Saturday, February 1, 2014

February Random Reads selection

It's time to select my Random Read for February! Last month, my Random Read was Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown. I'm still in the process of reading that one.

So it's off to the random number generator. Normally I would use the total number of books on my TBR shelf (763), 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 50 as the min (to skip all the review copies and other stuff I'm planning to read soon anyway) and 431 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 Stardoom: A Scientific Account of the Beginning and End of the Universe by Paul Davies. It's been on my TBR shelf since July 11, 2009. Wow. The Random Reads challenge sure did its job this month, picking a book that always gets picked last! This falls into the category of books that always get considered when I'm looking for books to donate, but always end up being kept because "maybe one day I'll want to read about the beginning and end of the universe!" Well, at least now I'll be dealing with this one once and for all. :) We'll see if I can actually finish it or not...

January 2014 Wrap-Up

Here's a summary of my book-related activity for January. It feels so good to be in a new year with a fresh batch of challenges to be excited about! I celebrated the new year by finally choosing a Random Read again, which I intend to continue. I also took out a library book, which I haven't had the free time for in quite some time. I'm almost caught up on my review copies, and it's got me feeling so free!

On the other hand, I was wrapping up a college course this month, which was utterly exhausting and limited my reading a lot. Also, reading some non-fiction and some stuff that I just wasn't that into, my reading was overall sluggish.

Books I read (linked to the reviews)

The Troop by Nick Cutter (NetGalley)
Testament by Nino Ricci (library book) (DNF)
Free Four: Tobias Tells the Story (Divergent #1.5) by Veronica Roth (TBR pile)
Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown (TBR pile) (in progress)
Insurgent (Divergent #2) by Veronica Roth (TBR pile)

Books I bought

None! I didn't get any new books this month, aside from a textbook for school, which I've already started reading.

Progress on challenges



Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown was my January Random Read.

I read 2 books for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

I completed the following squares for the Book Bingo Challenge: 1 new release, non-fiction, 1 series book

I read 0 books for the Diversity on the Shelf Challenge.

I read 1 banned or challenged books.

I read 2 books written by women.

I read 2 books for the Seriously Series Challenge.

Progress on my TBR pile: I added 0 books to my to read list and removed 3, so my pile decreased by 3 this month!