Mid-Year Reading Progress

 

Around this time of the year, I make a mid-year post on my reading progress so far. While reviewing my progress, I noticed something different this year. In past years, I found myself having read more than 100 books by this point. This year, however, I have yet to reach 100 books as of yet. I don't know how it happened, but I guess things slow down sometimes. This despite reading some picture books, short e-books and audiobooks, as well as a play recently completed in one day. I need two more to reach 100. I was considering postponing this post until I reached that many. But since I usually do this post at the end of June, habit forced me to do so again. 

And as for my year-long reading challenges, I have only completed two so far, both during this month:

Alphabet Soup Authors

Finding authors beginning U and X proved the hardest. For X, I chose one who has X as a middle initial, since the letter can be in any part of the author's name (first, middle or last). I usually go by last names. The one I chose for U was taking me a while to get from the library, as it is on the bookmobile. 

RAD

This only has nine categories, and I completed the last one I needed just last week. I struggled to find a work of fan fiction. 

Aad there are some challenges for which I am one or two books short of completing. I have one left on the Color Coded challenge, for which I have something in mind. "Other color" is often hard to decide on.  And only one left for What's in a Name? Still uncertain what to pick for the "Crime" category. Two left on Unabridged. Deciding what to re-read is often difficult, Speaking of which, I got the prompt "Re-read a childhood favorite" twice this year. As each year goes by, I struggle to remember what I read at that age, and many that come to mind I had read many times already during that time. For this one, I tweaked the rules bit by reading a book from a series I liked reading then. I was unsure if I'd read this one when it came out,  but since it was from a favorite series of that time, I felt it should count.  And as for as the Alphabet Soup Titles, U and X were also hard. I just completed a title for U and have only X left, though I do have something planned, with the X in the title. As always, X is tricky for any sort of challenge (like the A to Z Blogging). I almost always have to find something that has an X somewhere in the name or title. 

Thursday 13: More Stuff From Around the Internet

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂    

Thursday 13

Colleen at The Thursday 13 holds a weekly blogging prompt where bloggers make a list of 13 things on Thursdays. The topic is for you to choose. The blog host doesn't have any official graphics to display on the Thursday 13 posts, so I decided to whip one up myself. 🙂    

Here are some things I found on the Internet this past week, some from others' blogs. 

Protest in Hollister, CA

 I shot this video of the "No Kings" protest in front of Safeway:

And some pictures:

The protest began at noon. Protestors parked in the empty Kmart parking lot a block away. People were on the sidewalk in front of the store, as well as at the Chevron station across the street Safeway, and  one more in front of the soon-to-be-closed Rite Aid, another block way. 

I almost didn't want to go near the protest, but earlier I'd gone to the library and drove home just to see the crowds. My mom wanted to see the protest, so we went down. I rarely go to things like this because I usually hate crowds. But today was different.

Friday the 13th!

Yes, it's today, the only such occurrence this year. Here are some things about the number 13 I posted a year ago this week.

Book Discussion: Deciding What to Read and When

The topic for this post is how do you decide what to read and when, whether you are reading from home or borrowing from the library or from other people? 

For me, it all depends on what I have on hand that will meet my monthly writing prompts, and it seems that most of the time the books I have at home (so many I've had for so many years!) don't seem to fit, so I have to find something at the library for the prompt. Thus many of the ones at go unread indefinitely. I was glad that I had a book set in the 1940s that I was able to use for the Decades Challenge in May. It also worked for the Color Coded challenge, for the color blue.

When I'm taking books out of the library, I tend to take five or more at a time. I then take a while to decide what to read first. I often arrange the books in an order that I think I may read them in, but it doesn't always work out that way. Same is true when I'm reading from a stash at home. 

What are some of the ways that you approach this decision?

June Bookish Bingo

 Here is the new card for June.

My Books:

1. Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems--Francisco X. Alarcon (2 squares): Audiobook, Reading Challenge
2. The Diary of a Goose Girl--Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin (3 squares): E-Book, Father, Body of Water
3. Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books--Kirsten Miller (5 squares): Free Book, Physical Book, Not in a Series, Book Club Read, Free Space
4. Cloud Atlas--David Mitchell (4 squares): Shelf Love, Travel, Across the Years, Solving a Mystery
5. Fingersmith--Sarah Waters (2 squares): LGBTQ, Bride
6. The Devil's Highway--Luis Alberto Urrea (3 squares): Library Book, On the Run, Bully
7. The Beach House--Rachel Hanna (2 squares): In a Series, Trope-y Title
8. The Mermaid--Jan Brett (2 squares): Mermaid, Fairy/Fae
9. Under the Same Stars--Libba Bray (1 square): New Release

24 squares completed on June 27