I managed to read 13 books in April. And only two of those were books I read during the Readathon. This is not typical reading behavior — I’m normally much slower — but I’ll take it.
Looking at the list, there’s a lot of fiction and YA fiction, which was a nice change of pace and probably why I was able to read so much. I didn’t really get to any of the review copies I had on my shelves, but given how out of sorts I was for most of this month that’s probably a good thing. Crabby Kim is not an especially good book reviewer.
Books Read In April
- Hochschild, Arlie Russell: The Outsourced Self (nonfiction)
- Erdrich, Louise: The Round House (fiction)
- Berger, Jonah: Contagious (audio book/nonfiction)
- Flynn, Gillian: Sharp Objects (fiction)
- Collins, Suzanne: Catching Fire (YA fiction/reread)
- Yolen, Jane: Curses! Foiled Again! (YA graphic novel)
- Shriver, Lionel: The New Republic (fiction)
- Schuppe, Jonathan: A Chance to Win (nonfiction)
- Grossman, Austin: You (fiction)
- Zuckoff, Mitchell: Frozen in Time (nonfiction)
- Collins, Suzanne: Mockingjay (audio book/YA fiction)
- Brooks, Max: World War Z (fiction)
- Roth, Veronica: Divergent (YA fiction)
I’m planning to do reviewletts of You and World War Z at the end of this week, but I’m not sure what I’m going to do about reviewing all of the YA fiction. I may just do a few Twitter-style reviews (140 characters) and call it done. Thoughts?
Other Books Reviewed
- Does Jesus Really Love Me? by Jeffrey Chu
- Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris
Books I Want to Read in May
- I’ve got two “required” books for this month: Pain, Parties and Work by Elizabeth Winder (nonfiction about young Sylvia Plath) and I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag by Jennifer Gilbert (a memoir of “survival, renewal, and transformation”) for a couple of book tours with TLC Book Tours.
- I need to read a couple of June releases to decide what to recommend for Bloggers Recommend. At the moment I’m looking at Queen of the Air by Dean Jensen and Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson.
- I’ve got a few other May releases I’d like to get to: The World’s Strongest Librarian by Josh Hanagarne, Don’t Worry, It Gets Worse by Alida Nugent, and Paper: An Elegy by Ian Sansom.
- My local library has been really good to me the last few weeks, I’ve got Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell on my shelves now that I’d love to read.
- I’m also a bit behind on my 2013 TBR Challenge pile. I’m not sure which of those books sounds appealing now, but I hope I can read at least one.
- And then there are all the books I missed in April… too many to even count.
Writing Around the Internet
You can check out lots of good books coming up this month in the Bloggers Recommend newsletter. My contribution is Jonathan Schuppe’s A Chance to Win, which I really liked. I also previewed some upcoming books for May over at Book Riot.
Speaking of Book Riot, I had some pretty good pieces over there this month, if I do say so myself. My favorite was Roger Ebert’s Best Reviews of Movies Based on Books, but I’m also proud of a discussion post about paperback releases (spoiler: I wish all books came out in paperback immediately) and five bookish cross-stitch projects I found on Etsy.
Here on the blog, it’s mostly been about book reviews and catching up on Sundays with my new “Currently” post format. I’d like to get some more discussion posts up this month, but we’ll see what happens.
2013 Goals Review
- Essay a Day, Take Two: I’ve been failing something terrible at this goal. As much as I love to read essays, I just don’t think my heart is in it for now. I’m going to put this goal aside and revisit it for 2014.
- 12 Ebooks and 12 Audiobooks: I’m still at 2/12 for ebooks but got to 4/12 for audio books — I finished Contagious and Mockingjay this month.
- Balance Books In/Books Out: I don’t even want to know on this one. I haven’t updated my books list for awhile so I’m not even sure. It’s not good though. I’ve bought a lot of books lately.
- Balance Review Copies (40), My Books (30), and Borrowed Books (30): A look at my stats shows I’m at 44 percent review copies, 36 percent of my own books, and 20 percent borrowed books. That’s pretty close to where I want to be.
- Leave One Comment Per Day: This has been going reasonably well. I don’t do it every day, but I think I leave a comment most days.
- Read My Shelf of Doom: Since I finished reading Possession in April, I haven’t made any progress on this project. I hope I can fit in a book or two this month to start catching up.
So, that was life here at Sophisticated Dorkiness in April. Here’s to a wonderful month of May!
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I’m such a fan of little reviews. They are good for my attention span…look a squirrel!!
I hope you do get to The World’s Strongest Librarian, I adored that one 🙂
I finished that this weekend. It was wonderful! I can’t wait to post a review.
What a great reading month you had! I like your reviewlett format, but shorter Twitter-like reviews also sound good for the YA books.
I have Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children out from the library right now and am really looking forward to it! The World’s Strongest Librarian is on my to-read list, too.
I basically read YA as a brain escape, so I never really have much to say except I liked it or I didn’t. I may end up returning Miss Peregrine to save it for the October readathon. I just seems like a good book for that time.
13 BOOKS! That’s incredible! Nice job!
It was a lot! I’m happy about it 🙂
Hurrah for Twitter reviews of YA! Yes, do that. I will be interested to hear what you thought of them, even if only very briefly.
My sister knows what I like and don’t like in YA, so most of the time when she suggests a book I like it 🙂 That’s the case with most of these.
Awesome April you’ve had! Twitter-style reviews sound good. Better that if you’re not up to writing the whole thing, than forgetting what you thought of them.
I do like trying different review styles. It keeps me from getting bored!
Be proud of being able to fit so much into your month! 🙂
April was a really busy month. I suspect May will be even busier!