Looking Back
Reading Stats
In November, I found a lot more time to read than I had expected. My family’s home has been under renovation since September. With the completion weeks overdue, I thought I’d be much busier overseeing the progress. I did spend a lot of time on that but my reduced Internet access saw me turning more to books than to my laptop and smartphone. Plus, I was determined to work myself through the pile of books that I received for review. Overall, I finished 14 books, making November a really good reading month.
Curiously, I only got through three audiobooks. That’s less than usual, despite reading an above average number of books last month. In a way, that’s a good thing because I do want to focus more on the books that I already own rather than borrowing other titles. I made use of my Kindle a little more too as I read four ebooks. Of the remaining print editions, I read one hardcover and six books paperbacks.
My average rating went down to 3.578 out of 5 for November. Really, Wink Poppy Midnight is to blame for that. I was so bored out of mind with that one. Considered not finishing it but after restarting it twice because nothing registered in my mind during the first hour, I just didn’t want to give up all that effort.
Print editions and ebooks combined, I read 3,594 pages. The only month during which I topped that amount was June. As for audiobooks, I listened to 21:19 hours (equalling 789 pages). After converting the listening hours to pages, that’s a total equivalent to 4,383 pages.
Books Read
- [Re-read] The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers | Rating: 4.375*
- Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke | Rating: 0.722
- The Craving Mind by Judson Brewer | Rating: 3.500
- Renegades by Marissa Meyer | Rating: 3.813
- My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith | Rating: 3.500
- Turtles All the Way Down by John Green | Rating: 3.556
- Because You Love to Hate Me edited by Ameriie | Rating: 2.884
- Here We Are Now by Jasmine Warga | Rating: 4.000
- Boy, Oh Boy! by Laura Dower | Rating: 3.778
- The Honey Farm on the Hill by Jo Thomas | Rating: 3.750
- The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas | Rating: 5.000
- Sunflowers in February by Phyllida Shrimpton | Rating: 4.167
- The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo | Rating: 3.259
- Lift Off by Donovan Livingston | Rating: 3.786
*Note on ratings: I rate books on a scale of 0 to 5, 0 being the worst and 5 being the best. I first rate various aspects such as prose, characterisation, plot, originality, etc. Then I average these out for my overall ratings. To obtain my star ratings, I round to the nearest 0.5.
TBR Pile
TBR Reduction
Altogether, I hauled 13 books — 12 print books and one ebook. In comparison, I only read eight books from my TBR pile. Substracting the two books I obtained to re-read, my TBR pile went up by four books. This brought my tally to 11 more than I started the year with. I thought I’d be at nine but I unearthed another two books that I hauled in August, though had failed to add to my tally.
Book Haul
Generally, I try not to acquire duplicate book titles but after a lot of to and fro with myself, I decided to buy the collector's US edition of A Darker Shade of Magic. There's an additional short story, it's signed and what ultimately sealed the deal was the "As Travars" lettering below the dust jacket. Crini designed it and it's stunning! And of course, I had to support a friend!
A couple of months ago I listened to the audiobook of All the Crooked Saints. Even though I enjoyed the narration tremendously, I felt like I had missed out on a lot of details. That's why I decided to get the hardcover edition, so I could reread the book printed on the page.
I also bought Scherben der Dunkelheit (translation: Shards of the Darkness) because circuses and magic and I need to read some German books again. Living abroad with nobody but my family to regularly speak German with is putting a noticeable dent on my fluency.
The last book I bought was Here We Are Now. The rest of the books I hauled in November I received for review. I considered each title very carefully though, to decide if they were worth expanding my TBR pile for.
my first language is Indonesian, so when I was a kid until my pre-teen, I always read books in Indonesian. but ever since I started to read books in english, I prefer to read in english if I could because things could always get lost in translation. Rereading HP in english for the first time this December made me realized how much magic is gone when I read it in Indonesian all these years. Yet there are also instances when reading in Indonesian works better for me. For example, I couldn’t finish City of Lost Souls but when I switch mid-book to Indonesian edition, I finished it in one sitting.
It’s really interesting how language could affect your reading experience!
Tasya recently posted 12 Days of Christmas // Day 12: Christmas Songs
It’s strange how translations can affect books, isn’t it? I tried reading Harry Potter for the first time when I was nine. My friend was so engrossed in her copy, I got curious. I didn’t like it at all. Thought the first chapter sounded really stuffy, and gave up. That was in German. A few years later, I tried again in English. Ended up reading the entire series. Haha. Doubt I would’ve bothered if I hadn’t learnt English.