Month: July 2016

2016 Half-Year Update

We’re on the halfway point for the year so here’s another reading update from me.

I am on track with my Goodreads challenge. I have read 26 out of my target 52 books. I will admit though that some are “cheat reads” like a couple of comic books. However, my strict reading time is doing me good so far. I was able to read 12 “real” books in my to-read pile. I am caught up now with Robert Galbraith’s books, so I am just waiting on the 4th one.

On the 2015 Reading Challenge which I continued this year, here’s an update of the 11 remaining tasks that I posted in my previous update.

  1. *DONE* A memoir – I am Malala by Malala Yousafzai
  2. *DONE* A book more than 100 years old – Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
  3. *DONE* A banned book (or previously banned) – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
  4. A classic romance – Persuasion by Jane Austen
  5. A book your mum loves – Find a book about The Carpenters?
  6. A book you were supposed to read in school but didn’t – Noli Me Tangere
  7. A book with antonyms in the title – Catch and Release?
  8. A book with bad reviews – Bad Twin
  9. A book from your childhood – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
  10. A book with a love triangle – A Tale of Two Cities
  11. A book with a colour in the title – The Color Purple

For the rest of the year, here are the books that I should finish:

  1. Burn by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
  2. Alert by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
  3. The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom
  4. The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
  5. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  6. The Charlemagne Pursuit by Steve Berry (the next book in the Cotton Malone series. Maybe I should read a couple more from this series)
  7. Broken by Karin Slaughter (the next book in the Will Trent series)
  8. Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter (first book in the Grant County series. I first read the 5th book, not knowing it’s part of the series. I now have all 6 books so I should start with #1 this year)
  9. When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block (Matthew Scudder series)
  10. Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block (first book in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series. I’ve already read 3 books from this series but out-of-order.)
  11. Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Pendergast series)

I realized that one of the reasons I am buried in books right now is because if I like a book in the series, I tend to buy the rest of them. There are 6 series in my list above, and I already have all the books in the series waiting to be read! (Except the Pendergast and Cotton Malone series, but that’s like 3 or 4 books I haven’t bought yet).

I also want to put here to remind myself not to buy James Patterson books when they come out. I feel like he releases too fast now and some of his stories lately aren’t that great. So even though the latest book in Women’s Murder Club is already out, I’m waiting for the mass market paperback edition before I buy it. I am liking the Michael Bennett series though, so maybe that’s the one series I will splurge on.

I have a 1-year subscription to Marvel Unlimited which I bought last November, but I haven’t really used it until last week when I started reading some of the important Marvel events like Civil War, Age of Ultron, and Infinity War. I think it’s a good subscription because there are thousands of comics that I can read now from my iPad.

I am hoping I will be able to beat my reading challenge this year. Maybe 60 books read? I wish!