
Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi
Notable Quote:
“Life is the same. We give meaning to life based on our point of view.”
The Walled City by Ryan Graudin
