Hooray hooray, March is over. I can’t even tell you how happy that makes me. And Minnesota even escaped March with only a couple days of significant snowfall. Not too shabby, spring. Now that I’ve said this, we’ll probably get three feet of snow in April and not see ground again until May… oops.
Anyway, my reading this month wasn’t too bad either — good variety, and a lot of books that I’ve been recommending to other readers. Here’s what I picked up:
- Pilon, Mary: The Monopolists (nonfiction)
- Thurston, Baratunde: How to Be Black (memoir)
- van den Berg, Laura: Find Me (fiction)
- Kwan, Kevin: Crazy Rich Asians (fiction)
- Bissonnette, Zac: The Great Beanie Baby Bubble (nonfiction)
- Moore, Erin: That’s Not English (nonfiction)
- Hadfield, Chris: An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth (memoir)
- Suma, Nova Ren: The Walls Around Us (YA fiction)
Despite getting a slow start to the month, I found a reading groove over the last couple of weeks and finished up some excellent books. The Great Beanie Baby Bubble will probably make it into my favorite books of the year, and both Crazy Rich Asians and The Walls Around Us were fun fiction picks that are a little outside the box for me. And I’m pretty sure that An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth is going to start me on a rabbit hole of books about space… look for those soon!
Quarterly Goals Review
Since we just finished the first three months of 2015, I thought this would be a good time to quickly review the goals I set for my reading in 2015.
My first goal was to complete the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge, organized by Adam at Roof Beam Reader. Of the 14 books on my list (12 choices, plus two alternates) I’ve read… two books (Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and An Astronaut’s Guide to Love on Earth by Col. Chris Hadfield)! This puts me a little behind, but not so far behind that I couldn’t still finish this one. Exciting!
My second goal was for 25 percent of the books I read to be written by authors of color. Of the 26 books I’ve finished this year, 15 were by white authors, eight were by authors of color and three were “other” (primarily comics, which I consider collaborative projects). That’s about 30 percent for diverse authors — not too shabby!
I also said I wanted to get my entire book collection cataloged in LibraryThing. I’ve made absolutely attempt to start that one, but there’s still plenty of time left in 2015 — making progress on two of my three goals is good enough for me.
How has your reading been in the first three months of 2015? What’s you favorite book so far this year?
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Find Me and That’s Not English are both on my list! And – I read Crazy Rich Asians awhile back…wouldn’t that make an awesome reality show?!
It totally would! It’d be a great movie too. I’d love to see all the fashion and big houses on the big screen.
I really want to read Crazy Rich Asians.
This quarter I really enjoyed The Kite Runner and Sweetland (which I picked up based on your recommendation). If you want an additional book about space for your list I highly recommend Out of Orbit by Chris Jones.
Thanks for the Chris Jones recommendation. He’d doing a series of articles on Scott Kelly’s mission for Esquire and I’ve really enjoyed his writing for a long time. I am definitely getting a copy of that one.
You’re doing pretty good with your goals! 🙂 Some of my favorite books from this quarter are mostly graphic novels: The Sculptor by Scott McCloud, Saga series, Ares by George O’Connor, and Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson. After looking at your goals, I need to go back and see how much diversity my first quarter had. Good luck on the next quarter.
I was pleasantly surprised! I forgot that I’d finished Americanah for the TBR Challenge, so seeing that I’m not totally off track for that one made me happy.
What a great first quarter you had! Love the variety. Can’t stop thinking about how much you liked the Beanie Baby book. Hoping my library will get it.
That’s Not English sounds so good! Heck, they all look good. Glad you had such a great month!
Thanks! I’m really happy with the number of books and the variety — yay for a diverse and varied reading life!
You are doing great with your reading goals! Good luck the upcoming months.
So far the book I enjoyed most was The Yard by Alex Grecian.
It looks like you had a great month of reading! And congrats on making such good headway on your goals 🙂
I would love my TBR to all be recorded, I even started doing that once, but it never got finished…
I got close to having it recorded before we moved last year, but I’ve been terrible at keeping it up since then… it’s probably horribly out of date at this point.
You had quite the variety! I’ve been doing okay, reading-wise. I think 10 books? Pre-baby that would have been abysmal, but maintaining 3-4 books a month is the new realistic.
Life changes bring changes to our reading lives. I’m honestly amazed new moms and moms of young kids get any reading done. It’s such a big job.
I don’t know what my favorite book so far this year was, but a big surprise this year was Nick Hornby’s Funny Girl. I didn’t expect to like it at all, and I really REALLY liked it.
I’m pleased with myself so far this year on reading goals. Right now, I’m at almost half non-American authors (yay!) and almost half non-white authors (double yay!). I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep this up with my stats, but I’m proud of myself for the year’s first quarter.
I really liked the episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour where they talked about Funny Girl — it definitely put it on my TBR list.
And wow, those two numbers are awesome! I’m super impressed. If I can keep myself around 25 to 30 percent non-white authors, I’m calling it a win for this year.
You’re making me want to start in with goals again! So tempting… 🙂
My favorite book of the year so far has been Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver. I don’t know why I was so surprised to like it as much as I did, as the other two books I’ve read by her (Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and The Poisonwood Bible) were among my favorites!
I deliberately set a small number of goals this year so I’d have a chance to actually focus on them… too many and I just give up 🙂
oooh “Find Me”! That one’s on my list. Congrats on a great month of reading and being in a good place with your goals 🙂
Had to laugh… the Beanie Baby book is on my Audible wish list.
I made a plan too this year to catalog my ebook collection but haven’t started it either. It feels like a huge task and there’s still plenty of time this year, right? Hope you have a great April and no snowfall this month!
Fingers and toes crossed for no snow in April. It would be amazing 🙂
Wow, there are three books on this list I want to read! That’s more than I usually find on one single list. Looks like I’ll get to read That’s Not English sooner than later!
I hope you like them, if you manage to pick them up! That’s Not English is fun — I’m hoping to write about it next week sometime.
My reading has been going crazy well this year! (I’m nearly done with books number 49 and 50, and I’m having tons of fun mapping them.)
I’m not sure what my favorites would be. Memorable titles include Unbroken and Gun Street Girl.
I love your map of your books, it’s so cool! Unbroken is amazing.
You can do it!! 😀