A Work in Progress

A New Year and a New Pile of Books

My nightstand is actually kind of tame right now!  I had to clear it mostly off as one of my cats has declared it a sleeping zone (I think she likes the heat from the lamp).  Rather than constantly fighting with her over not knocking things off, I gave in and cleared it for her.  A good lamp and my pile of books is all I require, so a happy compromise.

Three of my books are carryovers from last year, two are for dipping into and the four in front are my new reads for a new year.  I want to finish Valerie Perrin's Fresh Water for Flowers, D.E. Stevenson's Mrs. Tim of the Regiment and Ruth Rendell's King Solomon's Carpet.  Two books perfect for just dipping into now and again are the two standing upright--in the back is the Second Persephone Book of Short Stories and At the Pond, which is a book of essays. 

My newest reads: Last Christmas in Paris by Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb (kindly sent by Smithereens), The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell, Spring by Ali Smith and my nonfiction read (which I have had a hard time deciding on and have not yet started this) Elisabeth's Lists by Lulah Ellender.  I am pleased with all my newest (and carryover) reads.

Now I just need to decide what to do about monthly prompts.  Rather than themes I have a list of places (settings?) that might be an inspiring way to choose a new story each month.  Rather than setting a specific place for each month I have a list I will draw from:

Plane/Train/ or Automobile
Ship or Sea
Hospital
Courtoom/Police Station (January prompt)
Mountains/Beach
Garden/Country House
Bookstore/Library
Museum
Gardens/Maze (February Prompt)
Haunted House
Island/Desert
Movie Theater
Bus/Subway
Stage/Screen
Great Plains

I'll cross off as I go along and there are a few extra in case something just does not pan out.

I don't really have any other plans, though I did set a reading goal at Goodreads and I hope that from the books I choose over the course of the year I can also use for my public Library's reading challenge (just twelve books with easy themes).  I just want to find some good stories to lose myself in this year!

A New Year and a New Pile of Books!

Welcome 2020!  It is nice to see you! 

I seem to be having laptop issues.  I am going to take the fact that I have been able to connect to a local indie coffeeshop's wifi (what better place to start thew New Year anyway!) as a good sign (rather than take the glass half empty view of what a way to start the new year!). 

So things are a bit mixed up.  I had planned to share my 2019 favorites and then my list of new prompts, but I will go in reverse order this year.  I suspect this year is going to be full of all sorts of new starts, new habits and new traditions.  I will try to take that in the spirit of a fresh start after a very unhappy end to last year.

By the way, thank you so very much for the kind words and cards about my mom.  It was rough going last year and it will still be uphill for a while, but your thoughtfulness is so very appreciated.  As soon as I can get back to a normal connection at home I will reply to all the comments, but please be assured they have been read and I thank you!

I have decided to clear the decks so to speak with my reading.  I have a pile of books from last year that I will sort through and decide which I will try and finish this year and which can quietly go back to their places in book piles or shelves for a later attempt.  This is my tentative pile of new starts with a couple of books started last year.

I am ready to get back to Kinsey Millhone's adventures.  Next up is P is for Peril.

I have gotten away from the classics (save for what I would call modern classics, which are good, too).  An easy start and maybe a little bit of a cheat.  Did you see the forthcoming TV adaptation by Andrew Davies of Jane Austen's last novel, Sanditon?  She never finished it.  I think a mere 60 page fragment is all that exists.  I found Sanditon by Jane Austen and Kate Riordan (who I have read before) at the bookstore recently.  I will look for the Jane Austen fragment and read it alongside the reworked work.  A nice way to ease back into the classics--reading Jane Austen and then watching the movie later this month.

I didn't finish Decembers prompt, Len Deighton's Berlin Game, so I will continue to enjoy it this month.  I think there are three sets of three books and I already have the second one on hand.

I am not really setting out any goals this year (save my Good Reads Challenge), but there are a few things I would like to try to do more of this year.  Classics reading is one.  Another is to get back to chunky reads.  I have a whole stack (are you surprised) to pull from.  Dorothy Whipple's The Priory (coming in at 536 pages) is tentatively my first choice for the year.  I have wanted to read it for ages.

I started Signe Pike's The Lost Queen last year.  I listened to a podcast about it last year and was quickly sold.  It is the first of three planned books.  Everyone who has read it seems to have raved about it.  It is a story in the vein of The Mists of Avalon.

My nonfiction choice is not completely firm, but I keep eyeing Code Name Lise by Larry Loftis, so it has been added to the pile.  You know I am always up for a good spy story--even better that this is based on an actual person.

I could not pass up a review copy of Anita Abriel's The Light after the War about two Jewish women who survive the Holocaust, which is based on a true story.

And there at the bottom of the pile is a graphic novel (nonfiction in this case)-Nora Krug's Belonging, which I have wanted to read ever since I first heard about it.  I would like to try and read ten graphic novels over the course of the year.

We'll see how it goes.  I am not making any plans really other than the few I mention here and only by way of starting out the new reading year.  I fully expect that I will veer off the paths I set now, and that is okay.

My Good Reads 'challenge' is to read 83 books this year.  I managed to read 80 in 2019, which is what I set out to do, so I thought it fitting to try and better that by just a few books.  It really helped to log books last year and watch the covers add up--see what I had read and where my reading was taking me.

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So that leaves my dozen prompts to help me choose a new book from my shelves in the coming months.  As always, each is open to interpretation, and I may make a change if something really doesn't appeal.  Randomly:

January: I've Been Meaning to Read This

February: It's a Woman's World

March: Any Book from an Old new Books List!

April: Read, Enjoy.  Repeat

May: Any Green Spine

June: Exit Stage Left

July: In Sickness and in Health

August: La Dolce Vita

September: Ready for New Beginnings

October: A Month in the Country

November: Wishing Myself Somewhere New

December: Dear Diary, Dear Friend

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It's good to start fresh!  Not just a new year, but a new decade, and for me a new start to a life that went topsy turvy.  What are your hopes for 2020?

Summer TBR: Reading Japan

It is not quite summer but I am all ready for my summer reading project.  For the last several years I have chosen either a destination or a genre to indulge myself in.  Last summer it was Australia and a few years back it was The Netherlands.  I always have great fun with these projects.  I don't cut myself off in August and often will just keep going if my curiosity and desires have not been sated.  

This year my inspiration came in part through a movie repertory series at a local indie arthouse cinema.  They are doing a series of a dozen or so films (including two silents scored with live music) by the much respected film director Yasujiro Ozu.  I had never seen his work before, but five films in and I am addicted and a convert.  I think he might well be my favorite--certainly top three when it comes to favorite films/directors.  

I will have more to share about Ozu, my reading choices and where I have already "been" so to speak with my reading (I started a little early this year).  Sorry about the poor photo above--it was a quickie to give you a peek, but I will break them down into groups as I go.

This is what I am reading at the moment and already I am completely absorbed and veering off into various paths.  Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone has long (very, very long) been on my shelves.  She is a first generation Japanese-American and her memoir was published in 1953, though it covers her life from her childhood in the years before WWII living in Seattle.  Like so many other immigrant families--her own life straddles two cultures and she writes about not feeling truly part of one or the other.  Eventually her family will be relocated to an internment camp.  And I am finding it utterly compelling.  She has such an interesting voice and she instantly draws you into her life story.

It has taken me a while to settle on one novel to begin with (actually I have already read Kazuo Ishiguro's first novel and will write about it soon).  But I am finding Fumiko Enchi's novel Masks compelling in a different way than Monica Sone's memoir but equally as good.  It was published in 1958 and is a contemporary classic novel.  I think I am so drawn to it as it has a certain feel to it that is similar to what I am finding in watching the Ozu movies.  There is a great deal of depth to the stories and a feeling of tradition yet at the same time changes to life as it was known and challenges to family life and domesticity that came after the war.  In Masks there is another layer that I love and that is pointing me in another direction--the masks referred to in the title are those used in the ancient traditional Japanese theater of Noh.  So, more layers of meaning, which makes for a very rich reading experience. 

I have already requested books with pictures of these masks, a book of Noh plays and will also see of I can find videos of Noh performances.  Ozu uses these in some of his movies.  I love how it all ties in together, one thing overlapping onto another.  Even the Sone book references something that overlapped in an Ozu movie I just saw.  I love these literary and cinematic connections.  I hope to write more about all my reading.  If I have not been reading much in the way of classics, this may be the year where I don't read so many Western Classics, but will dip into Eastern Classics and not, I hope, only modern classics.  

But we will see where this all goes.  I am sure I will move from classics and earlier novels to more contemporary fiction and crime fiction and hopefully more memoirs, too.  And I plan on reading about Ozu and Japanese film.

Of course, if you have any suggestions, they are always most welcome.  if you see something in the pile above and are curious about it, please ask and I will share the title or description.  

Ready to Read (youknowhowitgoes)

Yes, the endless cycle.  Reading books.  And then, you know how it goes, thinking about books to read.  I really don't spend as much time online these days (social media-wise), but just the nature of my job in the ordering department of the library I am constantly looking at and ordering new books.  New releases, forthcoming titles, library lists.  And then someone mentions a book and you look online and vendors have a tricky way about trying to lure you into seeing and requesting and ordering and wanting to read More New Books.  Actually sometimes it is easy to put off those new books by thinking of an older book by an author with a new release coming or a story that is similar . . . that I already have in my TBR pile.  And you know what happens, then, right?  

Yes, I start jotting down titles to "read next".  And you, my friends, yes, you, out there, mention books you are reading or have read and loved and then I Want to Read Them, Too.  It's just such a vicious (okay, not really) since here we go with another list of books I want to read sooner than later.  

I keep a little notebook for bookishness like this, and then I have a little cheat sheet of current reads and little goals that I tuck into whatever I happen to be reading at the moment to carry with me.  It's meant to keep me on track and remind me what I have in progress.  But then there is always room for new notes on that sheet.  I will read something or see something and think--I'll just jot that book down so I don't forget.  Sometimes I follow up and indeed will pick up that book, and sometimes it just lingers over the weeks and I move on to something else.  

Do you want to take a peek at what is on my 'reading next wishlist'?  Of course in a week it will likely have morphed into something else entirely, but these are the books that are on my mind right now.  

The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook -- because it is soon to be released as a movie.  "Set in post-war Germany, the international bestseller The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook is a stunning emotional thriller about our fiercest loyalties and our deepest desires. In the bitter winter of 1946, Rachael Morgan arrives with her only remaining son Edmund in the ruins of Hamburg. Here she is reunited with her husband Lewis, a British colonel charged with rebuilding the shattered city. But as they set off for their new home, Rachael is stunned to discover that Lewis has made an extraordinary decision: they will be sharing the grand house with its previous owners, a German widower and his troubled daughter. In this charged atmosphere, enmity and grief give way to passion and betrayal."  (Check out the trailer here).

Ruth Reichl's foodie memoirs -- starting with Tender at the Bone.

And something by MFK Fisher -- because her writing is pretty much divine.  And I am in a foodie memoir sort of mood.  Any good memoir/NF mood actually.  Maybe Serve it Forth -- "In Serve It Forth, her first book, M. F. K. Fisher takes readers on an animated journey through culinary history, beginning with the honey-loving Greeks and the immoderate Romans. Fisher recalls a hunt for snails and truffles with one of the last adepts in that art and recounts how Catherine de Medici, lonely for home cooking, touched off a culinary revolution by bringing Italian chefs to France. Each essay makes clear the absolute firmness of Fisher's taste--contrarian and unique--and her skill at stirring memory and imagination into a potent brew."

Rachel Cusk's Outline -- because I just bought the first of her trilogy at the library sale I recently went to.  And I am in the mood for some literary/award nominated/winning fiction.

Really enjoying (as you well know seeing as I talk about her almost weekly it seems) Kinsey Millhone and the Alphabet mystery series.  So, why not revisit a few other US authors who have penned stories with independently minded and sassy heroines.  I have read a very few books by Laura Lippman and Janet Evanovich.  They are just light enough and entertaining enough to meet my ready for sunshine and warmth mood.  I am only on book #2 of Tess Monaghan's adventures, so Charm City will be pulled out of my stacks.  And as for Stephanie Plum I am ready for Three to Get Deadly, which I think I own.

And I was thinking of the Read Harder Challenge task list and maybe I might look around at my piles for a book of alternate history.  I think it is definitely time to cross off a few more tasks from the list.  

For the moment, however, it is Georges Simenon and I swear I am am am going to finish that last book of the Mary Hocking trilogy, Welcome Strangers.  The Maigret novel is really good, and while I am very much enjoying the Hocking it is a tad more work, but in the end, it will of course, be very much worth it.

April 12: Weekend Reading Notes

Just a very few meanderings to start the weekend with.  I seem to do meanderings really well these days.  

Do you find that you get off track when it comes to reading, as often as I do?  I am off track not just from the outset of this year but for several years running now.  I set out to follow a few reading paths but often instantly end up diverting on to some crossroad that I didn't even know existed.

Some of the tracks are small ones and might easily be accomplishable if only I could focus a little more intently on those tasks at hand.

First and foremost.  It has been a few weeks (maybe a fair few weeks actually) since I picked up When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams.  Such a small book and so easy to dip into daily, and now I will try and get back on those daily reads.  I think it is a sign that the few pages I read today have to do with poetry.  Seeing as April is poetry month and I have intentions to read a book of poetry (two in hand at the moment, but let me get started before telling you about them).

Todays chapter has to do with the author's lisp she had as a child.  In order to correct it when she was in school she had to spend time practicing her 'S's'.  What better way but through poetry.  And she shared this, and I liked it so now I am going to share it, too.  It is by Emily Dickinson by the way.

Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying home,
With a bobbolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.

So nice.  If this is the kind of poetry I can find to read, I am all for it!  

But I have been thinking lately, too, of other projects started but not finished or even still in progress.  Like:

Reading every NYRB Classic that I get in a year.  Seriously hit or miss, and already this year, only one actually read and finished.  One in progress and now one I think I might have to (at least for now) abandon!  Maybe I can go back to some other 'partially read' year and finish that one instead and then cherry pick through the books I get this year.  (Problem book this year?  Max Havelaar--I feel bad but it's just not striking a chord at the moment).

Then there is reading all of Molly Keane's books--in order that she published them.

Will I EVER (no, don't tell me--that's cheating) find out who the Suitable Boy is??!  I got snagged on a boring chapter.  Push through it maybe.  Or maybe (gasp) just skip it and move on to the next?

I've been toying with the idea of getting back to those London Underground books.  I was enjoying them and they are short and easily digestible.

Hah!  A century of books.  It may well take me a whole century to finish that one!  Then again, if I just keep on with that list I stared eons ago, I bet I could fill in a few more slots and just keep going.

But on the upside I am making headway in the alphabet murders, and surely it is not too late for those ongoing 'reading challenges' (my public library has one, too) like the Read Harder Challenge.  

We're not even halfway through the year yet.  There is still lots of time.  For old projects.  And maybe a few new ones, too.  Will it surprise you to hear I have a few new projects in mind?

Back to the Three Book Plan

Was there ever really a three book plan?  I do yoga and always my yoga teacher, when we are meditating, says when your mind wanders just accept it, acknowledge it, and then go back to the breathe.  I do that a lot, because my mind wanders a lot.  I am always fretting and this winter more than ever it seems.  I am having a hard time being calm.  And it is definitely coming out in my reading yet again.  Pick, pick, pick.  Dip, dip, dip.  So many bookish distractions. 

Should I share what my night table and bedside and library stacks look like?  Now that would be a picture of a wandering mind.  I am always looking for some other story even as the books I am in the middle of are entirely absorbing.  When I am reading them I want to stay with them.  And when I am doing something else, in the middle of a work project, or cooking or some activity that doesn't require intense concentration my mind starts whirling and books cross my minds eye, or I read something and think--I would love to read that.  Pull book from shelf.  Start reading.  Set on pile of books on night table.  Watch piles grow and expand and take over.  In progress books quickly become lost in the shuffle.  

So back to a few of the originals.  I am not quite at the point (but contemplate it often) where I take one lone book with me and that it that--all attention directed there.  I think about this a lot, don't I?  But three books seem manageable to me.  I still have a pile on the night table and I can't wait to get back to those as well, but finish one first and move on to the next.  

The three main reads right now are Mary Hocking's second novel of the Fairley Family trilogy, Indifferent Strangers set during the days of WWII, Australian author Mira Robertson's coming-of-age tale The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean, which is also set in WWII and the always pleasing Kinsey Millhone, still on I is for Innocent.  I missed Kinsey and I wanted to share just a little from this book, because she never fails to bring a smile to my face or a quiet guffaw (and I need as many of those as I can get).

The excerpt I'm going to share is a scene where Kinsey is interviewing a woman in relation to a murder case that is being reopened.  I love that Kinsey, and surely this is necessary in her job, has such a great sense of character (and in that I mean understanding of human nature).  She picks up on details that others miss (and often there is a sense of humor and self-deprecation involved as well).

"I spotted the woman I assumed to be Rhe Parsons emerging from a small supply closet with a roll of newsprint and a box pf pencils; jeans, a denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a pack of cigarettes visible in her left breast pocket.  No makeup, no bra.  She wore heavy leather sandals and a hand-tooled leather belt.  Her hair was dark, pulled back in a French braid that extended halfway down her back.  I placed her in her late thirties and wondered if she'd been to Woodstock once upon a time.  I'd seen clips of the concert and I could picture her cavorting barefoot through the mud, stark naked with a joint, her hair down to her waist and daisies painted on her cheek.  Growing up had made her crabby, which happens to the best of us.  She set the pencils on the counter and carried the newsprint to a big worktable where she began to cut off uniform sheets, using an industrial-size paper cutter.  Several students without sketch pads formed a ragged line, waiting for her to finish.  She must have sensed my scrutiny.  She looked up, catching sight of me, and then went on about her business.  I crossed the room and introduced myself.  She couldn't have been more pleasant.  Perhaps, like many habitually cranky people, her irritation passed in the moment, to be replaced by something sunnier."

Aside from painting quite a good and descriptive picture of Rhe (and Grafton/Kinsey does this with everyone), it made me laugh about what she said about the crabby/crankiness.  I feel like that could be me, and I do hope my crappy demeanor is also quickly replaced by something sunnier.  This is why I keep coming back to Grafton's books!

I hope to finish this this weekend (and pick up another book from the night table--but will be reaching for letter "J" soon, too).  Okay, full disclosure, while these are the three books I am steadily reading, I am still dipping into story collections and my Terry Tempest Williams as those are long-running reads.  I'm not in a rush to finish those but I don't want to neglect them entirely either--some books are meant to read a bit of and then let simmer before returning to them, right?

January 1, 2019: A Fresh Start

Happy New Year, everyone!  It is off to a cold, dreary start here, but it is cozy by my little lamplit nighttable.  I have cleared it off and restocked it.  I have three carryovers from last year, and I still need to choose a January prompt book, but it feels so very new I almost don't know where to start. 

I only have a few very loose plans for the new year and I want to keep things simple with blogging as well.  I have my  list of prompts (below) and I have decided to join in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge.  The list of 24 tasks is on my menu bar above, which I will fill in as I go.  I think some will be easy and I will be able to just naturally fill in as the year unfolds.  There are a few that I will have to be more thoughtful about.

I'm going to read Gladys Taber's Stillmeadow Calendar: A Countrywoman's Journal over the course of the year, once chapter each month.  The book is laid out perfectly for a serial read, which I have also done in the past.  The book is broken into monthly chapters.  It seems a perfect book to read at leisure in small bites and reflect on the months and seasons.

So that just leaves my list of new prompts for 2019!

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January: Crime and Punishment

February: Something Old

March: Upstairs Downstairs

April: Rain or Shine 

May: Something New

June: I Could Have Danced All Night

July: A Day at the Beach

August: Something Borrowed

September: Swinging Sixties

October: Call of the Wild

November: Something Blue

December: Art and Music

Last year was not a good blogging year for me.  Once I fell behind in writing about books I never managed to catch up.  I think I might approach things differently this year.  I am going to try and keep a paper journals again and was thinking that might work here as well.  Daily (or several times a week) posts about what I am reading or new books I come across, links, quotes and if the mood takes a book review.  In any case I want to try and write about each book I read in some way or other, but no pressure to write a long post about it.

Now just one more thing to do for my January reading--time to pull some books for my new prompt.

The Last Six (or so) Books of the Year

Sorry, old photos, but you get the idea.  I will have to share some that are more up to date.  I think I have my piles down to what I want to finish before the year runs out and what to carry over and already in mind I have a few books I will start with (in relation to the Read Harder Challenge mostly).  Don't be impressed (or shocked) when I say six books to finish out the year.  One will be finished tonight, and most of the others are very close to being finished (save for one book).  It is mostly, at this point, all tidying up and clearing out for the year in the hopes that 2019 can have a fresh-ish sort of pile.  

I'll be finishing Celia Dale's wonderfully plotted and executed crime novel, Sheep's Clothing.  Oh so very good.  Now I want to read all of her books and already have another thanks to interlibrary loan to pick up soon.  I'm going to have to write about that one this week, I hope.

Almost finished with my last prompt of the year, Emma Newman's very good Before Mars.  It is just a tad outside my comfort zone, but not too far.  A good choice for something along the lines of science fiction, but not too far out there in the galaxy.  A definite tinge of paranoia and uncertainty with the storyteller.  I am not sure I like any of the characters (though the same actually can be said of the Dale), but that has not lessened in the least my enjoyment.  

Finally am getting into G is for Gumshoe and Kinsey is as wonderfully irreverent and wry as ever.  As if the woman does not have enough problems getting entangled in danger, now she literally has a hit man after her.  Sheesh.  What a way to celebrate a birthday, even if she did get a new living space from Henry.  I am totally relying on this book to read as fast as all the others since technically I am closer to the front of the book than the back.

I am rescuing one book from the languishing pile.  I keep meaning to get back to Balli Kaur Jaswal's Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, which I read the first half of very eagerly.  I kind of got bogged down in the erotic stories the widows made up which just sounded mostly silly to me.  But I like the backstory of the real characters and am getting back to that aspect of the book.  Isn't this one of the books Reese Witherspoon is making a movie out of?  I know she chose it as one of her book club reads?  It would make a fun film.

Now is when it maybe get a little tricky.  I was planning on making the Elena Ferrante Neapolitan Quartet one of my 2019 projects, but then my sister raved about the HBO adaptation and I could not resist.  I want to watch it, too, but I want to read the book.  What ever was I waiting for?  I am very much enjoying this first book, My Brilliant Friend.  It reads much faster than I thought it would.  It is just a matter of time and having enough of it to squeeze this in with the others (most notably the Grafton).  I will definitely be reading the other three books, adaptation or no.  But those will follow next year.

The last book, number six is the trickiest.  Do I finish one of my in progress books, which is made up basically of really long books or a nonfiction I love but have been reading really slowly.  Or.  Pick up something fairly short.  I have been wanting to read a Maigret novel and mostly Georges Simenon's books are pretty short (though always really good).  Or, a book I am passing on to my sister, but could I read it quickly first?  Terese Marie Mailhot's Heart Berries has gotten many rave reviews and I wanted to read it before giving it back to her.  

I suppose it is better to finish something in progress than pick up a new book, however short it is?  But you know the lure of a new read, right?  Still, lots of other tidying up to do with the books and the space here.  But now I sort of have a plan!  And if I don't finish them all, that's okay too.  There is always next year...

Reading Notes: Thinking Ahead?

With just less than three weeks (yikes) of the year left, do you think it is time to start thinking ahead to 2019?  I still have lots of clearing out to do this year.  Books to finish reading.  Books to return to their shelves for some other moment.  Spreadsheets to complete.  Maybe too late to write reviews.  Some overview of the books I read but failed to write about?  That sounds like too much work at the moment, and thinking about new reading opportunities is always so much more fun than cleaning things up.  (May be lifting the carpet and pushing the dust under -- or just collecting the dust and pitching it into the bin and closing the lid!).

I already have a list of reading prompt ideas, but I'll likely just do a random draw on the themes.  Or maybe not.  But time enough for that now that I have a working list.  I have a few little, not really reading projects, but books or series that I want to turn my attention to next year.  I'll save all the little things I want to do, but something that just caught my eye and I have wanted to do in the past (but being a not very good planner sometimes) just came up, so now's the time to start thinking of it.

Have you ever done Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge?  They just posted the 2019 edition of their challenge.  There is even a handy little journal you can buy to help keep track (may have to put that on my wishlist--I wonder if it is sold in bookstores?).  According to the description this challenge is 24 prompts that are meant to get readers to expand their horizons--"to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books."  I am all for that.  Surely I can incorporate these 'tasks' into my regular reading.

1. An epistolary novel or collection of letters
2. An alternate history novel
3. A book by a woman and/or AOC (Author of Color) that won a literary award in 2018
4. A humor book
5. A book by a journalist or about journalism
6. A book by an AOC set in or about space
7. An #ownvoices book set in Mexico or Central America
8. An #ownvoices book set in Oceania
9. A book published prior to January 1, 2019, with fewer than 100 reviews on Goodreads
10. A translated book written by and/or translated by a woman
11. A book of manga
12. A book in which an animal or inanimate object is a point-of-view character
13. A book by or about someone that identifies as neurodiverse
14. A cozy mystery
15. A book of mythology or folklore
16. An historical romance by an AOC
17. A business book
18. A novel by a trans or nonbinary author
19. A book of nonviolent true crime
20. A book written in prison
21. A comic by an LGBTQIA creator
22. A children’s or middle grade book (not YA) that has won a diversity award since 2009
23. A self-published book
24. A collection of poetry published since 2014

Okay, so I have to admit some of the terminology is new to me.  I had to look up some things, which just shows how much I am immersed in my own little world and how good this will be to try and complete.

Ownvoices -- a term meant to define marginalized characters written by marginalized authors (as apposed to a white author writing about a black character).

Neurodiverse -- a writer or character with neurological differences, for example ASD, dyslexia, ADHD, dyscalculia, Tourette syndrome, dyspraxia, etc.

Nonbinary -- (I've come across this term before, but just as a reminder) a category for gender identities not exclusively masculine or feminine.

This should be interesting.  I have to admit a few categories appeal less than others--like, a business book?  I am not a very dedicated GR person, so books in relation to reviews on GR or rankings I might have to tweak a bit.  I wonder if there are lots of books written in prison?  Must be?  (Expanding horizons!).  But more or less I would like to try and hit all the categories.  

Surely two books a month would be doable and I think I can overlap these themes with my prompts and other general reading.  It will be fun/interesting to try anyway.  Have you started thinking about next year's reading yet?

Changing Course Midstream/Midyear

Does this photo shock you (knowing my OCD reading habits, that is?)?!  Especially considering the state of my nightstand some months back when I knew things were so out of control I had to stop doing a weekly photo of my in progress reads?  Here we are past the halfway mark of the year and something had to give.  Looking back at July's 'reading stats' of how many books I managed to finish, it is actually not nearly as abysmal as it felt and overall I am not too far off track for how many books I am hoping to read my way through this year.  However, something has to give . . .

The piles of in progress books are so out of control that they are starting to stress me out.  I was finding myself lugging more books in my bookbag than I even had time to possibly dip into over the course of a day.  Dragging books back and forth, they should not be the weight they have become.  I can't seem to say no to a book, which means I keep starting them and not finishing them.  My bad habit has to come to a stop and so drastic measures are needed, I think.

As much as I wish I could be a one book at a time reader, I know that is not quite realistic for me at the moment.  And having several books on the go from a variety of genres (which is my 'normal' mode of reading) is still not working (as I keep adding more 'must reads'), so I have decided to try, for the month of August, to stick with only three in progress books (whatever the genre) plus my monthly prompt book.  So, yes, three books and I am still cheating.  

I am going to try very hard to stick with a 'Three plus One' reading plan for the month of August.  That means--only three books on the night stand and in my hands at any time, plus my reading prompt book (as yet undecided).  If I get through more than one prompt book, I will happily choose another.  But the first has to be finished.  No more books to be added to the pile until something else is finished.  Every time I say I am going to do this, I bargain with myself--I will start this 'when I whittle all those books already started down'.  That is pretty much impossible.  I never manage to stick to it without starting more books.  

So, all those other books that were waiting/languishing either go back to the shelves for later (if I had not made too much of a commitment to the stories and characters yet) or they sit in a pile under the night stand or near it. They can be cycled in--as I finish what is on top.  No rule breaking.  Well, I say that, but who is to know but myself.  Still I am going to try very hard to stick with my plan in the hopes I can get back into a more manageable reading habit.  No  more toting piles of books around (only to not have time for them all anyway). 

Surely it will be better to focus on just a few stories at a time, spend more time in those pages and with those characters.  I am hoping I will finish a book in a more timely manner.  Maybe I will finish more books in a month, too, or maybe not.  Either way the goal is not to just consume everything I see but to spend quality time reading each book.  And three plus one other seems a pretty generous number of books to have on the go at once.  I suspect plenty of readers would still think this quite a few books rather than a few (that is how excessive my reading habits have become!).  I feel like this out of control reading habit is a reflection of an unsettled inner mind (I am trying to borrow from my yoga philosophy here, can you tell?).

Other than my monthly prompts, all other plans and goals from the year are out the window.  I am determined to give this one month of dedicated attention.  A mere thirty-one days.  Library books are going to be my one challenge.  My 'get of jail' card is going to be my prompt book--at least I am assured of one random book pick for the moment.  I am already pondering this (maybe this month will help be get back to being a more thoughtful reader).

Those three books on my night table are the special three (plus one coming soon).  And as I finish each one, I get to choose another.  Motivation.