Hi and welcome to another monthly overview! I can’t believe the first month of the year is done and dusted already, if January is anything to go by, 2020 will fly by even faster than 2019 did!
I didn’t do a new year’s resolutions post, I contemplated doing one but I was lazy and before I knew it, it was the 20th and the resolutions ship had sailed. However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t keep any resolutions in mind. One was the blatantly obvious one, the one most of us make at least once a year: buy fewer books. Have I complied? Well… I have bought books, I won’t deny it, BUT only ones that were very high on my wish list, and suddenly on offer for 99p. (I mean, come on, I’m not made of steel!) I’d also resolved to request less on NetGalley, and be very picky about blog tours, as work will be very busy from March until August and I don’t want to have to worry about deadlines and reviewing obligations or force myself to write a review when I’m dead tired. So I try to stay away from NetGalley, but when I’m there to upload a review and I’m tempted to click on that request button, I force myself to take a step back and I ask myself: do I really REALLY want to read this, knowing that I will have to review it, and do I want to read this more than all the poor books that are on my teetering TBR piles? I’ve found that the answer is usually no, go figure! However, I may have requested two physical proofs from Titan Books (and got them too – that never ceases to amaze me), but one was on my wishlist and the other sounded fab too and they’re both so pretty! (Yes, I’m a total magpie, what of it?) And obviously I had to order the FairyLoot February box, it sounded so great and like I said, I’m not made of steel. I’ll try for some more moderation this month 😬
Another resolution was to keep track of my reading more. I made an Excel overview noting each book, graphic novel and audiobook, including the number of pages and the format (paper or eBook) or the listening time. I’m not a numbers person, but I am rather fond of statistics and I’m curious as to what my reading stats will tell me. Here is my January overview:
January
Novels: 4667 pages over 14 books & 4 novellas / short stories
Graphic novels: 459 pages over 3 graphic novels
Audiobooks: 53 hours over 7 audiobooks
As I have nothing to compare them to, they tell me little at the moment, so leaving the numbers aside, here’s what I did last month, and some of what I’ll be posting this month:
What I read (full novels):
Mexico Street, Simone Buchholz
Daughter of Chaos (CAOS 2), Sarah Rees Brennan
Red Snow (Tuva Moodyson 2), Will Dean
We Are Monsters, Brian Kirk
Containment, Vanda Symon (review to follow)
A Wash of Black, Chris McDonald (review to follow on the tour)
Wicked As You Wish, Rin Chupeco
Death Deserved, Jørn Lier Horst & Thomas Enger (review up tomorrow!)
Deep Dark Night, Steph Broadribb (review to follow)
A Heart So Fierce and Broken, Brigid Kemmerer
You Must Have a Death Wish, Matt Phillips
The Holdout, Graham Moore (review to follow on the tour)
Full Throttle, Joe Hill (review to follow)
The House on the Lake, Nuala Ellwood (review to follow)
What I read (novellas / short stories):
The Ghost of Madison Avenue, Nancy Bilyeau
London Calling! (Mydworth Mysteries 3), Matthew Costello & Neil Richards
Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman
One Shot, Louise Voss & Mark Edwards
What I read (graphic novels):
Animosity Vol. 1: The Wake, Marguerite Bennett
The Flintstones Vol. 1, Mark Russell & Steve Pugh
Book Love, Debbie Tung
What I listened to:
A Nearly Normal Family, M.T. Edvardsson
The Blissfully Dead, Louise Voss & Mark Edwards
Never Look Back, A. L. Gaylin (review to follow)
Are You Watching, Vincent Ralph
Woman in the Water, Katerina Diamond
The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein, Kiersten White
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
What I read earlier but reviewed in January:
The Mothers, Sarah J Naughton
The God Game, Danny Tobey
Beast (Six Stories 4), Matt Wesolowski
Six Wicked Reasons, Jo Spain
Three Hours, Rosamund Lupton
A User’s Guide to Make-Believe, Jane Alexander
Perfect Remains, Helen Fields
Dear Wife, Kimberly Belle
Proximity, Jem Tugwell
Daisy Jones & The Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid
Dreamland, Nancy Bilyeau
Last month I also did a FairyLoot box unboxing.
I hope you had a fab month! Thanks for joining me today and happy reading xxx
Wow what a fantastic month you’ve had!! I wasn’t going to do any more blog tours either but I signed up for one in March because it sounded to good to miss. I’m going to attempt an excel stats thingy as well, I’m sure how it all works so will hav eto ask my hubby for help to get me started. 😀
It was indeed! My excel stats thingy is very basic but if you want to take a look I can send it to you, DM me an email address if you want it xx
What a month! I need to do my wrap up! I have stepped away from NG but found 2 clicks done. Don’t tell Eva or Rae they will kill me 🤣 and I have bought a few books 🙄 but hey ho! I have read all my tours bar 3 and I have deleted so many emails for tours lately to focus on my reading and feature! We can do this!!! X
We’ll start a support group, when I’m tempted I’ll DM you and you can stop me, and vice versa 😂
You are in SO MUCH TROUBLE!!!!!
If you’re a magpie, I wonder what that makes me. A magpie on steroids?
The Queen of all Magpies, for sure 😂
Busy month, Kelly! 😉 I had planned to log all my reads on spreadsheet this year too, but unlike you, I haven’t logged a single book yet!
It’s early days still, knowing me I may let one slip through the cracks at one point and give up altogether 😂