Nickelini's Books OFF the Shelf in 2011

Fifty books was a reasonable challenge in 2010, so I'm going to make it my goal again in 2011. I hope I actually read more, but sometimes life has a way of changing my plans.

I always comment on the books I read, so if you're interested, go to my ClubRead thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/104427

Books have a way of waiting until you are ready for them, don't they? Good luck with your challenge!

I just realized that I haven't visited my own thread since the middle of December. Anyway, I've read three books from my TBR pile so far this month:

1. Mumu, Turgenev (audiobook)
2. Lullabies for Little Criminals, O'Neill (audiobook)
3. The Blind Assassin, Atwood

Reviews are at: http://www.librarything.com/topic/104427

I was going to thank you for not posting enticing reviews, when I remembered that you do, and that I read them, they're just elsewhere.

One more to finish off January:

4. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

Review at my ClubRead thread, link in #3 above.

I won't be making a lot of progress in February, as I'm sure Nicholas Nickleby will take up most of my reading time this month.

Didn't do so well in February. I'm still working my way through Nicholas Nickleby, and hope to finish in March! But I did manage to add two to the list:

5. My Stroke of Insight, Jill Bolte Taylor
6. February, Lisa Moore

Comments at my ClubRead thread (see #3 for link)

As I was lurking by, one day, in the merry merry month of February, I noticed you'd just read...My Stroke of Insight which I think is an awesome book. What did you think?

Maggie - my full comments are at post #87 at my Club Read thread ( http://www.librarything.com/topic/104427). I'm glad I read it--the part where she describes her stroke and the first few days afterward was fascinating, but the rest of it didn't impress me. Still, it was a worthwhile read. The others in my book club felt about the same way.

I only managed to get three off my shelf in March:

Nicholas Nickleby
We Were the Mulvaneys
The Bishop's Man

(comments at my ClubRead thread)

In your defense, they were a bit thicker than the ordinary book.

Most of April was taken up reading a huge ER book, so I only got to:

10. Zero Gravity
11. the House of Doctor Dee

No touchstones today.

Congrats on reading the Huge book. I know the author is grateful.

Oops, I forgot to post my May progress. Here it is:

12. Funny Boy, Shyam Selvadurai
13. Bone China, Roma Tearne
14. Sultana's Dream, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
15. Helpless, Barbara Gowdy

I recommend all of these. Full comments on each are at my ClubRead thread (link in post #3, above).

Three more in June:

16. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk (this took me months and months to read--it was my car book that I pulled out when waiting for my kids)
17. Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (read for my book club)
18. Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood

I've been so busy this summer that I've forgotten about updating this thread. Now that it looks like fall is finally here, I'll play catch up.

For July, August & September, I pulled these out of Mnt. TBR:

19. The Master, Colm Toibin
20. One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
21. The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon
22. Portrait in Sepia, Isabel Allende
23. What to Eat, Marion Nestle
24. Possession, AS Byatt

Onward . . . unless I get reading, I'm afraid I'm going to fall far short of my goal of 50 books this year. Oops.

I did better with reading off my shelf in October:

25. Dracula
26. Haunting of Hill House
27. The Graveyard Book
28. Unbearable Lightness: a Story of Loss and Gain
29. The Woman in Black

I hope I can read 5 more in November.

I hope so too - I'll have to head over to your Club Read thread for your thoughts on Dracula and The Woman in Black. I'm starting Drac today, and TWiB is up very very soon. You can read 5 more in November for sure!

I just realized we're half-way through December and I haven't recorded my progress in November:

30. The Dark, John McGahern
31. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy
32. The Virginia Woolf Writers' Workshop, Danell Jones

It's clear I won't reach my goal of 50 books, but that's okay.

And to wrap up the year . . .

33. Black Dogs, Ian McEwan
34. Places I Never Meant to Be, edited by Judy Blume
35. The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf
36. A Passion for Narrative, Jack Hodgins

So I didn't make my goal of 50 books this year, but that's okay. First, the number was arbitrary, and second and more important--in 2011 I focused on reading the books in my TBR that I'd been avoiding due to their "biggness." Either number of pages, physical size, or density of language. Because of this project, I read fewer books overall.

In 2012 one of my projects is to read one very old TBR book each month. It's interesting to me how books can languish for years in my TBR, and I'm pretty sure that my tastes have changed and I'll never want to read them--but then something makes me pick one up and I'm often very pleasantly surprised. For example, this month I read Places I Never Meant to Be, which I've had for about 8 years, and have never really been interested in, but I knew one day I might be--well, all of a sudden I wanted to read it, and I loved it! Which makes me glad I do have such a big TBR pile!