Can you believe it?!? We’ve made it through half of a year!! I feel like this year more than any other, that is quite the accomplishment. Take a moment… pat yourself on the back. Good job!
Now that we’ve made it through this half of year that has felt like an eternity, it’s a good time to check to see how you’ve reading has gone and where you are on your challenges. This is also the prompt for today for the July 2020 book photo challenge on Instagram. I found out about via another blogger who is hosting it, @CommasAndAmpersands.
My main challenge this year was to read 110 books this year. I am at… drum roll please… 78 books as of June 30th. According to the Goodreads tracker, I’m 23 books. I never would have done that if I didn’t quit my job and then have the world lose it’s mind.
With those 78 books read, I’ve touched on a wide variety of genres and subjects. A lot of the books that I read were eBooks that came from the library. The first book that I finished to kick off the new year was Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes. I really enjoyed it and gave it 4 stars. I also found a new favorite author in Katherine Center, reading both Things You Save in a Fire and How to Walk Away. I have her newest book, What You Wish For, on its way to me right now. I plan on reading it as soon as I get it. It’s hard to say what my favorite book so far is but both What the Wind Knows and The Vanishing Half are up there. I haven’t reviewed What the Wind Knows yet. The author’s attention to detail was just awe inspiring!
The next big challenge that I’m doing, if you haven’t guessed already by previous posts, is the Popsugar Reading Challenge. I’ve read 28 or the 50 challenge prompts, although I am waiting to fill some of the prompts, like a book with a great first line, at the end. This means that I need to read four books each month remaining to complete this. I may try to read ahead so I don’t end up like last year where I finished the last book at 630pm on the 31st, just making it under the wire.
One of the fun challenges that I’m doing is the alphabet challenge. I’m trying to a read a book that for each letter in the alphabet. Only five more and I’m done. I’m waiting for the Malcolm X autobiography read by Laurence Fishburne to come out on Audible to fulfill X. I’m thinking World War Z for Z, it has a full cast for the audio version. Surprisingly, N is one that I still have open… Nine Perfect Strangers? Ninth House? Night Road? I’ll read one of those.
I had decided that this year was going to be a year of personal growth. I challenged myself to read a self help, philosophy, spiritual book each month. I’m a bit behind on that but am hoping to catch up. I also added racism books on top of the personal growth to push me to grow in regards to that as well. I’m also pushing myself to read more Black authors and people of color.
For the most part I’m doing really good against my challenges. Even if I wasn’t, who cares. This is for me. For me to read more voices, to get different perspectives, to learn, grow and ultimately to have fun. Books allow us to escape to different worlds and right now, we could definitely use that. I hope everyone else has had a great reading year thus far! Any favorites? Any you still want to get to?
Happy Reading!!
Charlotte on Books 