Overview: October 2015

Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

October was a whirlwind of a month and I have so much to be grateful for. I’m particularly glad that as a result of my decision to travel in Germany and Switzerland also led me to FBM. There was so much to see as I shared in my FBM post, Vol. 1 a couple of weeks ago. There were lots of programmes too, which I captured on camera. And of course, I also got to meet some great friends.

Travel

This was my maiden solo trip. In the past I had always travelled with family, school or friends. It didn’t turn out to be as tough as I had feared. That’s also partly because I had points of contact and for 4/5 of the time stayed with relatives or friends. Even if they were busy with their own things during the and I set out to explore by myself, at night we came together. It’s only during the last week that I truly had to fend of myself. Well, besides the times I was flying, taking the train or was in transit.

Reconnections & First Meetings

During my travels I got to reconnect with family and some family friends. I also met an overwhelming number of people for the very first time. There was this whole branch of uncles, aunts and cousins I had only ever heard stories about. Even when still living in the same country, we never lived in the same states. Now I finally can put faces and voices to their names. During FBM, I also got to meet a lot of friends for the first time in person. In Cologne I managed to briefly meet up with Sandy.

Books Read

Sorted by date read:

Statistics

Amount Read

Altogether I finished reading 8 books. I listened 49 hours and 22 minutes and read 1293 pages. If I convert the listening hours to pages, then I would’ve read a total of 2907 pages. I’m surprised that comparatively that’s only 150 pages less than in September.

The books I read had an average of 259 pages and the audiobooks I listened to were on average 16 hours and 27 minutes long. The books had so few pages on average since 2 out of 5 were graphic novels and they usually don’t have that many pages. As for the lengthiness of the audiobooks, I decided to tackle them this month since travelling’s a good time for concentration.

Formats

Format-wise, I read 2 paperbacks, 2 ebooks, 3 audiobooks and 1 ARC. Hardcovers really have it difficult to edge themselves into my reading pile.

Targets and Genres

I read, 1 adult fiction book, 5 YA fiction books and 2 graphic novels. The genres were mixed with 3 fantasy, 3 contemporary, 1 historical fiction and 1 magical realism. Besides classifying The Diviners as fantasy, it can also be further classified as historical and paranormal fiction. Both these genres don’t find themselves a lot on my reading lists, so I am a little surprised I even gave it a chance.

Sources

The sources of these books were:

• Borrowed 3 through Overdrive
• Received 2 for review
• Accessed 1 on Scribd
• Bought 1 from Amazon
• Read 1 at the library

Acquisitions

Sorted by author:

Reading Challenges

Goodreads

Tally: 100/100 — Completed!

October is the month I hit this year’s reading challenge goal! At the beginning of this year I figured I’d be reading less and set the goal at 85. After some time I changed my mind and increased it to a hundred. Compared to last year I am reading fewer books but it’s still nice to reach 100 books two years in a row.

Non-Fiction

Tally: 7/20

Adult Fiction

Tally: 18/12

If I include plays and poetry, then the tally is 20.

Classics

Tally: 3/6

German Books

Tally: 4/12

Popsugar Reading Challenge

Tally: 36/50

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How was your October?