2017 Goals

I've kind of stopped with resolutions. My husband and I do monthly goals instead, e.g., give up alcohol or caffeine for a month. The entire family has monthly goals as well: do neighborhood clean-ups when we go for walks or volunteer somewhere together every weekend. We don't always meet our goals, but we try to have a positive impact on our world around us.

On a personal note, I have very clear and simple goals: stay healthy (by losing a bit of weight and exercising regularly), finish gift shopping for Christmas by October (so I can focus on the real meanings of Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as being able to have fun throughout the holiday season), and reading. 

Yes, a year without reading is horrible to imagine. Here's my reading list (as of now) for 2017. Currently, there are 139 books on the list. Nineteen of them are must reads for blogging purposes. The others are completely up for grabs. Ingrid of Getting Lost in the Stacks decided that this year's challenge is to get through the stacks of books that are either lying around the house or listed on our Kindles. My goal for this year is 117 books in honor of 2017. What books do you recommend from this list?

Audiobooks are denoted for me to remember they're available in that format. With my hour-plus commute most days of the week, these books are a great way to keep reading and stay off my mobile while driving.

And yes, 2017 is the year for me to catch up on my Star Wars reading. I'm a bit of a fan, and it's been waaaay too long since I spent time in a galaxy far, far away.

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To Read List	Instant Mom	To Blog List	An Ishmael of Syria
	In the Shadow of the Banyan		Small Great Things
	The Queen's Lover		Medievalist Comics and the American Century
	The Royal We		The Girl from Venice
Audiobook	My grandmother asked me to tell you she's sorry		Sirius
	A World Lit on Fire		My (Underground) American Dream
	Arab of the future		Kid Artists
	Escape from camp 14		The Midwife
	The Nightingale		Beauty and Attention
Audiobook	The black count		Life Unexpected
	Dead Wake		The Undesirables
	Secrets of a Charmed Life		Trust My Heart
	The Marriage of Opposites		The Honorable Heir
Audiobook	Yes, My Accent is Real		Pointe and Shoot
	When Books Went to War		Victoria
	Brainmaker		The Other Einstein
	Girl at War		It is Well
	Red Queen		In the Blue Hour
	The Thing About Jellyfish		The Murdered Messiah
	The Japanese Lover
Audiobook	The cross and the switchblade
	The traveling tea shop.
	Empress of rome
	Still alice.
	The great leader and the fighter pilot.
	The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari
	How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
	Before the End, After the Beginning
	Julio's Day
	Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass
	Across a Hundred Mountains
	Mexican Whiteboy
Audiobook	The Madonnas of Echo Park
	Into the Beautiful North
	Our America: A Hispanic History of the U.S.
	The Distance Between Us
	Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill
	The DREAMers: How the Undocumented Youth Movement Transformed the Immigration Rights Debate
	Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League
Audiobook	The Scorch Trials
	A Hole in Texas
	Map of Fates
	Bloodline
	The Moviegoer
	The Lottery
Audiobook	Lily and the Octopus
	The Swans of Fifth Avenue
	The Queen of the Night
	Modern Girls
	Hamilton: The Revolution
	The Geek Feminist Revolution
	The Only Pirate at the Party
	First Women
	Rise of the Rocket Girls
	White Trash
	Salt to the Sea
	Me Talk Pretty One Day
Audiobook	A Tale of Two Cities
Audiobook	Les Miserables
Audiobook	Moby Dick
	The Lovely Bones
	The Poisonwood Bible
	Middlesex
	The Memory Keeper's Daughter
	Under the Tuscan Sun
	Mr. Darcy's Diary
	The Romanov Sisters
	The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
	The Women's War
	The Princess Diarist
	Hidden Figures
	Library of Souls
	Mozart in the Jungle
	The Girl in the Spider's Web
	The Underground Railroad
	Lords of the Sith
Audiobook	Aftermath: Life Debt
	Dark Disciple
	Ashoka
	The Miniaturist
	Alexander Hamilton
	Me Before You
	After You
	A Man Called Ove
	Do More, Spend Less
Audiobook	Cinder
	Charity Girls
	Night
	The Force Unleashed
	The Hundred Dresses
	Women of the Silk
	An Edible History of Humanity
	The Prophets of Eternal Fjord
	Hard Contact
	Darth Bane series
Audiobook	Ana's Story
	Out of the Darkness
Audiobook	The Language of Flowers
	Monuments Men
	Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls
Audiobook	The Omnivore's Dilemma
Audiobook	In Defense of Food
	Relativity
	Into the Thickening Fog
	The Perfume Collector
	The Chemist
	The Memory of Us
	The Paper Magician
	Winter Men
	The Light of the Fireflies
	Star Sand
	About the Night
	War Brides
	Pierced by the Sun
	Rage
	The Shelf Life of Happiness
	The Age of Daredevils
	Wake in Winter
	All's Quiet on the Western Front
	In the Shadow of Lakecrest

How I Read So Much for Free

I don't know about you, but I find this very depressing: 

(I've tried finding more current stats to make sure these numbers are still accurate, but I haven't dug any up. If you find some, let me know, please.)

We need to be reading, folks! Books open your mind and imagination. If nothing else, they serve as entertainment. At best, they teach you how to appreciate other people's worldviews and help you learn some compassion. Let's talk a little bit about how I read so many books for (nearly) free.

At any rate, I'm one of those horrible people who don't buy more than five books in a year. That's an average of less than half a book per month, folks. But in 2016, I read well over 100 books. How does that work? Two words: the library. Two more words: electronic books. Two last words: my Kindle. 

There. My super secrets. Our library has a wonderful online collection via Overdrive, and I use it nearly religiously. I can check books out for 30 days, which is usually more than enough time, and if I do run out of time, I can renew easily without losing my spot. Every once in a great long while, I'll check a physical book out of the library (e.g., something super-recently released that hasn't been added to the online collection yet), but since I'm so rarely in the actual library, I don't do this very often.

If you check out my previous post, you'll see that I encourage use of audiobooks. Our library's Overdrive collection has a lot of the most popular books on audio, and the narrators are typically rather wonderful. My kids and I are especially fond of David Tennant's wonderful readings of the How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell. It was his performance on those books that led me to be a Doctor Who fan, actually (yes, I'm one of those people whose first Doctor is Christopher Eccleston...I'll eventally get to the classic Doctors, but today is not the day). Last year, I loved Aziz Ansari's reading of Modern Romance and Billy Crystal's narration of Still Foolin' Em. Although listening to a book isn't quite the same as reading it, I still count audiobooks toward my annual reading totals. Listening to the news is the same as reading the news, right? Same principle here.

Finally, my Kindle. Oh, how I love my Kindle. I was a first-generation adopter way back in 2008. I spent a significant amount of graduation money on that device, and it lasted until 2013. One of my kids accidentally crunched it, but I decided to love her anyway. Now, every one of us in our fiver family has our own Kindle. The kids love theirs and take exceptionally good care of them (ages: 10, 8, 6). My husband's Kindle has been to Iraq and Afghanistan. When it isn't being used my Kindle is either on my bedside table or in my purse, ready for its next adventure. Kindle's charges last forever (forever being about two weeks for me), and they are light as can be, which means there is zero burden on my shoulders when toting it around. I want to say my Kindle has about 200 books on it right now, but I really have no idea. It's a lot. I've read many of them and intend to read most of them by the end of 2017. 

If you're thinking about purchasing an e-reader, I highly recommend it. Yes, you can read on your tablet, iPad, or phone. Sure. But the glare is killer. Plus, the battery dies quickly. Finally, I don't like distractions. When I get alerts on my devices, I feel that horrible compulsion to see what's going on. Then I waste time on email, Facebook, or whatever instead of using it on my book. Plus, Kindles are much lighter than tablets. This is bonus brownie points because I do not like heavy purses. 

Any Kindle is going to be good. I have the basic one that is a few generations old. It's got advertisements that I ignore. Actually, most of our family's Kindles are used models. We found them at local yard sales or on Craigslist. They were super cheap and in great condition. Mine even came with Star Wars books that the owner forgot to delete. Woohoo! :) The kids and I got our Kindles for $25, used. My husband's was brand-new three years ago, and I bought it during an Amazon buy-back of old Kindles program. I think it ended up being about $45? The Kindle purchase accounts for the "almost" part of the free reading bit. Over the years, my Kindle has averaged about $8/year. Next year, it'll be even less. Yes!

Now, I said I don't buy many books every year. This is a slightly nebulous statement. I "buy" free books on Amazon every once in a long while. Sign up for an account on www.bookbub.com to get weekly notifications on discounted books. There's always at least one free book listed in your Friday email's recommended list. Also, Amazon has a lovely "Top 100 Free" list in their bestsellers section. It tends to be laden with smutty novels, but sometimes you get some real gems like Book One of the Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children series. Right now, there's an autobiography on Nikola Tesla and an interesting-looking sci-fi novel available for free.

Additionally, I sometimes earn credits for choosing slower shipping than the free Amazon Prime two days. I save the credits and purchase books with them. Since I didn't really spend money on them, I don't consider them true expenditures.

Finally, if you're a Prime member, then you must check out Prime Reading. There are all kinds of beauties available to discover there. Also, you get to choose one free, early-release for Prime members only book every month via Kindle First. 

                                                                  

So...that's how I read so much for so little, folks. I use the tools I've got via the library and Amazon's free book opportunities. There are many, many more ways to get free books (e.g., Blogging for Books). Feel free to leave reading tips in the comments.

Disclaimer: I get tiny kick-backs from Amazon if you order from the links in this post. If you don't want that, then search for the items on your own browser. Just a tip: use smile.amazon.com to support your favorite charity. The pennies add up if you're an Amazon frequent flier. Also, I didn't get paid for the Amazon-centric post. I just really love their free books.

2016: My Year in Reading

Oh, 2016. You were a record-breaking year for me. I have been tracking the books I've read since 2011, and my old record was 109 books in one year. This year, I completed 111. 

I also competed in a reading challenge with my good friend Ingrid over at Getting Lost in the Stacks. Ingrid set up a very challenging 2016 list of book topics. Click here to see the topic list. Obviously, Ingrid set it up to light my hair on fire. I'm happy to report that at this moment, I've completed 111 books this year. Crazy, I know, but I have. However, I have NOT completed the challenge-I still have three topics left to complete...and they are NOT going to be finished in the next two days. I'm okay with that. I started December with 19 books left to read, so I put a decent dent into my goal. :)

Here's my list of books read for the challenge: 

READING CHALLENGE 2016
LIGHT: 13
Non-fiction about science	The Story of the Human Body
That someone told you “changed their life”	Becoming Marta
Published in 2016	Girl Waits with Gun
A food memoir	Animal, Vegetable, Miracle
A play	Pygmalion
Over 100 years old	The Awakening
Over 500 pages	All the Light We Cannot See
With a main character with a mental illness	The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Written by a comedian	Modern Romance
Originally published the year you were born	The BFG
Non-fiction about a religion not your own	Islam, A Short History
Less than 100 pages	The Old Man and the Sea
With a one word title	George
AVID: 13
A BIOGRAPHY OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY	Why Not Me?
A MYSTERY	Career of Evil
BASED ON A NON "WESTERNIZED" FAIRY TALE	Beauty
WRITTEN BY AN AFRICAN	Purple Hibiscus
A GRAPHIC NOVEL	Nimona
ABOUT A ROAD TRIP	paper towns
SET IN A COUNTRY NOT YOUR OWN	A Kiss at Midnight
SET IN YOUR HOME STATE	A Rogue in Texas
WITH A WOMAN’S NAME IN THE TITLE	Esperanza Rising
WITH A CHARACTER WHO HAS YOUR NAME	Dancing with the Devil and Other Stories from Beyond
ABOUT AN ANIMAL	Four Fish
SET IN AUSTRALIA	Three Wishes
A NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER	Waiting
COMMITTED: 26
About music or a musician	Life, by Keith Richards
A dystopian novel	The Maze Runner
A current New York Times Bestseller	The Martian
A satire	Catch 22
A collection of poems	A night without armor
With an ugly cover	The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers
Translated to English	1Q84
Targeted at the opposite gender	Everything Bad Is Good For You
By or about a Greek philosopher	Meditations
Takes place in a desert	The Heretic Queen
An epistolary novel	Last Days of Summer
That makes you sad	The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
That changed your opinion on a topic	How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk
With bad reviews	Slaughterhouse-Five
With a number in the title	Size 12 Is Not Fat
Set in a place you’ve always wanted to visit	The Other Daughter
One you started but never finished	Darwin's Devices
A Pulitzer Prize winner	Olive Kitteridge
With non-human character	Aftermath
Self-published	Eulalia's Story
Set during a holiday	Labor Day
Film or tv tie in	Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
You pretend you’ve read it (but haven’t)	Catcher in the Rye
From the library	The Thirteenth Earl
Time travel	The Time Machine
Political memoir	I Am Malala
OBSESSED: 49
WRITTEN BY A RUSSIAN	Doctor Zhivago
ABOUT A MARTYR	Bonhoeffer
RECOMMENDED BY A PARENT	The Bible
TAKES PLACE DURING WINTER	The Call of the Wild
BIOGRAPHY OF A WORLD LEADER	Long Walk to Freedom
SELF-IMPROVEMENT	The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
THAT REMINDS YOU OF HOME	Brownsville
ABOUT A COWBOY	The Emmitt Zone
AN AUDIOBOOK	The Resurrection Casket
A BANNED BOOK	Mein Kampf
WRITTEN BY AN ACTOR	Love Life
BY OR ABOUT SHAKESPEARE	The Lodger Shakespeare
WITH A PROTAGONIST WHO HAS YOUR OCCUPATION	Emily and Einstein
ABOUT A CULTURE YOU’RE UNFAMILIAR WITH	A Passage to India
WRITTEN FROM THE LOSING SIDE’S PERSPECTIVE	All's Quiet on the Western Front
WITH A BEAUTIFUL COVER	The Nest
SOMETHING “EVERYONE” HAS READ BUT YOU	A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
TOLD FROM A CHILD’S PERSPECTIVE	Pigeon English
WITH MULTIPLE TIMELINES	The Mapmaker's Children
WRITTEN BY A CRIMINAL	Catch Me If You Can
WRITTEN BY A ‘LOCAL’ AUTHOR	Old Creole Days
MODERN RETELLING OF A CLASSIC	GREAT
NARRATED BY THE ‘BAD GUY’	The Picture of Dorian Gray
AN ALTERNATE HISTORY	The Man in the High Castle
EROTIC NOVEL	My American Duchess
SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE COMIC	Vampirella
A NOVEL WITH RECIPES IN IT	Cream Puff Murder
ABOUT A TOPIC YOU’RE AFRAID OF	Twelve years a slave
BY OR ABOUT A WORLD EXPLORER	Schooner to the Southern Oceans
ABOUT A CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC	Sandrine's Letter to Tomorrow
BASED ON A GAME	The Force Unleashed II
CONTAINING BULLYING	City of Mirrors
WRITTEN BY A FICTIONAL CHARACTER	Flowers from the Storm
ABOUT A PLAGUE	The Years of Rice and Salt
A TRILOGY THAT HASN’T BECOME A MOVIE OR TV SHOW	Potent Pleasures, Midnight Pleasures, Enchanting Pleasures
WRITTEN BY SOMEONE UNDER 20 YEARS OLD	How to Talk to Girls
NON-FICTION ABOUT ALCOHOL	Wine & War
WRITTEN BY SOMEONE OVER 65	Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys
SET PREDOMINANTLY UNDERGROUND OR UNDERWATER	The War Below
TAKES PLACE IN ASIA	The Good Earth
A MICROHISTORY	Hillbilly Elegy
SET IN A STEAMPUNK UNIVERSE	Manners and Mutiny
A BOOK WITHOUT CHAPTERS	We Need to Talk About Kevin
THAT YOU ORIGINALLY READ IN MIDDLE SCHOOL	The Raven
AbOUT AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLE	Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS	Gumbo Tales
WITH MAGIC	Demon Mistress
ABOUT A CURRENT HUMANITARIAN CONCERN	The Book of Unknown Americans
WRITTEN BY A FIRST TIME AUTHOR	The Bookstore

The yellow highlighted books are the ones I haven't read. I'm currently working on The Years of Rice and Salt. I'm only one chapter in, though, so I doubt I'll get it done before year's end.

Also, a disclaimer: Several of the books were audiobooks. I spend about an hour in traffic every day, so I listened to books instead of the radio. A great side effect of listening to audiobooks is that it helps you stop messing with your phone while driving. :)

Yes, some of the books were very easy. (I'm looking at you, How to Talk to Girls and The BFG.) There were some I despised (Demon Mistress and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which I'm only picking on because I want the next book in the Song of Fire and Ice series). There were sad ones (We Need to Talk About Kevin), funny ones (Modern Romance), and books full of hope (Esperanza Rising). Of course, there were many that I absolutely loved: Hillbilly Elegy, Wine and War, The Martian, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and The Story of the Human Body). 

Overall, I'm very glad I participated in this challenge. I read things I never would have considered, and I opened my eyes a bit to new genres. I discovered I'm actually rather fond of autobiographies, particularly when they're read by the authors. I also like history much more than I thought I did. Read any of the non-fiction on my list. They're well worth the time.

So, thank you, 2016. It was a great year for reading. I look forward to next year's challenge: whittle down my current reading list to less than 20 books. It's currently at about 60, so it should be doable. Buuuut...I think Ingrid has another challenge up her sleeve, and though I swore to myself I wouldn't do another complicated challenge, I probably will. Just because I love books.

Batgirl at Super Hero High

Title: Batgirl at Super Hero High
Author: Lisa Yee
Genre: DC Comics, Super Hero, Audiobook

We listened to this book during a two-day, twelve hour road trip, and we LOVED it. The narrator did a great job keeping us (all female, ages 34, 9, 8, and 6) engaged. At certain points in the story, we paused it and discussed what was going on and what we thought would happen. 

My eldest is not good with "regular" reading, but listening to this Batgirl book really gripped her attention, and she not only retained more than normal, she also truly understood everything that was going on (unlike in "regular" books). This was definitely an eye-opening opportunity to me...I'll make sure she has access to audiobooks as well as text copies of books. Maybe that will help encourage her reading.

Back to the book: The plot moved quickly, and the audiobook was about 4.5 hours long. We mixed up the trip with "regular" reading, a movie, creative time (drawing, coloring, Play-Doh), and listening. My nine-year-old was the one who wanted to listen to the story the most. She nailed the plot and made good hypotheses about the outcome of the story. I was entertained even though I'd brought my own audiobook for listening during the trip. I saved my book for the "other" times during the driving. 

Overall, we look forward to following the Super Hero ladies through the rest of their adventures. Enjoy this title as an audiobook on your next roadtrip.

***Disclaimer: I obtained this audiobook from Blogging for Books in order to publish a review.***

The Travelers

Title: The Travelers
Author: Chris Pavone
Genre: Fiction, Spy, Thriller

The Travelers was as quick, involved read. The fast pace kept my interest, and I enjoyed "traveling" with Will as he worked to untangle all the messes he got himself into. Sometimes, the plot was a little too incredible, but this is a spy story-it's not supposed to be 100% believable. I imagined Jeremy Renner as Will, and that made the movie in my head even more interesting. :) Definitely worth a read.