2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion
ARCHIVE 2023
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Echo's Sticking with Sixty!
Great goals and plans, Echo! Have a great year :)
Starting the year off right by picking one of my oldest TBRs: The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto, which was pretty good, but I don't know that I'll hold onto it for a reread.
Echo wrote: "Thoroughly enjoyed Throne of Jade, and will likely pick up the third in the series shortly."Dominique and I are buddy-reading that series this year! I'll be finishing Throne of Jade today! Join us if you'd like: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Finished The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, which has been on my TBR list for a while now. I thought it was pretty good. I liked the focus on jazz age NY. I think my next one will be Orwell's 1984, which is another one that has been lamenting on my TBR list for forever.
Finished both Eve and The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, and I really liked both of them. Have checked out the next book in the Stormlight Archive series, but doubt I'll get it done before it needs to go back to the library. Eventually I'll get through it. Also need to finish up I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works
Finished off I Will Teach You to Be Rich: No Guilt. No Excuses. No BS. Just a 6-Week Program That Works, which I would 100% recommend, with a caveat of get through the first chapter. Ramit can be kind of abrasive in his intro, but it's worthwhile to keep going to get to the meat of what he's teaching.
Finished Oathbringer, which was a bit of a slog. It is very much a war story, and there are a LOT of players involved. Still working through Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife and starting in on The Princess Bride
Finished Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife, which wasn't nearly as good as her other books in my opinion. Still, I'm looking forward to Fuzz, which is still in my TBR pile.
Finished I Dared to Call Him Father: The Miraculous Story of a Muslim Woman's Encounter with God, which has been on my TBR pile for a really long time.
Interesting collection of books you've gotten to so far, Echo! I'm really interested in reading some Mary Roach at some point this year. What's been your favorite by her so far?
Lisa wrote: "Interesting collection of books you've gotten to so far, Echo! I'm really interested in reading some Mary Roach at some point this year. What's been your favorite by her so far?"Hands down, my favorite from her will probably always be Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. Partially this is due to the fact that it was my introduction to her, and partially this is due to the fact that it really is a fascinating topic. Second favorite so far was probably Gulp.
Echo wrote: "Lisa wrote: "Interesting collection of books you've gotten to so far, Echo! I'm really interested in reading some Mary Roach at some point this year. What's been your favorite by her so far?"Hand..."
Cool! Thanks for the recommendations :)
Absolutely tore through Dial A for Aunties, which was very funny and frequently had me laughing out loud at it. I'm so glad this book caught my eye!
Enjoyed re-reading Ender's Game, since it was available from my library and I just wanted something familiar. Still plugging away at Princess Bride too. It's been fun to see the similarities and differences between the book and the movie.
Read One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for the first time, having somehow managed to never read it in school.
Finished The Princess Bride, having never read it before but always having wanted to. It was quite good, though I did not enjoy the ending all that much if I'm honest.
Listened to/re-read Dead Beat by Jim Butcher. It's still likely my favorite of the series, though there are a few parts that make me roll my eyes.
Ended up picking up The Family Outing: A Memoir as a random pick just because it was available from my library. It was good, and definitely not my norm, which is always a good thing in my opinion. Keeps me thinking. :)
Picked up Untamed on a whim because it was available from my library and I needed a new audiobook to listen to on my walks. I am so glad I listened to this one! She writes with so much honesty and talks about recovery and I could relate to so much of it.
Finished The House in the Cerulean Sea, which I fricking adored! Now I'm getting to read an advance copy of a romance novel for a friend of mine. :)
Finished off both Holidate Fail: The Holidates Series, Book 18 and Endpapers, both of which were enjoyable, though I liked Holidate Fails a little more, if I'm honest.
Finally got through Rosemary and Rue, which I totally expected to love (I usually really enjoy her work AND people had said it was great), but it ended up being a slog for me for some reason. Now getting through another of my TBR pile: Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which is also turning into a slog, but for a different reason (having trouble with the shift between the two men, it's often abrupt and I have to recheck which person is being focused on in the moment).
Finished off Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, which has been on my shelf for at least 5 years, so yay! Not sure what will be next. Likely something newer and probably fiction.
Tore through The Girl on the Train, but was rather disappointed by the hasty ending. Ah well. Next up, my BFF has been urging me to read Iron Widow
So, I have to admit, I did not expect to be coming back here 24 hrs later and saying I finished another book, but.... Monday's Not Coming was so good, so thrilling, that I just could not stop listening at every opportunity.
We listened to The Heart of Valor as we travelled to visit family over the weekend and I really enjoyed it. Bonus, I accidentally learned that Tanya Huff is an LGBT author :)
Did I absolutely devour Under the Whispering Door? Yes. Yes I did. T.J. Klune writes such amazing stories, I couldn't help it!
Finally got through Stone of Farewell, just gotta knock out the third in the trilogy now. Still working through Blitz and just picked up A Gathering of Shadows from my holds at the library too, though, so To Green Angel Tower might have to wait.
Completed A Gathering of Shadows, which left off on quite a cliffhanger, so will have to grab the third one soon. Decided to give The Family Vault a read, on recommendation of a friend and since it fits one of my challenges.
Randomly picked up There I Go Again: How I Came to Be Mr. Feeny, John Adams, Dr. Craig, KITT, and Many Others nd really liked it.
Grabbed Works Well with Others: An Outsider's Guide to Shaking Hands, Shutting Up, Handling Jerks, and Other Crucial Skills in Business That No One Ever Teaches You for a quick listen while I walked the dogs and it was quite good. A friend had recommended it and I definitely think it's worth a read, especially for anyone with an interview coming up.
I picked up The Wedding in order to fulfill an I Spy Challenge and it was so good! There are a lot of moving pieces to the story, and every character is pretty fleshed out, and the ending took my breath away.
#44 was Gideon's Fog, which was a fun read, even though I had never read any of the series before. I think that's one of the reasons I like mysteries.
Listened to The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon to finish my locations challenge.
2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge
Books mentioned in this topic
How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life (other topics)From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death (other topics)
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (other topics)
Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life (other topics)
Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? And Other Questions About Dead Bodies (other topics)
More...
Here are my mini goals for 2023:
Read 15 non-fiction: 20/15
Read 5 biographies: 6/5
Read 20 books by female authors: 32/20
Read 10 books by LGBT authors: 13/10
Read 15 of the books from my TBR Pile: 17/15
Read 5 classics: 9/5
Total: 60/60