Getting Organized
For once I’m on top of things and my monthly reading overview is up in a timely manner. August is over, September’s beginning and I wish Singapore had four seasons. Autumn’s been my favourite season of the year since I was little. I love the red hues that take over just before the cold settles.
In any case, with Victoria Schwab’s tweet in mind, I’m determined to get organized on the blog and to stay that way. This means setting up a buffer of scheduled posts instead of scrambling to write posts only in time to publish them.
Unlike most people who fixate on starting the year right, I focus on ending it well.
— Victoria/V.E. Schwab (@veschwab) August 25, 2015
Not Exactly A Book Ban
Several weeks ago I took stock of the number of books I own and realized that I’ve got about 250 print books. What made me pause was discovering that I’ve read less than 20% of them. Over 80% of my books are unread! The logical step to take would be to implement a book buying ban and give all the love to my bookshelves. Well, I don’t think a full-on book buying ban will do much for me, what with books like Winter by Marissa Meyer releasing in November.
My resolution thus shall be as follows: I must read five books I own before I may buy one new one. This way my reading rate will be significantly higher than purchasing rate. At the same time I won’t be depriving myself of the books I most look forward to.
As for exceptions, these would be my birthday and Christmas. Barring these occasions, I will stick to this resolution for half a year at least. This means until end of February, this book buying restriction will be in place. Obviously incoming books that I’ve pre-ordered earlier this year are exempt as well.
Books Read
Sorted by date read:
Major Mood Reader
Consider my August TBR pile and compare with the books that I did finish in August. You’ll notice that out of the four books I had planned to read, I finished none. That, my friends, is the mark of an extreme mood reader. Such is life. I will finish A Court of Thorns and Roses this week and hopefully start Immaculate next week. I’ve got a couple of books I need to read before continuing with this TBR pile. Also, I can’t believe I’ve been pushing ACOTAR aside for so long. I started it towards the end of July!
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Statistics
Amount Read
Altogether I finished reading 14 books! I can’t recall when I last came this close to 15. I thank this ultra short companion novella and graphic novels. So, I read 2236 pages and listened 43 hours and 41 minutes. If I convert the listening hours to pages, then I would’ve read a grand total of 3726 pages.
The books I read had an average of 203 pages and the audiobooks I listened to were on average 10 hours and 55 minutes long. This means the books on average were significantly shorter than in July while the audiobooks were over an hour longer on average.
I read 32% more in August than I did in July. I almost want to say that I’m on a reading roll but that’s not quite true. I could’ve read more but kept putting off some books. Part of me wanted to finish reading the non-fiction books I’ve been in the midst of for months. They’re not easy to read and whenever I was too exhausted to settle down with them when I meant to, I ended up doing nothing at all.
Formats
Format-wise, I read 7 paperbacks, true to my format preference. I also read 2 hardcovers and 1 online novella. Besides that, I listened to 4 audiobooks.
Targets and Genres
I read 3 non-fiction book, 3 adult fiction book, 4 YA fiction books and 4 graphic novels That’s a pretty eclectic mix, which I didn’t even notice until now. Genres were mixed too with 6 contemporary, 4 fantasy and 1 science fiction. The non-fiction books were on photography and sociology of food.
Sources
The sources of these books were very varied:
- Bought 2 from Book Depository
- Bought 1 from Kinokuniya
- Borrowed 6 from the library
- Borrowed 4 through Overdrive
- Accessed 1 on publisher’s website
Only two books had been from my bookshelf and one I bought to read immediately. That’s something I’ve not done in a long time — read a book the moment it fell into my hands. The book I couldn’t stay away from was none other than The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness.
Acquisitions
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Sorted by author:
Reading Challenges
Goodreads
Tally: 82/100
I’m 16 books ahead of my Goodreads challenge. That’s a 6-book advantage gain over July. I could skip reading for two months and still reach a hundred books as I had hoped at the beginning of the year.
Non-Fiction
Tally: 7/20
Adult Fiction
Tally: 16/12
If I include plays and poetry, then the tally is 18.
Classics
Tally: 3/6
German Books
Tally: 3/12
Popsugar Reading Challenge
Tally: 35/50
I’m definitely with you on buying less books in the last quarter of the year! I have a lot of books on my TBR to get through (91 at last count), and I honestly think I can finish a good amount if I just stopped buying newer titles for a while. Here’s to hoping it actually happens for me, and good luck + happy reading to you! <3
it looked like a great month for you, josephine! your book buying “ban” sounds like such a good idea; i might do it myself. i’m such a compulsive book buyer and it’s especially bad this time of year with so many books coming out. it’s also bad because the amount of space on my shelf is running low. i also need to read ACOTAR! i love sarah j. maas am i can’t believe ii haven’t read it yet. though i’d have to buy it first and that’d go against the so-called ban aha. xxx