Ranty Roundup – February

So… It’s 9 days into March, and here I am, posting my summary for the previous month! Ha. I’ve got an extremely busy few months ahead of me, and I probably won’t be too active on the blog until May, but I will continue to abuse the service that is twitter, follow me @bookybecksa and I’ll follow back.

I only read two books in March, The Innocent by Sean Black and Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. I can’t choose a favourite because I loved BOTH! I’ll be posting a review of Agnes in the next week or so, hopefully. It’s on my Classics Club Challenge list, so I really do need to review.

February was also the month of the #BBAW, which I loved participating in! I just wish I had more time/energy/resources/foresight to actually participate more. It was a great community event, and I really do hope that the organizers make it happen again next year. I met many new blogging friends and followed SO many new people on twitter who are constantly opening my reading horizons.

I also attempted to start reading Ulysses – but then realised that reading such a challenging book (I could only tackle it in five minute moments before I would get frustrated) during uni semester is probably not the best idea.

March is going to be focused primarily on fun, genre reads. I am going to lowkey participate in the #slaythatseries which runs from March 13 – March 20. I’ll post a TBR for that readathon a day or two before it hits us!

Like usual, I will tackle a classic this month – I missed the official pick for the classics club spin, but as I have not seen which number won, I will post my list today and then check out what spun up. A little naughty, but the classics club spin is one of my favourite bookish events, so I don’t wanna miss out!

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Books Read in February – 2

Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte – 4 stars
The Innocent – Sean Black – 4 stars.

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Book Reviews in February

None! (such a naughty book reviewer!)

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Challenge progress

Read my Books Challenge

Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte

1 book read in February / 2 in 2016

Classic a Month Challenge & Classics Club

Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte – Review to come

Series a Month

Did not participate in Series a month during February.

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March TBR

One Hit – Jack Coughlin and Donald A. Davis
Promise – Tony Cavanaugh
Fire Point – Sean Black
State of Emergency – Andy McNab
Off the Grid – C.J. Box
First Response – Stephen Leather
Classic for the classics club

My Goal for the month will be to read 5-6 books.

Ranty Roundup – January

January was a strange reading month for me – it started off so strong, but then there was a period of about 14 days that I didn’t read anything. Not a single page. The month started off with a very successful Bout of Books readathon, in which I hosted a challenge and did a significant amount of reading. You can read my wrap of of that here.

A friend and I then drove to South Gippsland in Victoria (about a 13 hour drive) to go to a music festival. It was a camping festival and we did quite a bit of drinking and meeting new and wonderful people. We saw some of our favourite bands, like Parkway Drive, Stray from the Path, Confession and Neck Deep. Needless to say, I didn’t get to read a single word. Normally I would read while my friend drove, but I did most of the driving and we talked so much. It was just so nice to be able to have a pressure free weekend and be able to catch up with a good friend.

Anyway, onto more bookish things – my favourite book of January was without doubt Dispatches by Michael Herr. It was my classics club spin, and I had DNF’d it a couple of years ago when I just wasn’t in the mood for nonfic. It just shows that I am such a mood reader that something I DNF’d could then become a favourite after a couple of years. My other reads for the month were not spectacular, and I was quite disappointed with Dead Wake by Erik Larson, because I had such high hopes and expectations.

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Books read in January – 7

Birthdays for the Dead – Stuart MacBride – 3 stars

Dead Wake – Erik Larson – 3 stars

The Devil’s Bounty – Sean Black – 3 stars

The Business of Dying – Simon Kernick – 4 stars

A Good Day to Die – Simon Kernick – 3 stars

Dispatches – Michael Herr – 5 stars

The Payback – Simon Kernick – 3 stars

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Book Reviews

Dead Wake – Larson

In The Cold Dark Ground – MacBride

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

Dispatches – Herr

Review Spree – Lynn, Black & Kava

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Challenge progress

Read my Books Challenge

The Business of Dying by Simon Kernick

1 book read in January / 1 in 2016

Classic a Month Challenge & Classics Club

Dispatches by Michael Herr – Reviewed

Series a Month

Dennis Milne series by Simon Kernick – read 3/3 books.

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February TBR

 

I’m not going to try and complete a series in February, rather I am going to focus on my steadily growing netgalley pile and clear my backlog. Currently I have 5 on my shelf that need to be read. My goal will be to read 4 of them at least.

I’ve also got quite a few books from the library that need attention, plus my monthly classic. So the following is my tentative TBR for Feb – however I’m not really expecting to read this whole list – maybe five or six from this list.

The Martian – Andy Weir

The Light Between Oceans – M.L. Stedman

The Innocent – Sean Black

One Hit – Jack Coughlin

The Wrecking Crew – Taylor Zajonc

Youngblood – Matt Gallagher

Islamism – Tarek Osman

Red Line – Brian Thiem

Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte

I am so so excited that I am hosting a readathon for Agnes Grey, it’s the first time I have ever hosted one, so I am so grateful to have people to share this experience with. If you want to be involved, feel free to sign up – it’s still early days!

2016 Read My Books Challenge

I’m taking part in the 2016 Read My Books Challenge hosted by Maren at The Worn Bookmark. The goal of the challenge is to spend 2016 reading our own books. If you have heaps of books that you already own and want to read some – come and join us! It is super low pressure and you set your own goals.

I haven’t set a goal of a specific number of books – because I’m a compulsive shopper who thinks that by reading a book means I can buy another book because I am contributing to the challenge by reading. To combat the book buying I have set the following goals:

By the end of 2016 my to read bookshelf will consist of (at maximum):

10 Novels (Currently 25)

5 Classics (Currently 17)

2 Nonfiction (Currently 4)

That is a current goal of 29 books. However, as I will most likely get more books over the Christmas period, and buy a couple of new releases during the year, It will mean I will read more than 29 books. I’m going to update the count at the end of each month, in my Ranty Roundup