I’m writing this on a dark and rainy night, so it’s really starting to feel like autumn’s here (which I suppose it solidly is). September felt incredibly long, and like August, the books I read at the beginning feel like they were months ago – but let’s see what I remember.
Goodreads Challenge
In September I read 30 books, which is very good going for what felt like a slumpy month – it hardly compares to August’s 46 books, but I’ll take it! I wanted to let myself go a little slower this month and for the first two weeks I spent most of my spare time knitting and playing Pokemon, which I think gave me the mental space to come back to my TBR pile a little less stressed. That brings me up to 358 for the year, so I should hit my goal of 365 some time in October, and I’ll need to raise it again for the end of the year!
My Owned TBR
I only planned to lower my TBR by five books in September, from 365 to 360, and I managed that, though I did have to put a fair bit of effort in over this last weekend to do it. It was partly a slower reading month, and partly a really bumper month for bookpost – there are so many great books being published at the moment! For October, I’d really like to drop to 350 for a nice round number. A reduction of ten books should be doable if I keep my eye on the ball…
I did want to focus a bit on sequels that required rereads of earlier books, but I didn’t do a great job of it – I only read three sequels in the whole month, and I jumped into all of them without rereading book one (shout out to Mike Brooks, who included a great summary of The Black Coast in the front of The Splinter King). But I suppose that’s better than nothing, and it was really lovely to get back to some worlds I recognised. I’m going to try to make sure I finish at least one series in October, as an ongoing goal.
Physical Review Copies
Ten of the books I read were physical review copies, and I need to crack on with writing those reviews! A couple are up already, and one is written but I’m going to hold onto it until a month before publication.
Yearly Tally
Last year on October 1st, I started tracking the dates that new books came in so I could see how long things were staying on my TBR – I can’t believe it’s been a year already! I acquired 408 books in that year – a mix of ones I’ve bought, been given or lent by friends and family, or accepted for review – and only 141 of them are still on on the TBR, which means I read 65% of my new books in the same year they arrived. I’m actually fairly impressed by that! I didn’t keep track of books I acquired and then DNFed, so there’s probably a couple of dozen of those too.
I’m definitely going to keep tracking this year and try to do even better, as well as clearing that backlog!
Wrap Up
Least favourite: Wood Angel by Erin Bowman
Favourites: The Last Graduate by Naomi Novik; The Splinter King by Mike Brooks
Shortest: Magnificent Mabel and the Very Important Witch by Ruth Quayle
Longest: The Splinter King by Mike Brooks
How was your reading month? Leave me a comment below and let me know!
A Cat, A Book, and A Cup of Tea 