Saturday, March 1, 2014

March Random Reads selection

It's time to select my Random Read for March! Last month, my Random Read was Stardoom: A Scientific Account of the Beginning and End of the Universe by Paul Davies. I sort of started it, and then decided I didn't really want to read it, and into the donate pile it went.

So it's off to the random number generator. Normally I would use the total number of books on my TBR shelf (765), but I'm taking a cue from a few other Random Reads participants and trying out using a subset of my TBR shelf to make sure an older book gets picked. So I'm entering 48 as the min (to skip all the review copies and other stuff I'm planning to read soon anyway) and 428 as the max (so that the range only includes books I've had sitting around since 2009 or earlier).

Drum roll, please!






For February’s Random Read I'll be reading Argument: Critical Thinking, Logic and the Fallacies by John Woods, et al. It's been on my TBR shelf since May 18, 2009. Wow. That's three non-fiction books in a row, Random Reads! What are you trying to do to me?! I guess that's good, though. Non-fiction books have an unfortunate tendency to appear on my to read shelf and then never leave.

February 2014 Wrap-Up

Here's a summary of my book-related activity for February. Another fairly weak month, which included a full week of being so sick I could barely even read (much less do anything else). I just drifted in and out of sleep for days. I could tell I was getting better when I read The Unbound (which I was super excited for!) in less than two days.

I was also away for a few days at RootsTech (a genealogy conference), which didn't allow much reading time. However, I did read an entire book (Drop Dead Healthy) on the plane rides there and back, and got that book signed when I met A.J. Jacobs!!

Books I read (linked to the reviews)

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A.J. Jacobs (TBR pile)
The Darkness of Shadows by Chris Little (NetGalley)
The Unbound (The Archived #2) by Victoria Schwab (new book)
The Returned by Jason Mott (NetGalley) (in progress)

Books I bought


Your Swedish Roots by
Per Clemensson and Kjell Andersson
Monsters of Men by
Patrick Ness


The Unbound by
Victoria Schwab
Cress by Marissa Meyer



Books my Grandma gave me


The Open Boat and Other
Stories by Stephen Crane
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
and Other Stories by
Washington Irving
The Revolt of "Mother"
and Other Stories by
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman


Progress on challenges



Stardoom: A Scientific Account of the Beginning and End of the Universe by Paul Davies was my February Random Read. I just barely started reading it, and then abandoned it.

I read 1 book for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

I completed the following squares for the Book Bingo Challenge: 1 book from TBR pile, FREE SQUARE, 1 contemporary

I read 1 book for the Diversity on the Shelf Challenge.

I read 0 banned or challenged books.

I read 2 books written by women.

I read 1 book for the Seriously Series Challenge.

Progress on my TBR pile: I added 7 books to my to read list and removed 5 (the 4 I read, plus Stardoom, which I donated), so my pile increased by 2 this month!