Trying assigned reading

I think I mentioned earlier this year that I decided for 2021 to try out the method of “assigning” myself a few books to read each quarter. The main reason for this is that I wanted to finally actually tackle some of the books on my “Want to Read” shelf in goodreads.com (the main place I keep track of books I hear about and want to read). I was finding that I would run across new books (on podcasts, reviews, FB, blogs, etc.), start reading them and then never really get around to these other books that I apparently at one point decided I “wanted to read”.

So far, I LOVE IT.

I took a pretty balanced approach, I think. I decided to assign myself 5 books per quarter. It seemed this would allow for some flexibility to still read other misc. books I run across, too (hopefully), while still making progress on my master list.

I’m loving having this little list of books to work from. It suits my personality well, and I find I am actually looking forward to books that are coming up. Also, knowing what I’m planning to read helps me to plan ahead and request the book/buy the book/ whatever so that as soon as I finish one, I have another waiting for me.

Back in January I made a master list of 20 books- 10 fiction, 10 non-fiction (from my Want to Read list). Then I picked out 5 for Quarter 1 (January- March). I made it through 4/5 by the end of March, so overall not too bad. My final Q1 book is The Winter of the Witch (the 3rd and final book in The Bear and the Nightingale trilogy) and I am planning to start it today.

Last week I went through and picked out 5 more for Q2 (see above). I have been reading WAY MORE FICTION than I have in years. It has been nice….but the past couple weeks I have been seriously itching to read some more non-fiction. So for Q2 I flip-flopped the fiction to non-fiction ratio and will go slightly heavier on non-fiction choices.

With my virtual work book club in the mix this year, too (also mostly fiction so far), I am feeling very content with the variety of books I’m reading.

For book club, the choices have been GREAT so far. We’ve read:

January– We Were the Lucky Ones
February– The Boys in the Boat
March– The Hate U Give
April– The Giver of Stars (picking up library hold today! (curbside/contactless). This was on my list anyway, too! Excited.)

They were all excellent!! I just finished The Hate U Give, which I really wanted to read anyway- so it worked out perfectly to be the March choice. It was a good, very timely book for today’s world- but side note: I have a very hard time seeing this as a “young adult” genre book (which is how it’s classified)!!! Yowzers… no WAY would I let my kids read it….way too much seriously bad language (like F word level language…). Also, there are a bunch of very blatant sexual references and stuff that would just be a hard “no” for me to allow the boys to read ever, really. I read some reviews where people said they read it with their tweens/teens, in order to discuss the important and discussion worthy subject matter…but yeah, no way. Unfortunately, nope. Not here! 🙂 (However, to each their own! This is just my opinion.)

Current 2021 book list thus far of completed titles….. (I feel like I read a lot? Like, every day! But yet I’ve only read 10 books so far (and 2 have been with the boys). Hmm. Oh well. I guess I must not read as much as I think I do. Or I just read slowly? Lol. I remain SO IMPRESSED and humbled by blogger friends who crank out like 10 books per month. 😳)

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for lists. I don’t live obsessively by lists or anything, but a good list can sometimes just be really helpful. A way to help me prioritize and actually do the things I want to do!