May was not a great reading month for me. I had a lot of other things going on, as well as some travel. You’d think that I’d have more time to read while traveling, but it doesn’t always work out that way. I lose focus while reading on a plane and then at my destination, I’m often too tired to stay up reading. And while I bring my headphones, I find that I never put on my audiobook in these situations.
The month of May didn’t quite go according to plan. I only finished one book, The Fires of Heaven (Book 5 in The Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan. I’ll have a review of this one up soon (paid links).
I read two short stories for one of my book clubs. We have pivoted to a short story format for a few months to see if we can get more people attending the discussions. These are the two stories that we recently read, and you can find them for free at these links:
I’m still listening to the audiobook of Voyager (Outlander #3) by Diana Gabaldon, and I should finish this in the next two weeks (14 hours to go). I also started to read Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros, the second book in the Empyrean series. You can find my review of the first book, Fourth Wing, here. Since I was traveling and had my Kindle with me, I started on the 6th Wheel of Time book immediately after finishing the 5th with Lord of Chaos (paid links).
For June, here are some of the books that I’m planning to read after I finish the ones above.
Let’s see how much I can read as the summer starts!
What are you planning to read next? Let me know in the comments (above).
March wasn’t a very good month for me in terms of reading. I was distracted by other things in my life and I didn’t have as much time to devote to books, unfortunately. What did I actually finish reading in March? Just these two books:
I am still in the process of reading a few others which you can see here:
I didn’t make any further progress on The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, but I still plan to get back to this one. My audiobook listening habit also struggled, so I haven’t finished the second book in the Outlander series, Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon. As of the time I’m writing this, I have a little under seven hours left to go. I started reading the Utopia Science Fiction anthology last week, but I was not in the right mood to read short stories and ended up finally starting The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett, which is book 4 in The Demon Cycle (paid links).
What’s ahead for April? And how do I break out of my reading slump?
I rearranged what I originally had on my April list, since I didn’t get to most of what I had planned to read for March. Here are the books that I now have on for this month:
I put them roughly in the order I think I might read them. The Core is the fifth and final book in The Demon Cycle, so I expect I’ll want to finish that series once I get through book 4. I think I’ll probably get back to The Sandman series of graphic novels for a quick read and then move on to book 5 of The Wheel of Time – The Fires of Heaven. I expect Iron Flame to be a quick read, and after that I don’t know if I’ll actually get to the other books during April. I should be able to at least start Voyager, the 3rd book in the Outlander series, but since each one is longer than the last, I don’t know if I’ll finish it this month (paid links).
On top of those goals, I have been debating whether I should read some of the fiction nominated for the Nebula Awards. That will be the topic of a post later this week, so I’ll leave my thoughts on that until then.
As far as getting over my reading slump, that’s hard because I do have some travel plans this month. One trip involves a long flight, so that usually gives me some free time to read, but otherwise the logistics of packing and planning always takes time.
What are you reading in April? How are your reading goals for the year going so far? Let me know in the comments (above).
I love doing these end of the month/year types of posts and it’s time for another one – yay! However, February didn’t go as well for me in terms of reading. At the time that I’m writing this, I’ve only finished the first three books pictured below (Fourth Wing, God Emperor of Dune, Starling House). I still expect to get through Every Heart a Doorway and Color and Light by the end of the month (paid links).
Books that I read in February 2024
You can find my reviews for the ones that I’ve finished here:
I have been reading two other books that I don’t expect to finish by the end of the month. Those are The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, which is essentially a class on creating a blueprint of the plot and characters for your screenplay or novel. It is dense and I’m working through it slowly. The other book I’m partway through is the second in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber (paid links). I’m listening to the audiobook and I still have over 18 hours to go.
Books I have started, but haven’t finished yet.
Looking back at my January 2024 Reading Wrap-Up post here, I had also planned to read these books pictured below. I didn’t start either The Foxglove King (481 pages) or The Combat Codes (484 pages) because they were longer works and I had other novels that I needed to finish within a time frame for book club discussions (paid links). I also would like to read the Utopia Science Fiction Magazine anthology where my story (Selection Error) appears, so all three of these books will be pushed to the top of my reading list for March.
Books I had planned to read in February, but didn’t start yet.
If I look at my original reading list for March 2024, it contains the following 8 books:
Books I’m planning to read in March 2024
These are all parts of series! Additionally, I don’t think any of them are ones I’m reading for book clubs. I have put them in order of priority, with the series that I’ve already started listed higher. The last three on here, Scorpica by G. R. Macallister, Empire of the Vampire by Jay Kristoff, and The Art of Prophecy by Wesley Chu are all by new authors to me, and are each the first books of a series (paid links).
I know that I won’t realistically get through all of these, but that never stops me from looking at more books and coveting them. I’ll continue to post reviews as I go, interspersed with reviews of books that I read last year.
How do you choose what to read next? Let me know in the comments (above).
The first month of 2024 is nearly over and it’s time to look back at what I read, as well as what’s coming up next. Overall, January was a strong reading month for me, mostly because I was sick and stuck on the couch for more hours than usual which resulted in extra reading time. Here are the seven books that I finished in January:
I have already written reviews on some of these, which you can find here:
I had hoped to also finish Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon, the second book in the Outlander series (paid links). However, it took me longer to finish the first book than I had thought it would, so the second one got pushed back to February.
I started the 4th book in the Dune series, God Emperor of Dune, in January, as well as The Anatomy of Story by John Truby, but these books were too dense to rush through and finish at the end of the month (paid links).
Looking ahead at February, here is what’s up next for my reading plans:
Hopefully I can read as much as I did in January (minus the illness though). What are you currently reading? Let me know in the comments (above).
It is a little after midnight on New Year’s Day as I’m starting to write this post. I have been cramming books onto my 2024 to-be-read list in a mad rush, like there is some sort of rule that once the ball drops in Times Square, I won’t be allowed to add any more for the year. I mean, that’s not true at all, but part of me feels like I have to have a plan for the year finalized by January 1. Well, here is my (once again) very unrealistic list of 113 books I plan to read for 2024:
How did I come up with this list? There are several considerations that go into this (paid links below):
First, I roll-over all the books from the previous year that I didn’t read, although some got pushed onto the 2025 list.
I am trying to finish several series that I have started.
I try to include some non-fiction, non-genre reads, some graphic novels, and a couple of classics each year.
A few are newer “hot” books that I need to read (Fourth Wing, anyone?).
One is an anthology that contains one of my own stories (Utopia Science Fiction), and I’d like to read the other stories in it.
Another is written by an author in my online critique group (OWWW).
A couple of them have not been published yet (The Familiar, The Thorn of Emberlain, Black Bird Oracle). I try not to include upcoming publications on the list unless I know they are supposed to be released soon.
What else goes into my choices? Well, I am trying not to start any new series. But on the list above, I also have several new series… what can I say? I am inconsistent. To be fair, some of the series on here are ones where I read the first book many, many years ago but was unable to finish the series (because it hadn’t all been published yet or because I got distracted by other books).
In that vein, I’m going to continue on my read-through of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I’m also going to read Dune #4-6, which I had put aside after reading #1-3 in 2022 (paid links).
As the year goes on, I’ll add even more books to this list, perpetuating my never-ending pile and pushing more of these off to 2025. I need more hours in the day.
Of all these books, which ones are up first for the year? Well right now, I’m already reading the first of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series in audiobook format. I’m also about a third of the way through Not Like Us by Doc Honour, a writing critique partner (paid links). After that, here is what I have planned:
Let me go back to the numbers now. I have 113 books on my list for 2024. Even given that some are shorter novellas or graphic novels, that still comes out to about 9.5 books per month, or more than 2 books per week. And some of these books aren’t short, so what is realistically going to happen?
I usually end up reading somewhere between 40 and 50 books each year. I tend to read several books at once, so one goal I’m making for this year is to try to minimize how often I start a new book without finishing others. I feel like I’ll be more engaged in a book if I’m not splitting my attention between several of them. (However, I will still have an audiobook going while reading something in print).
Off to do some reading now…
How do you choose which books you’re going to read? What books are you most excited about reading in 2024? Let me know in the comments (above)!
The year has almost come to an end and it’s time to look back at my reading for the year. This is one of my favorite types of posts to write, so let’s get to it! Here is my graphic of all the books I have finished so far in 2023, for a total of 46!
While I had set an unrealistic goal to read 100 books for the year back in this post, 50 is a more reasonable amount for me. As I’m writing this post, I have a few more days remaining in the month, with two more books that I should definitely be able to finish. I may grab a couple of graphic novels or a shorter novel and binge read to see if I can hit 50 by the end of the year.
How did my 2023 reading break down in terms of genre and formats?
20 books were stand-alone fiction novels.
18 were audiobooks.
I had one DNF (did-not-finish) book that actually doesn’t appear on this list.
2 were non-fiction, and one of those I hope to finish in the next few days is as well.
2 novels were not in the sci-fi/fantasy genre, and 1 was on the border of genre.
I finished (or kept up with) the books in 8 different series.
I started to read 5 new series.
3 were graphic novels.
Here are my favorite books from the year with some comments and links to full reviews below:
Rule Of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo
Fairy Tale by Stephen King was a wonderful stand-alone fantasy novel (paid link). You can find my review here.
I finished listening to The Witcher series (audiobooks) this year with The Lady of the Lake (paid link). While I’ve read that the ending is controversial, I thought it was appropriate to the series. You can read my review here.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip is an older book and was also a type of fairy tale story (paid link). You can find my review here.
In my ongoing read of Leigh Bardugo’s books, my favorites were the Six of Crows duology which I just reviewed here and here, as well as the next two books, Rule of Wolves and King of Scars, which I will be reviewing soon (paid links).
Babel was a long stand-alone novel but its themes have inspired conversations about real-world events since I read it (paid link). This is a tragic story but was very well-done, and I highly recommend reading it. You can find my review here.
Elder Race is a novella that combined science fiction and fantasy into one story and was a nice introduction to this author’s work (paid link). I haven’t had a chance to review it here yet.
The two non-genre novels that I read, Where the Crawdads Sing and Horse were both very good, so if you’re looking for a break from sci-fi/fantasy, these are solid reading choices (paid links). My reviews are here and here.
Shannon Chakraborty won my reading heart with her Daevabad trilogy which I reviewed here, here, and here (paid links). So when she released the first book in a new series, I had to pick it up immediately. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi was such a fun adventure story, and I’ll be writing a full review soon. You could also read this as a stand-alone story.
The last book on this list is a dieselpunk adventure comic/graphic novel which I just finished this week. Skies of Fire (#1-4) was produced as a Kickstarter and I really enjoyed reading this. I’ll have a review up soon.
Lastly, did I read the books that I had planned to read on my post from the beginning of 2023? The answer to this is always, NO, but where did I go off track? Here are some thoughts on that:
I had meant to read more of the Sandman series of graphic novels, but only got through one more in 2023.
I also had meant to continue my read-through of The Wheel of Time, but only read book #4 in 2023.
I didn’t get to read any more of the Dune books, but there was also a natural end-point after Dune Messiah.
There were several series on my list that I’ve been meaning to finish for several years. I still didn’t make any progress on these.
I didn’t read any classics in 2023, even though I had a few on my list.
Here is a visual of some of those books that I didn’t get to, but still plan to read soon:
That’s my recap of my reading year for 2023! How did you do in your own goals? What were your favorite books for the year? Let me know in the comments (above).
I just realized that we are halfway through 2022, so I thought this might be a good time to stop and look back at how the year has been going.
First – reading goals! I had set an unrealistic goal to read 89 books this year, when I normally struggle to get through 50 in that time frame. As of today, I have finished 23 books, which puts me at 23% of that original goal, but not far off the mark for reaching 50 this year.
Here is a graphic of what I’ve read so far in 2022:
As always seems to happen, I have picked up books I didn’t originally have on my 2022 list, and then branched off into new series and authors. I think that for 2023 I will have to focus on finishing some series that I’ve started.
All of these are continuations in a series, except for The Water Dancer. I think I have a series problem!
Which should I read first? Let me know in the comments above. What other books and series have you read this year and enjoyed? Help me add to my ridiculous to-be-read list!
Looking ahead every year, it’s nice to set goals, right? I feel like I always want to be reading more, but it’s so hard to keep that to-be-read list under control.
For 2022, I have decided to let all self-control go in creating my books-to-be-read list. First I took all those books I had intended to read for 2021 but failed to get to and rolled them over to 2022. Then I added more books! I have a few series that I’m trying to finish so the list keeps growing. That leaves me with 89 books for 2022.
Can I actually read 89 books in a year? I don’t think I ever have. But why not try?
Here is the current list for 2022:
And here are the books I’m starting out the year with (already included in the list above):
How do you plan out your reading? What books are you most excited for in 2022? Let me know in the comments!
I had set myself a goal to read 50 books for 2021. And while I didn’t quite make that, ending up with 43 books read, I feel like I still accomplished a lot of my reading goals. As this graphic format always seems popular, here are the books I read in 2021:
Have you read any of these? What did you think?
For my favorites for the year, click over to this other post of mine.
Next up, I’ll take a look at what I’m planning to read for 2022.
As I look back at 2019 and ahead to 2020, I decided to think through my reading goals. What did I accomplish in 2019? How will I plan my reading in 2020? Here are my conclusions.
You can read more about my favorite reads from 2019 here.
If you’d like to support my blog, follow my Amazon affiliate links above to purchase these books at no additional cost to you.
Goals for 2020 Reading
I plan to read even more for 2020. I love this graphic that you can make over on Goodreads from one of your shelves. This is just part of my 2020 to-be-read shelf. I know that I won’t get to all of these, but having this list all in one place helps to keep me organized and on track.
Just a few of the books I’d love to read in 2020.
Here are my specific 2020 goals:
Read 50 books. For this, I count all types of books and formats.
I would still like to aim for at least 2 classics and 2 non-fiction books. For classics, I’d love to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
I would like to read more graphic novels, but I have some of that covered in the series I need to read (above).
I need to catch up on my book reviews. I didn’t do very well with these in the second half of 2019.
Well, that’s it for now! What books do *you* plan to read in 2020? Are there other classics you think I should read? Do you have any favorite non-fiction books to recommend? Let’s chat in the comments (click by the date at the top of the post), and remember to follow my Amazon affiliate links to help support this blog.
Salvage – a flash fiction science fiction story with a winter holiday theme