Year 5: An Update (And Giveaway!)

 

I am 35 years old today, marking my halfway point through this decade of my life. Starting tomorrow, I'll be closer to 40 than 30. It's also the halfway point of my challenge to myself to read 500 books, the genesis of this blog. When I turned 30, I set some goals for myself for the next decade. One of those goals was to read at least 50 books per year, or 500 total, so I started the blog a couple months later to hold myself accountable and have a place to talk about all those books! Since my reading years begin and end on my birthday, I like to do a check-in post every year to look back on the year that was, both in books and life. Without further ado:

In Reading

• Books read (this year): 76. While very comfortably north of my 50 book goal, this is actually my lowest yearly book total since I started the blog. I've generally trended downward every year, with a very small bump up between years two and three. I think this is mostly a function, this year, of the struggle I had to read during the first few months of a pandemic.
  
• Books read (total): 421. I am now far, far beyond my goal number for this point, which would have been 250, and I could realistically finish out the 500 within the next year (though I suspect I won't).
• Male/Female Authors: This year I read 41 books by male authors and 35 books by female authors. This is fairly close to an even split, and a recent stretch of mostly-male authors knocked it a little off-kilter.
• Most Read Genres: This year's split between fiction and nonfiction is almost identical to last year's: I read 53 fiction books and 23 nonfiction books, which puts my ratio below 3:1, where I aim for it to be, but above 4:1 at least. My most-read subgenres for fiction were contemporary and historical (which is normal for me) and for nonfiction were history and memoir. I'm a bit surprised at the latter, as I wouldn't describe memoir as an especially favorite genre of mine.
  
• Kindle/Hard Copy: This year I read 54 books in hard copy (either paperback or hardcover), and 22 books on my Kindle. I aim to be fairly even, but I really do just prefer hard copy books. I shop overwhelmingly secondhand, and the ones that I finish that I don't love end up in Little Free Libraries, so it doesn't feel wasteful or anything. I would probably read even more hard copies if I had the space to store them!
  

In Life

• I went to Skate America: I LOVE figure skating, but had never seen a live competition before. Well, they had the 2019 edition of this first event on the Grand Prix calendar in Las Vegas, so my best friend Crystal joined me! I was reading: Revolutionary Road (review to come)
• I went to New York City with my mom: My mom has always liked to take a special trip during the holidays, and this year she asked me to join her in New York City for a long weekend! I hadn't been for a few years, so I made the cross-country journey and we had a lovely time exploring the city and seeing Moulin Rouge on Broadway! I was reading: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling (review to come)
• I went to Newport Beach, California: My work retreat was to Orange County, California, and it was lovely to have a weekend away where I got to put my feet into the ocean. I had one more plane trip to come, at the very of January for meetings in Las Vegas, but this was my last normal trip. I was reading: Perfume (review to come)
• My mom came to Reno to visit: My mom's birthday is at the end of February, and her present to herself was a trip out West to visit people she loves. Obviously that includes me so she stayed in Reno for a few days, and I'm glad she did because otherwise it would have been even longer since I'd gotten to see my mom after things shut down. I was reading: A Visit From the Goon Squad (review to come)
• The country shut down: I'm dating this from the day after the NBA postponed the Utah-Oklahoma City game because of COVID-19. Obviously the Seattle and San Francisco outbreaks had started before this, and I think the news that Tom Hanks had contracted the virus came shortly before, but when it stopped sports it felt REAL. I was reading: Lost Children Archive (review to come)
• My sister's baby shower: The first time I stepped foot on a plane since January was in late September, which was a bizarre experience, because I usually travel every few months and usually go to Michigan at least once per year. This marked 14 months between trips, but I definitely had to make this one happen, as my little sister is pregnant and I wouldn't have missed her baby shower for the world. I was reading: Naked (review to come)
  

The Giveaway

Every year, I give away a copy of the book I loved the most out of the ones I've reviewed on the blog over the past 12 months. I reviewed some wonderful books this year, but the one that captured my heart most of all was the lyrical, lovely Exit West. If you haven't read it, and would like to, here's your chance! Just enter via the Rafflecopter below during the next week and this book could be yours! Apologies to my international friends, but this giveaway is US-only. a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Year 5: An Update (And Giveaway!)

A Month In The Life: September 2020

A more exciting month than usual: I left Reno for the first time since January and got back yesterday! I spent a week in Michigan after not having been on an airplane in eight months to celebrate an important family event and decided that since I'm not exactly going to make tons of use of my vacation time anytime soon, I might as well make a whole trip of it. I mostly felt pretty safe, but I am watching myself like a hawk for any signs of the virus after air travel. And, of course, I read books!


In Books...

• Mother Daughter Widow Wife: This is an interesting book that provoked a lot of thought. It is centered around three women: Lizzie, a young graduate fellow in psychology doing research with a renowned psychiatrist, Wendy Doe, their subject who is in a fugue state with no memory of her life, and then, in a second timeline, Alice, Wendy's daughter, who comes to Lizzie looking for answers. It's been marketed as a mystery/suspense book, and while there are those elements there, it's really more a work of literary fiction dealing with questions of construction of identity. It's good, but not quite great. 
• Yakuza Moon: If you are looking for a memoir with more information about the yakuza, like I was, this one by a daughter of a yakuza member is unlikely to be what you're seeking. Shoko's father leaves the life when she's still quite young, and her book covers mostly her teens and twenties. Her life was harrowing and there are about a million content warnings here: drug abuse, sexual violence, physical abuse, disordered eating. I don't know if it was the writing or the translation, but there is a sense of remove that made it hard to connect much with Shoko or her story. 
• The Human Stain: I'd never read Philip Roth before, but had gotten the idea he was pretty fixated on sex. This is very accurate. There is merit in this book: Roth's prose is strong, and the story's themes of freedom and the creation of the self are powerful. But I mostly found it overwrought and much too focused on Men Having Feelings About Being Men (which is, of course, very tied up with sex, in this case between a former professor in his 70s and an illiterate cleaning woman in her mid30s). I wonder how I might have felt about this book even five years ago, before the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements really took off. Reading it now felt very cringey from a racial and sexual politics standpoint.
• The Good Soldier: This book traces the relationship between two couples in pre-World War I Europe. John and Florence are wealthy Americans who meet Edward and Leonora at a health spa in Germany, which Florence and Edward visiting because of heart conditions, and the quartet become fast friends. John narrates the story, and it quickly becomes clear that he is highly unreliable and that the relationships of the characters are much complicated, and much darker than they might have initially seemed. 
• The Memory Keeper's Daughter: I have several friends who thought highly of this book, so I am willing to concede that my issues with it are primarily from the "me" side rather than "the book" side. As a reader, I can be very hit and miss with domestic dramas, which I think are often nakedly emotionally manipulative in a way I don't enjoy. This one, about a family forever changed when a father makes the decision to give away his newborn daughter because of his fear that her Down's Syndrome will leave her susceptible to the heart condition that killed his own sister as a child, tried too obviously to tug my heartstrings and did nothing special with prose or characterization to redeem it. 
• Fifth Avenue, 5 AM: Apart from the horrifying Mr. Yunioshi bits, Breakfast at Tiffany's is a wonderful movie. If you've ever wanted to learn more about how it got made, from the original Truman Capote novella from it being optioned and cast and securing a writer and director, to the actual shooting, this book will be informative and engaging. It's told in little pieces, no more than a few pages at a time, and while it's fun to read it's not very substantial. 
• Highfire: I'd read the first few of Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books quite a long time ago, and remembered them as enjoyable so thought I would try out his first fantasy for adults, about possibly the last dragon, who is named Vern and lives in the bayou in Louisiana and loves his La-Z-Boy recliner. It did not have the same charm as the Artemis Fowl books...it's almost as if, being free to use swear words and talk about genitals for the first time in his fiction, he went overboard. I love swearing, but it was a little much. I never really got invested in the characters.
  
• Naked: Of the three of his collections I have read, this was the weakest for me. Of course, it was still funny and enjoyable to read, Sedaris is a great writer and story-teller. But the moments of real brilliance felt fewer and further between, and some of the stories did nothing for me.
  

In Life...

• I went to Michigan: It had been 14 months since I went to Michigan, which is unusual...I usually try to go at least once a year, if not twice. But though I was not especially inclined to travel yet, my little sister's baby shower was last weekend and obviously that's mandatory. I got to celebrate my pending baby nephew and spend time with my mom, my sister, my dad, and my friends, which was wonderful.
  

 

One Thing:

After months and months of mask-wearing, I've found a favorite variety: Breathe in Peace masks are USA made, easily adjustable, and have a piece that goes over the nose so it fits snugly but comfortably. And they're cotton, so you can just chuck them in the washer and dryer when they need to be cleaned and you're done!

Gratuitous Pug Picture: 

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A Month In The Life: September 2020

Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2020 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is one of my favorite TTT topics: seasonal to-be-read lists! I've got a good mix coming up...a little humor, a little romance, a little history, a little biography. I think keeping my reading switched up helps keep me out of ruts!

Naked: How can one say no to David Sedaris essays? I certainly can't.

Adaptation: I've heard good things about Malinda Lo, and a fast-paced YA sci-fi dystopia will be a nice mental snack. 

Exhalation: I don't love short stories as a general rule, but this is the book club pick for October so it's on my list.

Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story: Obviously Michael is a very controversial figure, and this book was published well before the Leaving Neverland specials, but there is a lot I don't know about his actual life that I would like to.

A Bollywood Affair: I don't read much romance, but I do love Bollywood movies and have often enjoyed books by Indian authors so this seems like something I'll like!

His Only Wife: I won a copy of this debut contemporary fiction in a giveaway and am really excited to dive into it! I feel like I've read several books by Nigerian authors and I can't remember one I've read by an author from Ghana so I'm looking forward to branching out a bit.

The White Princess: My beloved Plantagenet/Tudor series trash!

Looking for Alaska: I've never read John Green before! I remember the buzz, and then the backlash, and I'm curious to see how I respond to his work.

Lazy B: Sandra Day O'Connor is one of my all-time idols, and this is her memoir about her childhood experiences on her family's Arizona ranch, which I think I'll appreciate more having lived in the West for nearly a decade now.

George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm: Much of my interest in the World Wars is personality rather than battle-based, so this look at World War I through the relationships between three royal cousins: George V of England, Nicholas II of Russia, and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany is EXTREMELY on-point for me.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books On My Fall 2020 TBR