Annual reading challenge 2018- Join in on the Fun

I would like to join in if I still can. I am aiming for 30 books.
I started the year with Shantaram and really enjoyed it.
I am working on The Robber Bride right now. I read it in my 20’s but it’s like reading it all over again because that was a long time ago.:rolleyes:
 
May I join your group? I used to read more than I do now. I tend to watch too many Netflix and Amazon Prime movies/shows on my Kindle and iPad. :(

Plus two years ago I discovered the game Hay Day. Lately I have been thinking I play that game way too much, and really would like to get back to more reading.

Last year I only managed to read 13 books. 21 the year before, before that I had been reading 40-50 per year.

Right now I'm reading "The Woodcutter's Wife" by David Johnson. It's set against the backdrop of the Civil War. I started it awhile ago, but have it 73% read so my goal is to finish it this week.

I think I'll set my goal at 20 for the year, and hopefully will go past that.
 
Just finished #3/60-Trouble with Murder, a cozy mystery about a lady who makes organic cat food and has a cat named Trouble. I love cats, and that was a major reason why I read it, but Meh!
 


3. Random Acts by JA Jance
This was a novella involving two of Jance's series characters in a cross over. Joanna Brady and Allie Reynolds join to solve the murder of Joanna's parents. Good installment.

4. Revolution by Deborah Wiles
This is the second of a trilogy set in the sixties although the third one is not out yet. The first book dealt with the Cuban missile crisis and other events occurring in that time frame. This one covered 1964 and Freedom Summer in Greenwood, Mississippi. both books take factual situations and use actual media reports from the incidents and weave a fictional story into it seen from the point of view of a young teen. It is written for younger readers but still engaging. 4 stars

5. The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant
This tells the story of Addie Baum, the daughter of immigrant Jews and her journey of becoming an independent adult in the 1920s. I listened to this one read by Linda Lavin. She lent a a lot of character to the reading. 4 stars
 
I have decided to try and read books turned/turning into movies so I can compare the two. I always read the book first (well, 95% of the time.

#1- Me before you. The book was WAY better than the movie. In the book, you could fee the tension and chemistry between the characters. In the movie, it was very flat and felt really one dimensional.

#2- The girl on the train. I’m almost half way through this book and so far so good.

I have to say I’m really glad I joined this thread. It definitely has sparked my interest in books again. So, thank you to the OP and the OP of the original thread.
 
1) Slow Horses by Mick Herron - british spy thriller very good
2) Aurora Rising (The Prefect) - Alastair Reynolds ver well written excellent Sci Fi space opera
3) The Weight of Angels - Catriona McPherson very good and very different from her Dandy Gilvers series
4) The Runner - Peter May detective series set in China good plot and interesting insight into the changing face of China
 


#2/90: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore (5/5) (nonfiction)
Very interesting story of the girls and women who painted the luminous dials of watches and war equipment and the battle they fought to get compensation for their ruined health.

#3/90: Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini (4/5) (historical fiction)
Story of a former slave who purchased her freedom and became a confidant of Mary Todd Lincoln.
 
1/12 - The Women in the Castle by Jessica Shattuck

Good book that takes place a few years after WWII and looks at the lives of three women.
 
#2 Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore by Matthew Sullivan

I do not have a great love of book stores like some people I know. However some of my favorite books revolve around mysterious or exciting bookstores. So I was delighted to read this, only for some reason it did not thrill me like the others. I found the writing adequate, but the lack of what I was hoping for, and the mystery, that wasn't really a mystery but a story that was revealed as you read. Also to me there was a lack of suspense as the main character never really seemed in any danger. The book was okay but was missing a good deal for me.

If anyone is interested, I would gladly send a kindle gift version of any of my works “Written for You”, “Three Twigs for the Campfire”, “Cemetery Girl” or “Reigning”. You can see them all reviewed at Goodreads. If you are interested in reading any just message me.
 
#3/50

Glory Over Everything: Beyond the Kitchen House

The year is 1830 and Jamie Pyke, a celebrated silversmith and notorious ladies’ man, is keeping a deadly secret. Passing as a wealthy white aristocrat in Philadelphian society, Jamie is now living a life he could never have imagined years before when he was a runaway slave, son of a southern black slave and her master. But Jamie’s carefully constructed world is threatened when he discovers that his married socialite lover, Caroline, is pregnant and his beloved servant Pan, to whose father Jamie owes his own freedom, has been captured and sold into slavery in the South.

Fleeing the consequences of his deceptions, Jamie embarks on a trip to a North Carolina plantation to save Pan from the life he himself barely escaped as a boy. With the help of a fearless slave, Sukey, who has taken the terrified young boy under her wing, Jamie navigates their way, racing against time and their ruthless pursuers through the Virginia backwoods, the Underground Railroad, and the treacherous Great Dismal Swamp.


Very, very good book.
 
6. Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child
This is #8 of the popular Pendergast series. This one is a little different than most of them but still entertaining.

7. Beyond the Ice Limit by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
I am a big fan of Preston & Child both writing together and separately. I think they will appear my on reading list quite frequently this year as I catch up with some of their new stuff.

This is a sequel to their book Ice Limit. Five years have passed since they left an unknown alien "seed" on the bottom of the ocean. They are going back to destroy it...maybe. Includes their series hero Gideon Crews although he was not in the first book.
 
The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom- picked this up because willowsnn3 and then several others recommended it. They were correct, it was a good read and definitely counts as a substantial content book.

3/52
 
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#4/50 A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

Pretty good. I thought I would try to read all these alphabet books.
 
The Orphan's Tale:A Novel by Pam Jenoff - A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan's Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival. This was amazing story and I hardily recommend it.
4/52
 
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#4/50 A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

Pretty good. I thought I would try to read all these alphabet books.

Loved her series! So sad that she is gone...

The Orphan's Tale:A Novel by Pam Jenoff - A powerful novel of friendship set in a traveling circus during World War II, The Orphan's Tale introduces two extraordinary women and their harrowing stories of sacrifice and survival. This was amazing story and I hardily recommend it.

Currently reading this!
 
I would love to join this thread. I am hoping to read twenty five books by the end of the year. I'm not sure what I want to read yet. I'm kind of stuck in a rut. I used to really like Jennifer Chiaverrini, but I think I have read all hers. I also have read through Frances Rivers series. I loved them. I also really lived Kitchen House. I read it after I read the help. If anyone has any good suggestions...
 
Currently reading this!

I also read "Orphan Train"-I LOVED it!. Then I read "We were the Lucky Ones", recommended by either Amazon or Goodreads for people who enjoyed the previous. And they were right-I LOVED that one too! "We were the Lucky Ones" was #4/60, "I Remember Nothing" by Nora Ephron was #5/60-OK but not as funny as some of her others.
 

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