Currently Reading: 01 - 31 December 2019

Currently Reading

- A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel (27%)
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman (02%)
- The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek by Rhett McLaughlin & Link Neal (07%)
- The Last of August by Brittany Cavallaro (14%)
- Brimstone by Justine Rosenberg (15%)
-  IT by Stephen King (40%)

- Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en (29%)
- The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (59%)

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So, I'm proud of myself for having finished two books on my December TBR before December even started. That brings down my list to 16 books. I know it's very unlikely that I will get to all of them, I haven't even started 7 of them, but that's fine. If I manage more of the books actively on my Currently Reading list I will take it.

I found a few bookish bingo cards I'm going to attempt to fill in. I have two of them. I figure I can start filling them in this month. See how long it takes me to get a bingo. What would I do if I even get one? Buy myself an expensive book? Buy myself a prize of some other nature?

I got a $25 gift card for Amazon from my Nana for Christmas and decided that I was going to spend it all on books. I ended up buying 4 new eBooks. The first one that I bought, that I didn't even think twice about acquiring was a book by Rhett and Link from Good Mythical Morning. I'm part way through it now and I am enjoying it a lot. 

I realized now that my 2020 Reading Goals list has....disappeared? Well, here we go. I will post them again here and hope that they stick...

1. Meet/exceed my Goodreads goal for the year – This year I decided to keep it somewhat simple and set my goal for only 50 books. Something I'm sure I can reach and I will feel great when I read over the goal. Anything more is almost beyond my capabilities as a reader at the level I currently am at.

2. Review all of the books that I read – I had this same goal last year and I think I nearly got 100% completion on it. I realized that I didn't actually post my review for a few books, but it was in my own personal blog, so I count it.

3. Read IT by Stephen King – I sorted it out, in a comment to be seen later on in the entry, that if I read 288.25 pages per quarter from 1 January forward, I should finish the book on or near 31 December.

4. Read Journey to the West by Wu Cheng'en - This is a 2300 page novel split into four volumes. I want to make it through a single volume per quarter and hopefully finish it in 2020. 

5. Enter and win Camp NaNo and NaNoWriMo – Yeah this is a difficult challenge to meet since I will have a job by then and my time set to write will be going down. That's okay, we can still do it if we actually plan it out a little bit.

6. Stick to My Book Buying….Restriction – It's not so much a “ban” on book buying, I know I won't be able to really contain myself, but I do think a restriction is in order. I can only buy one (1) book for every five (5) books that I read. That way I reduce the total number of books I bring into the house. I know I would never be able to not bring in books...so yeah. (I don't count Book of the Month Club).


I'm proud of myself for managing to finish six books during the month of Christmas. It's not so much December any more, since the holiday craze starts in like, October. It's just the month of Christmas. Anyway, I hope I can finish as many if not more books in January. It will give me one new purchase for the month. 

Ended up doing Jolabokaflod with my friends. We each bought one book for a friend and circled it so we each got a new book. I'm very happy with what I ended up with from KS. She got me a copy of A Bookshop in Berlin by Francoise Frenkel. It's a memoir from Ms. Frenkel about her time owning and operating a bookshop exclusively dealing in French books in Berlin, Germany from 1921 to 1938. Then we follow her through her life as she moves from place to place during WWII. I'm enjoying what I've read so far. It seems that we are to follow her through until she starts up another bookshop? I don't know.

I joined a Discord for a bookish readathon for the start of the year. From 15 January to 15 February is the Backlist Bookathon. It's to help people clear off their backlist (unread) books from their shelves. From what I gathered, you accrue points and at the end the person(s) with the most points win a gift card? I mean, I'll give it a go. Perhaps I'll generate enough points to earn another few books from Amazon. Technically that wouldn't be buying new books with my own money because I wouldn't be. I came up with my TBR list to fit the prompts. I think if we read more than one book for a given prompt, the first book meets the prompt point value, then the next book is 10-20 points? I will look again at the list and find out.

Here's hoping 2020 is as nice as 2019 was for me. I will see you all next year~!!