Laurel's 2013 Reading Goals

[Laurel]

I had three different versions of reading goals during the year. First of all, I set a goal of 48 books, which was quite an increase over 36 for 2012. Always a given are the 12 books for my Daytimer's book club. My primary new challenge was to read 12 books based on Moby Dick. Then I decided I would read 12 books that had been on my TBR list for more than a year. The final 12 would be current interest/random reads - mostly historical fiction, and Arthurian or Welsh fiction.

Then it turned out I thought I might expand on a previous years challenge based on Pride and Prejudice, as I thought that I might be doing a presentation on that for the Minnesota Library Association annual conference in October. So for a while, that replaced part of the TBR challenge. My proposal was reluctantly (so they said) turned down, but I volunteered to be part of the 50 (books) in 60 (minutes) fiction panel, and I chose to do Tudor fiction published in 2013 for that.

I'll give the final results in the comments below. My total was 47 for the year. Pretty good!

[Laurel]

Daytimer's bookclub: Goal 12 books. Read 12 books.

Jan: Where the Red Fern Grows
Feb: The Book Thief - actually read this in 2012
Mar: The Hobbit Along with this I also read Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Annotated Hobbit: The Hobbit, or, There and back again
Apr: Still Alice
May: Little Bee
Jun: Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Jul: Oh My Stars
Aug: Life of Pi
Sep: Loving Frank
Oct: Haunted Ground
Nov: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
Dec: The Madonnas of Leningrad

Favorites: The Book Thief, Little Bee, and Loving Frank.

[Laurel]

Moby Dick Challenge: Goal 9-12 books. Read 10.

Why Read Moby-Dick?
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale - read in 2012
Dive Deeper: Journeys with Moby-Dick
The Nautical Chart - read in 2012
The Secret of Lost Things
Tigers in Red Weather
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them
Cathedral of the Sea
Moby Clique
Ahab's Bride

Favorites: Dive Deeper, Moby-Duck, Cathedral of the Sea (though it had nothing to do with Moby Dick - I was just attracted by "sea" in the title!)
Worst: Moby Clique

Started, but didn't finish (yet):
Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters - Preparatory to that I DID read Sense and Sensibility

Still on my list, and will continue this in 2014:
The Art of Fielding
The Movement of Stars
The Watery Part of the World
Railsea
The Solitude of Thomas Cave: A Novel
We, the Drowned
The Boundless Deep
The Widow's War
The Rathbones

[Laurel]

TBR/Pride and Prejudice/Tudor fiction:

Finally finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West - this had been a 2009 Daytimer's selection, I think.
Reread: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie before getting to
The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag and
A Red Herring Without Mustard
I ADORE Flavia De Luce.

Bridget Jones's Diary - didn't care for this at all, but I did enjoy the movie.
Austenland
Death Comes to Pemberley
Pride and Prejudice and Kitties: A Cat-Lover's Romp through Jane Austen's Classic

The Forgotten Queen
Her Highness' First Murder - loved it
The Boleyn King - very good
The Queen's Secret - loved it
Queen's Gambit - really excellent

Started: Gilt

More, to be continued in 2014:
To Die For: A Novel of Anne Boleyn
Venus in Winter
The Tudor Secret
Murder at Hatfield House
Royal Inheritance

[Laurel]

And all the rest of my random selections:

Exit Actors, Dying
The Cape Cod Caper
Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
The Fast Diet: The Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, Live Longer
Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask
The Reincarnationist - meh
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train - cute
Wild Ride - silly, but loved it!
Son of the Morning
The Knights' Tales Collection: Book 1: Sir Lancelot the Great; Book 2: Sir Givret the Short; Book 3: Sir Gawain the True; Book 4: Sir Balin the Ill-Fated

[Leslie]

I espy some Margot Arnold titles - that is a fun series! I have a few more to go but have read most of them. And I just discovered the Flavia de Luce books a few months ago - glad to see you like her so much :)

Thanks for sharing!