Category: Book Stuff

Morning Meanderings….Bike Rides past….

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)49 Comments

Good morning!  😀

This weekend I am right on top of some great picture happenings (I hope!).  Later today I think I am going to a friends property to help her when the BEES come in.  Yes, she is a new Beekeeper!  I didn’t know that Bee Keeper outfit was on my bucket list… until I seen her in, and now I must got here.  SO… she is supposed to call me if that is going to work out for later today.

Then tonight, me friend Amy and I will take off for the first bike ride in Minnesota that starts tomorrow morning.  It is called the Ironman, mainly because it goes no matter what the weather and not once, has the weather been nice in my five years of this ride:

2008:  storming and lightning:  30 degrees out

2009:  Rain and snow flakes

2010:  Light rain (the best we ever had for conditions)

2011:  Hail and storms – my friend Wendy and I skipped the ride went shopping and to a movie instead.

Now, tomorrow calls for isolated thunderstorms, 80% chance of rain.  100% annoying…

Just once… if it could be nice.

The ride is a 30, 45, 60, or 100.  My goal is always the 100, but the weather messes that up.  I will leave it up to Amy what we do. 

In the meantime, for Saturday snapshots I thought I would post a few pics from last years rides to hopefully get me ready to RIDE!

Brainerd Ride

 

Hard boiled egg… on a stick
MS150…. a two day ride where we call this the Bike Cemetery.

 

..ummm… later that same day of the MS150… mile 71 to be exact.

 

Me and my cousins wife Rhonda

 

My bike!

 

Stop by At Home With Books and see what else is being discussed at Saturday Snapshots.  As for me, I will be back in a nit, helping with a seminar this morning… need to write a couple posts and pack!  😀

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do You Judge A Book By It’s Author?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)22 Comments

Come on… admit it…

nobody is watching….

nobody knows you are reading this post right now…

admit it…

you’ve done it…

shoot, I HAVE DONE IT.

and more than once.

You read a book, it s not a fit for you for whatever reason.  There is a good chance that unless that author has some sort of reputation that makes you want to try again, you are most likely probably out for future books by this author.

And maybe that is the right thing to do.

Maybe.

There are always exceptions to every rule and I want to bring out some examples today of yup, I was wrong, books that I feel are our of an authors norm, and for me personally, a better author for it. 

*Note:  The authors I am about to mention are well established authors who know what they are judged for in their writing, I am not dissing them, or anyone who enjoys reading them.  Instead, what I am trying to do here is point out that if you have a pre notion of what an authors writing is like, these are examples of where it is different and mainly to prove my point here – that we shouldn’t give up on an author after one book.  😛

Nora is known for being an author of many many books.  She has been putting them out since 1981 and that is impressive.  When I think of Nora Roberts I think trilogies… I think the first book will introduce three men or three women…, one of these men or women will take the protagonist role for that book and somewhere early on a love interest will be introduced and by the end of the book – yay!  They are together.  The second book will take one of the two characters that were introduced in the first book and wallah, now they are the protagonist and the same thing will happen, and then again in the third book.  It is a tried and true formula.  It has worked time and again for Nora Roberts.

Now it is true that not all her books are trilogies, she does write some stand alone reads as well, many times with the same outline as I dictated above, but no, honestly I don’t think all. 

For me personally, I have never been a fan of the romance read.  The handsome men or the beautiful women all finding ways to each other does not a page turner make for me.  And that’s just me….

however, here is where Nora Roberts scored big with me.

Now I know you are looking at these three books and  thinking “Sheila, are you off your rocker?  It’s a trilogy!  There are three!”  And if you have read these then you also know… there is a little romance in them and then you may want to say, “Sheila, I know these books!  They are about three women!  They meet three guys throughout the three books…. this is the Roberts formula tried and true!  How are they any different?”

And for you I say, these are different… because the women….

are witches. 

It’s true, the story line in my opinion is superior and the strong independent modern-day women with powers is well… they are three of my favorite all time books. 

And as long as we are discussing Roberts, she does it again here:

Mmmm hmmm, yeah yeah yeah… another trilogy – yes three strong women again but again… with powers!  I don’t know why that gets me… but it does and I love that! 

Ok one more example:  Stephen King.  What comes to mind?  Sure, Christine, a possessed car.  Carrie, yes a possessed girl.  Thinner, creepy thin guy… yup.  It, ugh, probably the creepiest as I really don’t like dolls and It is a clown or to me… a big doll.  Pet cemetary, yes, people and pets back from the dead… gross, but keep going!  Cujo, spooky book and movie, and CRAZY scary dog.  Misery, yes crazed book fan, oh wait… I like that – no no I am kidding of course, she is nutso!  Anyhoo, you got this… Stephen King writes deep creeptastic stories.

And then… he writes this:

So what is this?  This is historical fiction, it is a little time travel…. it is a great “what if” story that simply blew me away when I listened to it a few months back.  This is not your typical Stephen King, in my opinion, it is some of his best work.  There is no more creep factor in this one beyond a bit of intense moments, and average mystery type happenings.    If you have not gone here…. do so.  Soon, if not now.  😀

Now it can happen in reverse too… I read Mr. Perfect by Linda Howard forever ago.  Laughed out loud silly and funny.  Every Linda Howard I have tried since… flat line.  Cant get into them. 

Now I turn this over to you.  I would love to hear your examples of the books that seem out of an authors normal writing genre or pattern that made you look twice at an author you perhaps would not have .  Please share your experiences below.

Morning Meanderings… Things In My Mind And Now On The Blog

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)24 Comments

 

Good morning!  😀  Hope Thursday finds everybody well!  We are so close to the weekend that I can smell it!  😀  It is looking to be shaping up to another gorgeous day here in Minnesota and I am wishing I had time to play in it, but alas, no… I will have to wait until tomorrow.

I currently feel like I have a lot of irons in the fire (I know… odd saying, but there it is).

This morning I am basking in the quiet lull before my day takes off… but my mind is still tossing through to do’s like playing cards… (I don’t know what is with the metaphor’s, just smile and nod…. )  😛

 

Today I took the day off from work to help Connie with her first dinner and silent auction combo for Camp Benedict.  We will be setting up the place this afternoon, I will be helping her set up the auction, and prepare whatever she needs…. I am at her disposal. The actual event starts at 5 pm tonight with a social hour and then movies on to a dinner, and program.  I believe it ends between 8:30 and 9 pm. 

My to do’s building in my head are related and also not to this event:

  • get nails done if there is time
  • put an address on that package in the car that I forgot to label (after I open it to see what it is and who I was sending it too *sigh*
  • I have a little more prep work for a class that starts Sunday – do I go in to work tomorrow for a bit, if so when?
  • I want new cards for BEA this year, what does that look like?  Can I incorporate my new header?
  • I must register today for the Iron Man bike ride before Amy has my head on a platter.
  • I need to (want to) ride bike this weekend… I hope the weather cooperate so I can do the ride around Mile Lacs Lake on Sunday with the team
  • I need to write that review today, this morning.
  • DO I take a change of clothes with me tonight, and change later or do I just wear what I am going to wear for the day?
  • WHY did I eat that really yummy MAGNUM ice cream bar last night?
  • What should I get Al for supper so he has something in house with me gone tonight?
  • DO I have enough audio in the car for the ride to and from the event tonight.
  • Should I take a book with me in case we are done with set up early… (and also, DUH – of course I will take a book!) and then, uhhhh…. which one?

 

Anyhoo…. thats my head. 

I am really excited for today and so thankful I am finally feeling better after two days of headaches, I think maybe sinuses?  I look forward to having a great time for a great cause. 😀

 

World Book Night Is Coming!!! World Book Night Is Coming!!!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)46 Comments

"world book night"

This coming Monday April 23rd is the first World Book Night in the US and I AM SO EXCITED to be a part of it!  Successfully launched in the UK last year, World Books Night will take place on the 23rd in the USA, UK , and Ireland.

It will be like the books heard around the world!  😀

I am thinking most of you have heard about this but in the event that you are scratching your head and saying “What is world book night, Sheila?”  I am all too happy to share with you!

World Book Night is a day when a half a million free books will be given away around the world!  Those who signed up had a chance to pick from 30 wonderful titles in which if selected, you would be given 20 copies of that book to give away on World Book Night to hopefully non readers to encourage them to READ!   I chose Hunger Games because I feel this is a book that speaks to a multitude of ages and with the recent movie release may be a great book to encourage non or light readers to pick it up and READ.

Additionally, April 23 is UNESCO’s World Book Day, chosen due to the anniversary of Cervantes’ death, as well as Shakespeare’s birth and death.

I will be picking up my books at Barnes and Noble this coming Friday.  My friend and I will road trip our way to St Cloud, about an hour drive from here, but worth it for a trip to B & N, possibly lunch at one of my favorite lunch spots (Hello Mongo’s!) and perhaps a little shopping. 

I know a lot of book bloggers all over the world are also participating in this incredible event and I would like to do two things here.

On Sunday afternoon I am going to set up a sticky post and a linky for all who participated in World Book Night to share their stories in a post.  What I am saying is if you write about your world book night experience – I would love it if you would link your posts up here on Monday or Tuesday, when ever you write them so we can all check out your experience. 

Secondly, I encourage you to send a picture in of your World Book Day experience to my email at journeythroughbooks@gmail.com.  I would like to put together a post of the pictures that come in of you and the books and where in the world you are located.  I think it would be awesome to see the books, the people handing them out… etc. 

IF you are not participating in World Book Night but stumble across someone in your area who is, you can send in a picture of that as well… cool if you can get in on the pic, but if not, a picture of the books being handed out and where in the world you are would be just fine.

This post here, is just to chat with you all about World Book Night.  The linky post will go up later on Sunday so on Monday, World Book Night, you can start linking up.  And I hope you do as this is going to be an incredible world-wide experience that I am proud to be a part of. 

Are you participating?  Are there any World Book Night celebrations around

where you live? 

210 MILLION Books In The World… How Do You Choose “1”?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)58 Comments

The number of books in the world is certainly debatable.  According to Google, at one point they figured it be around 210 million.  A report they did in April of 2011 says that count is closer to 130 million.

After sorting for duplicates, meaning that Google does not want to count the same book in two different places twice, there are a stunning 210 million entries to be counted from library and other databases around the world. You have to marvel slightly at that number, even before they cut it some more.

210 million is a big number, but it is not exactly correct. Google then sorts out microfilm, videos, maps, and anything else with an ISBN that has come through its listing process. After all of that final threshing, the number of books, as least as well as Google can count them, is 129,864,880.

No matter how you look at it, the number is GINORMOUS.  (Yeah…. really really BIG).

"Lets just say there are a whole lot of books out there!"

 

 

So….. looking at that number and then looking at me, or you for that matter, and our average reading of hmmm…. give or take two or three books MAYBE a week.   Maybe 100 to 150 a year?

Then I looked at how many books are published a day.  Some reports said world-wide up to 2,000 books a day are published.  US alone is publishing between 350 – 800 books a day.

People….. no way are we ever going to catch up.  😯

Sooooooo….my point today is…. how do I (and how do you) choose that next book to read.  As book bloggers, many of us are offered books to review consistently from publishers and authors, and believe me… some of these – many of these offers are great sounding reads.  AND if you are not a book blogger but a lover of books (first of all you are AWESOME!), you as a consumer who buys a book here and there…..

how do you, how do any of us choose?

This is what I want to discuss.  Share how you pick that next book.  For myself, I am a little embarrassed to admit that in my reading room right now there are hundreds of books that are currently unread.  I pick them up at sales, they are my personal library, and yes, there are many that are review books as well.  Yet… when I go in there.  I get to pick “1”.

What drives you to choose a book to read?  Is it popularity?  A topic?  A feeling?  Do you buck the trends and go your own way and read something completely off the charts (perhaps something called The History Of The Paperclip?) 

I want to dish!  Talk to me 😀

Morning Meanderings.. Pinterest Interest and The Blog

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)65 Comments

Good morning!

Yes I am here, just a little late this morning.  I have been up since 6 am, but I have been reading emails I was too tired to get to last night, chatting it up a bit this morning with bookish peeps on Twitter, and cautiously looking into Pinterest.

Why the caution?

Any one that reads Book Journey on a regular basis knows I have no trouble at all filling up my time.  I love to read, to blog, my job, hanging with friends, rollerblading, biking, the gym, volunteering with teen and the homeless, movies, and really…. honestly…

I was afraid (and still am a little) that Pinterest would become a time suck I just could not afford unless I gave up sleeping, which as hard as I like to run…. I do look forward to hitting the pillow at night to re-energize.

Friends invited me to join it, talked about it, I hear it’s praises on the blogs, but for me…. Pinterest was off the table.

And then…  (gah… I am really starting to not like those two words…)

Jay at Joy’s Book Blog had a Pinterest Challenge for Bloggiesta.  Not one to back down from a challenge I checked it out.  What Joy talks about is how to use your blog with Pinterest… in other words, I could connect books on Pinterest that would draw attention to Book Journey.

I do like talking about books…

I did not do the challenge – I did not have time.  But I did ask Joy to hook me up with an invite and she did, and this morning… I registered.  Anyhoo… that’s why I am really late this morning 😀

Source: sandrakavital.blogspot.com via Jacinda on Pinterest

Oh yes, you can plan on seeing these pop up in a post as soon as I find a book to theme them… 😀

 

I am registered but currently there is nothing on my board.  I need to figure out how to do it, does it link back to the blog, etc….  maybe this evening I can look more into that and probably in the next day or two I will put up a link on the sidebar.  Until then… yeah.

So let the time suck begin.  😛  If you do not hear from me for a while check Pinterest, I may be pinned to a board.  “Help!  I’ve been pinned and I can not get free!” 

My day today is blog post writing, group power, hopefully a bike ride, reading, cooking, and some sort of low-key plan for hubby and I tonight… like a rented movie.

 

Questions to you:  Do you use Pinterest?  If so in what ways?  (to look up things?  What things?) Inquiring minds (ok, me!) want to know.

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)72 Comments

Welcome to It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading?  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!

I love being a part of this and I hope you do too!  As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme.  I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited.  **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.

This past weeks winner:

Jayne’s Books

WOO HOO!!!!  Please choose an item out of the Reading Cafe Grab Shelves  and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

 

I have had a  week where everything is on the verge of finishing… 3 audio books, 2 books… but nothing finished.  Here are my posts for this past week:

Team Kickin It:  Lets Get This Party Started – 2012 Active Events!

Carry The One by Carol Anshaw ( my only review this week!  😯 )

Moneyball Movie Review

Choose The Book I Read and win it for yourself!  (This is open until Tuesday morning!)

Hunger Games The Movie (oh yeah… it is good!)

It seems like I have been in this book drought for weeks!  I just cant seem to fit the books in, but I am making progress slowly.  I am close to finishing many so this week I feel there is going to be a breakthrough and a rush of reviews.  Seriously.  😀

So that said….

In late 1950s London, something uncanny besets a group of elderly friends: an insinuating voice on the telephone informs each, “Remember you must die.” Their geriatric feathers are soon thoroughly ruffled by these seemingly supernatural phone calls, and in the resulting flurry many old secrets are dusted off. Beneath the once decorous surface of their lives, unsavories like blackmail and adultery are now to be glimpsed. As spooky as it is witty, poignant and wickedly hilarious, Memento Mori may ostensibly concern death, but it is a book which leaves one relishing life all the more.

AH….. the books I would never find on my own!  Thank Amy from My Friend Amy for this one!

Loviah “Lovie” French owns a small, high-end dress shop on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Renowned for her taste and discretion, Lovie is the one to whom certain women turn when they need “just the thing” for major life events—baptisms and balls, weddings and funerals—or when they just want to dish in the dressing room. Among the people who depend on Lovie’s confidence are her two best friends since boarding school: Dinah Wainwright and Avis Metcalf.

Outspoken and brimming with confidence, Dinah made a name for herself as a columnist covering the doings of New York’s wealthiest and most fabulous. Shy, proper Avis, in many ways Dinah’s opposite, rose to prominence in the art world with her quiet manners, hard work, and precise judgment. Despite the deep affection they both feel for Lovie, they have been more or less allergic to each other since a minor incident decades earlier that has been remembered and resented with what will prove to be unimaginable consequences.

These uneasy acquaintances become unwillingly bound to each other when Dinah’s favorite son and Avis’s only daughter fall in love and marry. On the surface, Nick and Grace are the perfect match—a playful, romantic, buoyant, and beautiful pair. But their commitment will be strained by time and change: career setbacks, reckless choices, the birth of a child, jealousies, and rumor. At the center of their orbit is Lovie, who knows everyone’s secrets and manages them as wisely as she can. Which is not wisely enough, as things turn out—a fact that will have a shattering effect on all their lives.

I am hoping this one will be good!

“Community, Identity, Stability” is the motto of Aldous Huxley’s utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a “Feelie,” a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today–let’s hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren’t yet to come.

This was in my recent library purchases and was the first comment I drew as a winner… Ryan at My Life In Books chose this for me to read and so… well, I bought it… guess I should try to read it.  😛

From a distance, Michael and Joleen Zarkades seem to have it all: a solid marriage, two exciting careers, and children they adore.  But after twelve years together, the couple has lost their way; they are unhappy and edging toward divorce.  Then the Iraq war starts.  An unexpected deployment will tear their already fragile family apart, sending one of them deep into harm’s way and leaving the other at home, waiting for news.   When the worst happens, each must face their darkest fear and fight for the future of their family.  An intimate look at the inner landscape of a disintegrating marriage and a dramatic exploration of the price of war on a single American family, Kristin Hannah’s HOME FRONT is a provocative and timely portrait of hope, honor, loss, forgiveness, and the elusive nature of love.

In eight incantatory sections, The Buddha in the Attic traces their extraordinary lives, from their arduous journey by boat, where they exchange photographs of their husbands, imagining uncertain futures in an unknown land; to their arrival in San Francisco and their tremulous first nights as new wives; to their backbreaking work picking fruit in the fields and scrubbing the floors of white women; to their struggles to master a new language and a new culture; to their experiences in childbirth, and then as mothers, raising children who will ultimately reject their heritage and their history; to the deracinating arrival of war.

And the end of this week is Bloggiesta!  If you are not signed up, you will want to be!

Add your What Are You Reading to the linky below and I as well as other will try to stop by and see what you are reading! My hours at work drops back to normal this week so I should have more time to get around. 😀

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Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

and those of you who read mainly childrens through YA reads – please also link your post here:

this beautiful life by Helen Schulman

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)13 Comments

Jake Bergamot is your typical fifteen year old.  Scratch that… Jake’s life might be better than average.  He lives with both parents who are still in love and married.  He has a little sister who is adopted from China.  He lives in a nice home in a nice neighborhood and has great friends.

Then one evening after returning home from a party and barely turning down one girls advances, but yes, still turning her down.  He turns on his computer and sees that this 8th grade girl, Daisy, has sent him a sexually explicit video, a dance of sorts.  Stunned and not sure what to think of this, he forwards the video to his best friend… who of course, sends it on to his friends, and so on and so on…

Within hours the video has gone viral and Jake and his family’s life have been turned upside down.  Jake is suspended from school and the students either look at him as a hero (the jocks, the rockers, the stoners) or as a real loser (the preppy girls – and most importantly the girl Jake really likes, Audrey).

Jake’s dad is asked to take a leave from his job just until things settle down, after all who wants to make business deals with the father of a son who is involved in a sex scandal.  Sex scandal?  All Jake has done is pushed forward on an email…

Jake’s mom takes to avoiding the public.  She can’t handle the whispers and instead finds herself in her home day and night, not changing out of her sleep clothes, and really not doing much of anything other than surfing the net on her laptop to see where the story of her son is falling next.

Where will it stop?  Will Jake’s momentary lapse of good judgement destroy his family in a world that is all too hung up on media and social networking?

When I initially read the synopsis of this book I knew I wanted to read it.  After all, social media is HUGE, and as much as I love being able to Tweet something funny, post a status update on Facebook of where I am having dinner and with who, and texting my friend to meet me at the gym… it also scares me a bit too…. how much is TMI?  How desensitized are we becoming when everything and anything is fair game to post for the world to see?

This Beautiful Life started slow for me… I picked it up. I put it down.  I picked it up again.  The beginning was confusing, didn’t seem to flow and I found myself back tracking to fully understand who these two kids were, why would you name your kid Coco and was she adopted?  Did I miss that, oh no – here it is, further in. 

And then suddenly, I broke through the books barriers and I was in.  I followed Jake to the party, I seen what happened… I understood what happened… and I was with him when he got the email.  I even understood why he passes it on… really what 15 year old boy wouldn’t, even if it was for a second opinion from a friend?

For the most part I liked the book and it felt real to me.  The few things that stood out that caused me trouble were occasionally it seemed like the narration wondered off into an over described scene that didn’t flow or an odd parental flashback, and I really never felt Coco was a developed character so not really sure why she was there.  At times, I forgot about her as the story mainly centers around Jake and his parents.

I feel the book had wonderful potential and hits on an all to real subject.  In fact there is a line on page 112 that really made me think..

“Is there an operative shame factor?  Or has the internet killed all that?  I mean, if everything that’s private goes public, is it still humiliating?”

The ending wrapped up suddenly and quickly.  This is a book I will think on for awhile, but I dont have a strong feeling on it now, one way or another.  There are parts I thought were extremely well done, and other parts that dont seem complete.

Amazon Review

Goodreads Rating

Thank you to TLC Book Tours for allowing to explore This Beautiful Life

Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)12 Comments

*This review may contain possible unintentional spoilers to the first book, Delirium.

pandemonium is set six months after the first book in this trilogy, Delirium.  In a brief recap, Lena was due to receive her procedure that eliminates deliria (feelings of love).  Living in a controlled Dystopian society, the government believes that deliria (love) is just messy and people are better off with out it  When Lena meets Alex, a boy her own age who had managed to avoid having the procedure done, Lena starts to have second thoughts and a plan is made to escape with Alex.

Now, six months later, pandemonium opens with Lena having survived (barely) to make it to the Wild’s where a small community has formed of those who have not had “the cure”.  Outcasts, Intruders as they are called.  Lena now has to learn to live in a very different manner and it is going to take all her strength and determination to make a go at this new type of life. 

Thrown back and forth between this new world, and the one she came from Lena feels she is living a double life…. which however holds the real Lena’s heart?

Lauren Oliver and I in New York in 2010 (and bonus sssqqquuueeee for Lauren mentioning the Javits Center many times in Pandemonium, which is where BEA is held!)

Ahhh…. pandemonium how I have waited for you!  It has been almost a year since I had plunged head first into Delirium which left me with a huge cliffhanger that I wanted to know what would happen next!  Pandemonium did not disappoint, taking off right from where Delirium left off I learned quickly that author Lauren Oliver has no problem making the hard choices when it comes to what characters will carry on.  Shocked at first (but pleasantly so) by the direction that the book went… I found the more I read I read, the harder it was to put down. 

Written in clever alternating chapters of then and now, you read this book in two different times, Lena’s time in the Wild’s from day one, and then an alternate later time where Lena…. well, you will just have to read that yourself.  😀

Highly enjoyable and oh snap if it does not leave me with my mouth hanging open and a smack to the head…. now I have to wait for that third book! 

I do have some thoughts I want to share, so yup… I have fueled up and rolled out the Spoiler Button for those who have read this book and want to discuss it further, because…. I do want to talk about it. 🙂

Amazon Rating

Goodreads Review

I purchased this book from Amazon.com

February Recap

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)19 Comments

February sailed by didn’t it?  With the nice numbers I put up in my January recap, I have to admit I was curious to see where I would land for February.  February just felt off…. I felt too busy to read much and too tired to read in the free time I did have.  Then I gave up and returned quite a few audio books that I didn’t get into…. total DNF.

So…. how did it line up?

I added 12 books to my 16 in January (Thank God for audio…. seriously!) but added only three new states to the Where Are You Reading Challenge… ugh… already duplicating states!  😯  I added no reads outside of the United States.

Of those 12, 6 were audio books.  Busy lives people – I am telling you, audio is the fix you need!  😀

2 books into the ebook challenge, sticking with my goal of reading all book club books this year on my Nook… 2 for 2 😀

No progress made on the Dystopia challenge but I am craving the genre…. luckily Pandemonium sits on my kitchen table right now… hopefully being picked up this week.

No progress here either… and looking at this list again, I need to get a move on it as there are some great reads on here that have been on my shelf too long!

For the year I am at 4,587 pages and audio equals 5 days and 38 minutes which sounds scary…. like book coma scary, but remember that is mostly active audio time as in house cleaning, getting ready in the morning, cooking, and drive time. 

While February this year was down from last February by 4 books. 

SO how did your February come out?