October 2018 Chapter

Welcome to the Read.Write.Repeat. monthly wrap-up.  Every month, I give a quick overview of what books I read, the progress made on my reading goals, a few book-related links, and general blog news.  

October News 

Hello, world. If the late nature of this one monthly post is any indication, my life continues to be insanely busy. I'm struggling to balance. Reading has been a beautiful break stolen in short, quiet moments. I haven't read nearly as much as I wanted to this year, but I have enjoyed what I've read so much more than the past couple years. It's been so freeing to quit books I'm not enjoying or delete things from my TBR list with no regrets.

Books Reviewed

None! I'm still enjoying the break from doing this.

Books Read

1. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
   It took me months to get through this one, but I'm glad I did. It annoyed me how much of this story was about men.
2. Evolving in Monkey Town - Rachel Held Evans
   I'm surprised it took me this long to go back and read Evans' first work. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't as moving for me as her other books. 
3. An Everlasting Meal - Tamar Adler
   This is a fun and practical book about how to cook largely  without recipes. I took some good ideas from it.
4. Girls and Sex - Peggy Orenstein
   I read Cinderella Ate My Daughter and loved it. This is the natural continuation of that research, but it's much heavier. I probably shouldn't have read it the week of the Kavanaugh confirmation.
5. We Two - Gillian Gill
   I learned so much from this biography of Victoria and Albert. Mainly, that, despite our romanticization of their relationship, they were both pretty difficult people. 
6. The Monsters of Templeton - Lauren Groff
   I love Lauren Groff's writing and this was no exception. She's a writer's writer.
7. Wildcard - Marie Lu
   This was fun, but not nearly the page-turned for me that the first book was. I appreciate that it's just two books in the series and she didn't pull it out into a third.
8. The Panem Companion - V. Arrow
   We binge-watched The Hunger Games movies over our anniversary weekend and it put me back in the thesis-research mindset. I've read (and written) a lot of analyzing of the series. This is among the weaker installations in that genre, but it's still a fun read because of how granular the author gets on some things. 
9. The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry - Kathleen Flinn
   A charming book about a woman's journey through Le Courdon Bleu. I loved every word.

Pages Read: 3,537

Favorite Book Read: I think I have to pick We Two. I'm such a sucker for royal history and it surprised me how very much I learned from this one. 

2018 Goals 

One of my goals this year is to read 3 specific books each month:

• 1 Faith-Centered or Philosophical Book 
  Evolving in Monkey Town - Rachel Held Evans
• 1 Political of Issue-Driven Book
  Girls and Sex - Peggy Orenstein
• 1 Book Written by a Minority Author
  Wildcard - Marie Lu

I also am trying to work my way through my TBR list. My goal is to get from 350 books on the list to 200. That means lowering that number by 13 in some form or fashion every month. Here's how that went this month:

• Books Read: 9
• Books Removed: 1
• Books Added: 6
• Total Count for the Month: -4
• Books Remaining on TBR: 234

I didn't have time this month to go through the list and do another culling. That kept my numbers down. Honestly, though, at this point, I've brought the list down by 116 books. Even if I don't take another book off the list this year (which I will), I'm proud of how much progress I've made. Especially since I didn't read as much as I expected to this year.  

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I'm really hoping that these last two years of the year bring some dedicated reading time for me. It's not looking promising - the holidays are busy - but I want it!