E. Menozzi's Blog, page 15

Top 5 Books I Read in 2020

I’m working on my December reading wrap up, and calculating my 2020 reading stats. While I do that, I thought I’d share my top five favorite books I read in 2020.

My favorite books read in 2020 were (in no particular order):

Sweep of the Blade by Ilona Andrews Network Effect by Martha Wells Race the Sands by Sarah Beth Durst Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

I’ve already gushed about all of these in previous blog posts, so if you haven’t read those,...

Starting a Reading Journal for 2021

A little while back I asked for advice on what I should do to streamline my reading tracking for 2021. After posting that, I spent some time thinking about why I track reading metrics, and what metrics, if any, were most important to me. My hope was that, if I could reduce the amount of data I want to keep track of, maybe I could eliminate the spreadsheet, at least.

Then, because I knew that journaling about what I was reading was important to me and something I definitely wanted to add, I wa...

Pandemic Pastimes of 2020

Since I just finished up a massive cross-stitch project that I’ve been working on most of this year, I thought maybe I’d mention a few of the new hobbies and projects that I’ve taken on to occupy myself during this stay-at-home year. These are the things I’ve been up to in 2020, besides my normal writing and reading of books.

Baking

Early on in the pandemic, I jumped on the sourdough bread craze. I had been really into baking bread about ten years ago, and that was the last time I’d had a ...

November Reading Wrap-Up and End of the Year Book Tag

This is it. Last month of 2020. Last chance for me to finish all my in-progress reads, read all the books read that I meant to read this year, and figure out my reading goals and tracking system for next year. But first, lets do a brief wrap up of what I read and what I bought this month.

Outbox [image error]

I read three books in November. They were:

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid This novel was so good. REALLY good. Like, possibly best book I read in 2020, good. Bump it up to the top of your TBR right...

Happy Book Birthday to Hunter of the Fae!

Book four in my Modern Fae series is out today!

This one is set in Seattle and features two humans who used to be (and honestly, still are) in love, but are no longer together for…reasons. One is a powerful wizard, and that’s not the only secret he’s keeping. The other has no magic, but she does have an adorable faerie guard dog with a nose for trouble. Fate (and the Queen of the Fae) has forced them back together again. If they can figure out how to trust each other, they may be able to...

Tracking My Reading in 2021 (advice needed)

It’s the end of the year, and I’m reconsidering how I track my reading… again. I’ve decided to move away from bullet journaling in 2021. I know. I’m shocked as well. But, I need something with a little more structure that can help me stay on track with several different goals and projects next year. So, I bought a Passion Planner Weekly.

My idea is that I’ll use my weekly planner to keep track of what needs to get done each month / week. Then I’m going to have a separate journal for daily (or...

October Reading Wrap-Up

Yikes. We’re already a week into November, and I am only now posting my October reading wrap-up. The past few weeks have been a busy and stressful blur. I’m still feeling a little overwhelmed, honestly. All I really want to be doing is reading, but my to-do list is keeping me too busy. At least I had a good reading month in October…

Outbox

I started the month with Murder on Black Swan Lane by Andrea Penrose. I picked this up because it looked like it might have a similar vibe to the La...

September Reading Wrap-Up

September was a lot. Not a lot of reading, but a lot of other stuff, like finishing writing book four in my Modern Fae series, plus some life stuff, not to mention all the other things going on in the world right now. I am really, REALLY looking forward to taking a bit of a break in October. But first, let’s talk about what I read and what I hauled in September.

Outbox

I caught up on Murderbot in September. I finished the third and fourth novellas (Rogue Protocol and Exit Strategy), pl...

August Reading Wrap Up

I didn’t read much in August, but I did do a lot of writing, and I made an effort to get outside and enjoy the last few weeks of summer. Most of that outside time was pretty active, though. I haven’t spent nearly enough time just sitting outside and reading. I’m going to work on getting in a little more of that in September.

Outbox

I finished the audiobook of F*ck No!: How to Stop Saying Yes When You Can’t, You Shouldn’t, or You Just Don’t Want To by Sarah Knight at the start of the mo...

July Reading Wrap-Up

July was a pretty good reading month for me. I managed to finish ten books. A couple were pretty short, but there were some definite keepers in this batch.

Outbox

Here’s what I read in July:

I started the month with It’s Not All Downhill From Here by Terry McMillan. The only other book I’ve read by her is How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which I read before I saw the movie. I liked this one. It was a little meandering and repetitive at times, but I think it did a great job portraying...