How is your reading going this year?

We are now 3/4 of the way through the year.
What sort of reading year have you had?
If you set yourself a target, how is it going?
What have been your favourite books or authors this year?
Any you would rather you hadn't read?

I've had an excellent year. I set a goal of 255 books and I just finished book #199 and have 2 others that are more than half done...so soon will have 201 with the group read coming up making 203 that will be done within the week. Of those I had 31...5 star books with one that I tried to give 10 stars...The House on Cold Hill by Peter James. Lots of 4.5 to 3.5 books....and happily very few 2 star and less. There was one that I didn't give any stars at all.... Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure by Sarah McDonald. It's the only one that i felt I wasted time reading. I only finished it because it fit a challenge.

Favorites...I would have to say
The House on Cold Hill
The Ice Twins by S.K. Tremayne
No Second Chance by Harlan Coben
The Corners of The Globe by Robert Goddard
What Lies Behind by J.T. Ellison
Dead Man's Grip by Peter James - or just about any of the Roy Grace series
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
Entry Island by Peter May
Field of Graves by J.T. Ellison
My Sister's Grave by Robert Dugoni
The Cyclops Imitative by David Wellington
The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen
Mariana by Susanna Kearsley
Ghost Song by Sarah Rayne
Ice Hunt by James Rollins
Nightwatching by John Zunski
Reckless Creed by Alex Kava

Read 110 of 150:

63 - 5 stars
4 - 4.5 stars
1 - 4.25 stars
33 - 4 stars
1 - 3.5 stars
7 - 3 stars
1 - 1 star - Tenth of December by George Saunders - waste of my time!

Favorites:
All Ann Cleeves books
All Elly Griffiths books
The Clifton Chronicles by Jeffrey Archer
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas
James Maxted Trilogy by Robert Goddard
Lady of Hay
No Safe House
A Time To Kill
City of Thieves
The Darkest Hour
The British Lion
Far From True
No One Knows
The Order of the Sanguines Series
The Six Sacred Stones
The Five Greatest Warriors
Those Who Wish Me Dead
The Templar Legacy
Library of The Dead
Fool Me Once
The Kept Woman
The Last Mile
A Great Reckoning
All The Light We Cannot See
The Light Between Oceans
Me Before You
Thrice The Brinded Cat Hath Mew'd

>2 Carol420: Holy Cow! A book that got no stars!
A great year so far! Agree with a lot of your great books.

>3 EadieB: 63 5 star books, wow, did you hear me I said WOW!

So far we all seem to have a book we shouldn't have read! But at least your's got a star!
Once again som great books on n this list.

>5 Andrew-theQM:
I've been concentrating on reading really good books (hence a lot of 5 stars). I mark down the books that all of you (Carol, Lynda and you) gave 5 stars to and concentrate on reading those.

>6 EadieB: Sounds like a great plan, and it is definitely working for you.

>7 Andrew-theQM:
I also have some 5 star books in my library that I have set aside to read, so have plenty of good books ready to read but need the time to get to them. Definitely a good problem though.

Since arriving at Leafmarks and Librarything I give a lot less 5s with the capacity to give half stars. 4.5 stars these days is an excellent rating. Now has to be incredibly special to get a 5.

>9 Andrew-theQM:
I'm an easier marker. If I like it a lot, I'll give it 5 stars.

>10 EadieB: I think I've possibly been a very tough marker this year. It has been an excellent reading year but only given 19 Five Stars and that is out of 130 books read.

>11 Andrew-theQM:
How many 4.5 stars do you have?

>12 EadieB: 49 4 1/2 stars. So I have 68 4 1/2 star books or higher and you have 67, and one 4.25.

>13 Andrew-theQM:
Looks like we both had some great reads!

>12 EadieB: How's that for both having 68 books we gave more than 4 stars to. When I've got time I'all look to see how many of them were group reads.

>15 Andrew-theQM:
I gave 4.25, 4.5 or 5 stars to 20 of our group reads out of 27 total.

>16 EadieB: 18 for me, and a number of four star ones.

>16 EadieB: 52% of the books I read were either 4.5 or 5 stars, but 67% of group reads were!

>18 Andrew-theQM:
62% of my books were 4.25, 4.5 or 5 stars, and 74% of my group reads were! Good percentages for both of us!

Also shows how group reads can improve the enjoyment of a book?!?

>20 Andrew-theQM:
I agree it helps in the enjoyment and we also get so much more out of everyone's input!

I've completed 115/144 of my 12x12 challenge so far. I have about 6 books in progress and will really have to buckle down. I have had my knee op pre-assessment and the op could be anytime in the next 8 weeks hopefully,so I really want to complete as many as possible before that as post op I know I will have a rough time for up to 2 months,and spend most of the time dazed and confused,so I want to do the harder and more serious stuff now! lol.
I am something like 40 books down on my usual total by this point in the year. I can rarely get to the library so I am reading most books online,and I never find that easy.,I get tired eyes very quickly so only read in short bursts,very unlike the days when I would read for 5 hours straight! :0(
I am of course a very severe rater,the vast majority of my books are 3 stars''I liked it''. I rarely give even 4 stars.My criterion for 4 stars is would I want to buy the book,or could I immediately sit down and reread it?
It hasnt been an outstanding year for me really,but I had a lot of serious and/or difficult classic SF reads,and have been distracted with real life issues.I did enjoy Enid Bagnold's excellent National Velvet and Darynda Jones Charley Davidson series has been great fun,but I am still looking for a great crime series with a lot of fun exciting reads that I could gobble up.May have to look out for new subgenres next year.

>22 dustydigger: Well done on the total you have got to Dusty. Given the issues you had over your husband's health and the impact of the Olympics on your reading this is a stunning total. I think I have similar criteria re 4 stars, it has to be a book I really enjoyed and would be happy to re-read or recommend to others. Five stars is used for my favourite books and are what I consider great reads.

At the end of September I had read 130 books out of a target of 150 which put me 18 books ahead of schedule. Yey me!
I also set an extra challenge of completing a 13 x 12 Challenge. I have finished one category and need to read another 26 books in 3 months so will now be very disappointed if I don't finish the challenge.

So many favourite books and series but these are my five star books:
The Blissfully Dead by Mark Edwards and Louise Voss
Thin Air by Ann Cleeves
The Corners of the Globe by Robert Goddard
Dead Man's Time by Peter James
Want You Dead by Peter James
To The Ends of The Earth by Robert Goddard
A Dying Fall by Elly Griffiths
No Second Chance by Harlan Coben
The Falls by Ian Rankin
The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
The Confessor by Daniel Silva
The Forgotten Holocaust by Scott Mariani
Edge of Eternity by Ken Follett
Nine Lives by Tom Barber
A Place Beyond Courage by Elizabeth Chadwick
The Martyr's Curse by Scott Mariani
Love You Dead by Peter James
A Storm of Swords: Part 2 Blood and Gold by George R R Martin
Song of the Skylark by Erica James
I must also give a notable mention to Jeffrey Archer's The Clifton Chronicles Series that consistently get 4.5 stars.

New Authors discovered this year that I am enjoying
Louise Voss and Mark Edwards (as a partnership)
Tom Barber
Steve Robinson
Danielle Ramsay
Daniel Leston
Rebecca Cantrell
Veronica Roth
Antonio Garrido
S J Watson
Sally Spencer
Jacqueline Winspear
Mo Hayder
Neil Gaiman
Elizabeth Chadwick.

Wow! Looking at this it's been a great reading year!

One I wish I hadn't read and won't be continuing the series, Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith.

>24 Andrew-theQM: Oh come on Andrew...I thought Gorky Park would be your absolute favorite:)

>25 Carol420: I know Carol such a shock, I do try to surprise people!

Think I gave that 1.5 stars.

>26 Andrew-theQM: That was half a star more than I gave it:) I think it has been the only group read that we all were put off by.

At the end of September I was at 150 books of which 14 got 5 stars (I'm a bit stingy with the highest rating - this goes only to books which are exceptional, a really good book will get a 4, a good book will get a 3)

Here's the stats:
5: 14 books - favorites so far The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen and Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist
4.5: 24 books
4: 51 books
3.5: 44 books
3: 14 books
below: 2 books - one of which was the Golden Buddha

Overall that gives me an average rating of 3.9 which is pretty good. Only 51 of these books were in the M&S bracket, 57 SF&F and the rest all sorts of books (nonfiction, 1001). A lot of audiobooks (55) and sequential art (39) (I struggle to find an adequate label, graphic novel does not seem to fit when the subject matter is non-fiction).

>20 Andrew-theQM: >21 EadieB:
Looking back I think i gave higher ratings to books due to the group reads. I've tried to correct that recently.

>27 Carol420: I agree Carol, the only other one I can think of that was close but was still a much better read was The Crooked House by Christobel Kent.

>28 sushicat: Looks like you had a good reading year too.

Oh my! I don't read anywhere near the number of books the rest of you do 😳.

I set my initial goal for 2016 at 26 thinking that one book every 2 weeks was doable but I am now on track for 52-55 for the year...mostly due to the M&S Group Reads and the Monthly Birthstone Challenge

>31 bhabeck:
How does the Monthly Birthstone Challenge work?

>32 EadieB: here's the link to the group on Goodreads

https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/181322-grab-a-book-play-booktivity

There's a November Birthstone challenge in the monthly challenge area

>33 bhabeck:
Very interesting! Thanks, brenda!

>34 EadieB: I've saved the posts throughout the year in case it's not continued so I can continue with it next year. I've been trying to use only books on Mt TBR to complete this challenge. 😀

>31 bhabeck: Fantastic result Brenda, more than twice your target. Pleased to see the Group Reads helped improve this!

>32 EadieB: We do the same challenge on Dusty's Treasure Trove group here. Tealady has done it for about two years now. I think the Goodreads one is just copied and pasted from that...which is okay. Why reinvent the wheel? :)

>37 Carol420:
That's interesting! I can't participate in too many challenges because it throws me off my monthly scheduled list.

It is copied and pasted (with her permission). I asked her if she would mind if I kept the post up there, since she was sticking mainly to Librarything. The Goodreads only members wanted to keep up with the challenge, too. She kindly said, "Yes."

>38 EadieB: I don't plan to read them for the challenge...just hope something fits:)

>39 jguidry: I didn't see anything wrong with the copy and paste...I would do it also. Was just saying that there wasn't any difference in the challenge except the location. If you do one you can just copy it to the other. Don't have to search down yet another book:)

>40 Carol420: I was just confirming that it was copied so people knew they were the same. But, I'm not going to take credit for Tealady's briliant, hard work. She deserves all the credit. :0)