December Reads

winterHappy New Year, everyone! Some of you may have noticed that I took some time off for the holidays, but I’m thrilled to be back in the new year! In December, I accomplished almost all of my reading goals! I refrained from buying myself any books, I finished reading the two books I started much earlier in the year, I read A Christmas Carol (although I didn’t end up discussing it as part of the read-along, as I had planned to), and I came very close to sticking to my goal of not reading any “new” books (front list/library books). However, my requested copy of Quiet came in from the library, and I started reading it after Christmas. The book’s due date and the amount of reading I have scheduled for January kept me from waiting. I have no regrets, though; I’m loving Quiet so far!

Books read
The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion
Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (re-read)
Babylon Revisited and Other Stories – F. Scott Fitzgerald (started in February)
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
The Love of a Good Woman – Alice Munro
Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde (started in May)

Books in progress
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking – Susan Cain

Pages read
This month: 1,225
Year to date: 18,025

Books read YTD
Completed: 55
Progress toward 50 book goal: Completed!

Books added to my collection
Gifts
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe – Bill Bryson
A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France – Caroline Moorehead
Review copies
Portrait Inside My Head – Phillip Lopate

January plans

Toward the end of January, I will reach my one-year blogoversary! I’m so excited to be reaching this milestone, and I’m really happy I decided to keep blogging after the social media marketing class I created this blog for ended.

As far as reading plans go, I typically like to keep it loose and read whatever I feel like, but in January I have two books scheduled! I will be re-reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood with Rebecca of Love at First Book, and I can’t wait for our discussions! I will also be participating in my first blog tour with TLC Book Tours this month, which I’m pretty excited about.

What did you read in December? Any plans for January?

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16 thoughts on “December Reads

    • It was a good month! I use a spread-sheet to keep track of the pages. It doesn’t always work perfectly, though; the number of pages of all of the months added up was different from the end-of-year page count! Oops!

      • Oops, lol. Well, I hope it was close! I’m going to *try* to really keep track this year by using Goodreads. I just found a page count thingy in the stats section :)

        • Wow, I didn’t even know Goodreads had a stats section until now! I prefer to track pages manually, just because sometimes the page count is inaccurate for my edition or includes indexes/non-book things, and I’m anal :P

  1. Happy new year!

    I heard about Quiet, I plan to read it after I get done with mine :p

    I’m currently reading The Alchemy of Stone and The Idea of America :D

  2. Happy New Year, and congratulations on your blogoversary! I continue to enjoy reading your posts. In December I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey, which I found an almost unbearable slog [I recall this from high school but don't remember my impressions then]. Ended the month with Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver — the first book of hers that I’ve read — and loved it! Can’t wait to hear my book club buddies’ thoughts!

    • Thanks Nancy! I don’t know anything about The Bridge of San Luis Rey, but it’s a shame that it was a slog :( I’ve been meaning to read Barbara Kingsolver, so I’m glad to hear you loved Prodigal Summer!

  3. Happy New Year, Leah! I hope you celebrated all the holidays with your beloved ones.

    It always amazes me how much (and the quality of what) you read. We’ve missed you around, at least I personally did, a lot.

    Hope 2013 brings you all you want, need and long for :)

    • Thanks Elena. I’m so looking forward to getting back into the groove of things — both writing for my blog and reading others.

      I think 2013′s going to be a good year :) I hope it is for you as well!

  4. It sounds like you had a great month of reading! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on Quiet–I think I’m going to look for that at the library myself. I didn’t get much read in December, but I have a fun January planned reading children’s classic literature–both revisiting old favorites and reading new-to-me books. Happy New Year and enjoy the January reading!

    • Quiet is so validating! I really can’t wait to review it once I finish reading.

      Your January plans sound like so much fun! There are tons of children’s classics that I haven’t read or would like to revisit; but I never think to carve out the time to read them.

      Happy New Year!

  5. Soooooo interested to hear your Quiet review. I’m a talker, never ever stop. So this book sounds like something I SHOULD read. Not that it will make me stop talking but it might give me more insight into introverts and make me more aware of my smothering them with words.

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