The Big Game's On Read-a-thon

I used to have to watch the Super Bowl for school, analyze and pick it apart. When I graduated I didn't really have the desire to watch it anymore. Football has never been my game. Baseball is my passion and always will be. And don't even get me started on the (mostly sexist) commercials. So today instead of checking out the big game I will be participating in Jenn's Bookshelves the Big Game's On Read-a-thon. I am not pre picking books to read or setting a goal. I just plan to enjoy some books from my (large) TBR pile. I am starting to read this morning so I will keep checking in throughout the day. Happy reading everybody!

10 am
The two books I am starting off with today are See How They Run by Ally Carter and Rosemary The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Kate Clifford Lawson. See How They Run is the second book in Carter's Embassy Row series. I always enjoy her YA books. She gives a lot of depth to her characters and I love the teennage spy/international intrigue/secret society elements in this series. I have always been fascinated with the Kennedy family and always saddened by the way Rosemary was treated so I definitely wanted to read Rosemary when I heard it was coming out. I am listening to that one on Audible while doing things around the house and cooking. I am planning to make some delicious chicken noodle soup for me and my mother in law to eat while my husband goes to his super bowl party.

11:30 am
I finished See How They Run which ended on a cliffhanger. I need to remember to stop reading her books until the next one is out! The next book I am reading is A Wilder Rose by Susan Witting Albert. It is a fictionalized account of Rose Wilder Lane's life but based off of her letters and diaries. I love all things Laura Ingalls Wilder (except the awful tv show) so I have been so excited to read this book. It also made me realize I still haven't read Pioneer Girl the annotated bibliography of Laura Ingalls Wilder so I went and grabbed it from Amazon with my birthday gift card. Thanks to Amazon Prime I will have it Tuesday. I am really excited. Ok going to settle I with A Wilder Rose and a cup of lavender chamomile tea!

7:00 pm

I just finished eating dinner and I am stuffed. It took me a couple of hours to make the soup but it was worth it in the end. It was delicious. I added too many noodles but I still enjoyed it. 

I am halfway done with A Wilder Rose. Currently I am reading about her time during the Great Depression. It is very sobering to read about how difficult it was with so many people losing their money, homes, jobs and a lot of people not even having food. The book says that the Little House books may never have been published if it wasn't for the Depression because Rose actually had time to write them since she wasn't getting that much work. I also found it interesting how much she seems to hate Roosevelt and all his programs. There is so much good stuff in this book as far as history goes. I also am interested in the relationship between Laura and Rose. The book is mainly based on the fact that some people think that Rose is the actual author of all the Little House books using only her mothers bare boned outlines. I have heard this before and have never known if it is fact or rumor. As soon as I finish this book I am going to investigate!

I listened to the Rosemary Kennedy book the whole time I was making the soup and it is just tragic. I like the way Kate Clifford Lawson talks about the way people with disabilities and mental illness were perceived at the time. I had no idea moron and idiot were used to categorize people and were medical terms. And interesting to hear how Joe Kennedy Sr. and Jr. initially thought Hitler's ideas were good. 

10:50 pm

I just finished A Wilder Rose. It was such a good book. If you aren't a huge Little House fan you probably won't enjoy it as much as I did.  But I loved it. The book seemed well researched with just a light dramatization. There is so much more to this book than the story about Laura and Rose and the writing of the Little House books. I loved the background information and the history and events surrounding the book. 

I am on chapter five of Rosemary. World War II has just started. Interesting how Joe Kennedy was a huge isolationist. It's sad how he put Rosemary's letter in the diplomatic pouch because he didn't want anyone to see how childish she wrote. 

I am starting Legend by Marie Lu as my last book of the night. I have had this one on my TBR list for awhile and I am looking forward to reading it. I love that the first chapter has gold writing. I am not sure if I have ever seen that in a book before. I will add a little wrap up tomorrow. 

Thankfully Reading Day 2

It has been a great day. It was far more relaxing than I anticipated. Instead of doing my cooking in one giant block I rationed it out over the day. I just took my last batch of pumpkin muffins out of the oven so I am officially done cooking. Of course I had to sample a muffin and they are delicious. Shhh don't tell. I finished Royal We and Nowhere But Here today. Loved Royal We. It was so good. The other book not so much but you can't win every one. I was listening to A Darker Shade of Magic while I cooked today and I am really getting into the story.

I am so excited to head to my parents tomorrow for our big family Thanksgiving. I love Thanksgiving and it is definitely my favorite holiday. We always have a great time laughing, eating and enjoying being together. I probably won't read at all tomorrow but that's ok. I hope everyone has a terrific Thanksgiving!

Thankfully Reading Day 1

I love fall and I love Thanksgiving. It is my favorite time of year. And the last few years I have really enjoyed participating in Thankfully Reading Weekend. I decided to start today since the weekend is going to be super busy for me. I am hoping to enjoy some good books!

10 am

I am starting out with finishing up two books I started reading last week but haven't had a chance to pick up lately Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas and A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab on audiobook. The audiobook will be useful this week as I cook and drive. Cheers to Thankfully Reading weekend! 

3 pm 

I have been enjoying a day of reading, going to the grocery store (twice), editing photos and making a delicious pork chop/potato crockpot dinner. I went off recipe so hopefully it turns out ok. The house is already starting to smell delicious! 

11 pm

Dinner turned out delicious if I do say so myself! I finished The Crown of Mindnight. The last sixty pages were amazing and the ending made me wish I had the next book. My next read is The Royal We by 

Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. I am about half way through and I am really loving it. 

More tomorrow! 

Checking In

Well I have been a failure at the blog this year! It has been a really busy year. I have mostly updated my reading progress on Instagram, Twitter and Goodreads but with Thankfully Reading coming up I decided to check in on the blog.

I have read lots of books so far this year. I have had good book luck as most of what I have read has been really great. I have also done a better job with putting a book away if I am not enjoying it. I am such a completist so that is really hard for me. But there are too many good books to keep reading bad ones! I have read 188 books so far this year. Of course this also includes books listened to.

I am doing well in my challenges. I have finished the What's In a Name challenge. I have far exceeded my Mount TBR goal of 12 books and am almost done with my 26 books challenge. I am still trucking away on the Century in Books challenge. It has definitely been a great reading year.

Thankfully Reading is one of my favorite parts of November. This is where you spend whatever time you can Thanksgiving weekend reading and relaxing instead of participating in the horror that is shopping. I hate shopping more than anything so this is perfect for me. This year I have overbooked myself on the weekend with photo sessions and a football game so I won't get in as much reading as I usually do. I plan on starting my Thankfully Reading on Tuesday which is earlier than the official start time of Thursday. 

I will let you know in my year end wrap up the books I read for each challenge and more on what my favorite books were in 2015.

A Century of Books Challenge

I was really excited to hear about the A Century of Books challenge on The Readers podcast. What an interesting idea. Basically you read 100 books one for each year. This is right up my alley. I figure it will take me a few years to complete the challenge but I am excited to do this. It will give me a chance to read books from different eras. I have decided to do the 100 books starting in 1915. I looked on Goodreads and wow there are so many good books from that year. I am excited to get started. I am just going to keep track of the books I read in this blog entry. I may every once in a while do a separate blog entry to update on books read or do some book reviews on the books I have read. Let me know in the comments what your favorite book is from each decade!

1915

1916

1917

1918

1919

1920

1921

1922

1923

1924

1925

1926

1927

1928

1929

1930

1931

1932

1933

1934

1935

1936

1937

1938

1939

1940

1941

1942

1943

1944

1945-- Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace

1946

1947

1948

1949-- Practically Seventeen by Rosamond du Jardin

1950

1951--The Mystery of the Fire Dragon by Carolyn Keene

1952

1953

1954

1955-- Beezus & Ramona by Beverly Cleary

1956-- Fifteen by Beverly Cleary

1957

1958

1959

1960

1961

1962

1963

1964

1965

1966

1967

1968-- Ramona The Pest by Beverly Cleary

1969

1970

1972

1973

1974

1975

1976-- Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice

1977

1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1983

1984-- Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns

1985

1986

1987

1988-- Debbie: My Life by Debbie Reynolds

1989

1990

1991

1992 -- Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

1993-- The Vicious Vet by M.C. Beaton

1994-- Agatha Raisin and the Potted Gardener by M.C. Beaton

1995--Agatha Raisin and the Walkers of Dembley by M.C. Beaton

1996--Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage

1997-- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling

1998--The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

1999-- Death Du Jour by Kathy Reichs

2000

2001--The Piano Shop on the Left Bank by Thad Carhart

2002

2003

2004-- The Deadly Dance by M.C. Beaton

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009-- Love Letters by Katie Fforde

2010

2011-- Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

2012-- Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

2013-- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

2014-- Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

2015--

2014 Wrap Up!

I love books and reading. There is nothing better than getting lost in a good book. No matter what is going on in your life you can always get distracted or cheer up with a book. 2014 has been a wonderful year for me in many ways but especially since I had a wonderful reading year.
I read 205 books in 2014 with a total of 68,442 pages. Technically not all of them were actually read but a lot were audiobooks so listened to. I am happiest with the fact that 152 of the books were library books. My goal was to check out more books from the library and not spend so much money on books. I also completed  a few challenges this year.

What's In A Name 7
I just finished this challenge today on the last day of the year! I read The Longest Winter: The Battle of the Bulge and the Epic Story of World War II's Most Decorated Platoon by Alex Kershaw to complete the a reference to time category. You can read about the other categories read in this post. Honestly this is a challenge I usually forget about and it just happens that I read books that fit into the categories. Hopefully next year I can purposely complete this challenge.

Thankful Reading
I had so much fun thankful reading this year. You can read all about it in here, here, here, here and here. I ended up completing five books and reading parts of two more for this challenge.

Empty Shelf Challenge
Jon Acuff challenged his followers to read more books in 2014. I will have to say this was the push I had to read more books than I have in the last few years. I have always been a huge reader but starting and owning my own business for the last few years had put reading on the back burner. I completed 211 books for this challenge as it started a little before the new year. I wasn't great about posting every book to the Empty Shelf Challenge Pinterest board but I tracked them all in Goodreads. Another great thing was discovering so many new books through the Pinterest board from what others were reading.

2015 Challenges
As of right now the challenges I am planning on participating in are
What's In a Name
2015 Mount TBR  (Pike Peak's Level-12 books)
Thankful Reading in November (of course).

Edited to add:
I have decided to do two more challenges in 2015: 26 Books and A Century Of Books.

It has been a wonderful 2014. Happy New Year and here's to a wonderful 2015! Thanks for reading!

Susan

Thankfully Reading Weekend 2014: Wrap Up Post

Well it was another fun Thankfully Reading Weekend. I wish I could have participated more the last two days. But family and sick pets take precedence over reading. Shocking I know!
I ended up reading five books in total and parts of two other books. Out of those there was one Nook book, two audiobooks, four print books and one library book. I read 1,844 pages.
I would say it was successful. I read books that have been on my physical TBR pile for awhile. I enjoyed everything I read. I do wish I could have participated more in the challenges and on Twitter but I just ran out of time. I am already looking forward to next year!