2025 Reading Challenge discussion

Okay, so I usually hit between 85-100ish books/year but thought I'd read way less this year...and am instead reading a lot more than usual. Which is great! But I figured I should probably switch over from the 25-50 folder XD

💻 = Ebooks
🎧 = Audiobooks
📖 = Physical Books

January Books
February Books
March Books

Total books: 64/101
24/50 Hard Copy

January Books:

1. Moonspinners 📖
2. The Twilight Streets 📖
3. Waiting for Godot 💻
4. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch 📖
5. The Bridge of San Luis Rey 📖
6. Clanlands in New Zealand: Kiwis, Kilts, and an Adventure Down Under 🎧
7. Bookshops & Bonedust 📖
8. Craven Manor 📖
9. Unnatural Death 🎧
10. A Great Deliverance 📖

7 📖
1 💻
2 🎧

Good luck on meeting your 2024 goal. I hope you enjoy your reading adventures, and find some new favorites.

I hope you find 50 fabulous reads!

Elizabeth wrote: "Good luck on meeting your 2024 goal. I hope you enjoy your reading adventures, and find some new favorites."

Thank you! I'm really looking forward to so many books on my tbr :D

Blagica wrote: "I hope you find 50 fabulous reads!"

Thank you! :D

Finished A Great Deliverance today. Technically a reread, but I think I read it 10+ years ago and had forgotten most of it. Looking forward to reading more in the series.

Finally finished Nonbinary: A Memoir of Gender and Identity. It was good, really interesting to see other peoples', uh, nonbinary gender journeys? I really enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the narrator (who is good! Through no fault of her own!) had a voice that sounded almost exactly like the voiceover of an infomercial I watched several times when I had terrible insomnia, and I couldn't get past that, which made the 12-hour runtime a bit of a struggle.

February Books:

11. Nonbinary: Memoirs of Gender and Identity 🎧
12. The Lies of Vampires and Slayers 💻
13. The Games of Enemies and Allies 💻
14. Murder at the Mansion 🎧
15. Eight Acts 💻
16. Driving in Circles 💻
17. Dead Beat 🎧
18. Match #1: Classes & Glasses: A Cozy Fantasy Romance 💻
19. Warning! Deep Water 💻
20. The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash (Light Novel) Vol. 1 💻
21. The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash (Light Novel) Vol. 2 💻
22. The Sitcom Star 💻
23. Furbidden Fatality 🎧
24. Doggone Deadly 🎧
25. Star Pattern Traveller 📖
26. Going Up 💻
27. La vida privada de los árboles 📖
28. The Lost War 📖
29. Surfacing Again: A short contemporary lesbian romance 💻
30. The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland 📖
31. So Late in the Day: Stories of Women and Men 📖

5 📖
11 💻
5 🎧

Zoomed through Games of Enemies and Allies (light, enjoyable fun), finished the audiobook of Murder at the Mansion (all right), and picked up Eight Acts, which had been on my kindle for a year now (soft and lovely, like A.L. Lester's other stories, although not exactly light & fluffy).

Big month for novellas and audiobooks; unfortunately, the only hard copy book I've gotten through this month is Star Pattern Traveller (which, I mean, not unfortunate I read it, it is a solid scifi banger), but I'm currently working my way through three other paperbacks and one hardcover (and two in Spanish, reading more of which was another of my goals this year), so I'm not *too* fussed about it.

I ended up reading the bulk of The Lost War in two sittings yesterday; had a really great time with it, and I'm getting the sequel today XD

March Books:

32. Proven Guilty 📖
33. White Night 🎧
34. Small Favor 🎧
35. Turn Coat 🎧
36. La hipótesis del amor 📖
37. Changes 🎧
38. First Comes Marriage 💻
39. Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven 📖
40. Miss Hastings' Excellent London Adventure 💻
41. The Reluctant Heartthrob 💻
42. The Bitter Crown 📖
43. Her Sisterly Love 💻
44. How to Sell a Haunted House 📖
45. The Secret of Chimneys 🎧
46. Beatrix Potter The Complete Tales 🎧
47. The Uninvited 📖
48. Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets 🎧
49. A Curious Beginning 📖
50. Murder Mystery at the Castle : A Kitty McCray Cozy Mystery 💻
51. Boxes in the Basement 💻
52. The Moonstone Duke 💻
53. Mr. Mulliner Speaking 🎧
54. Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop 💻
55. Spelling the Tea 💻
56. The Bookshop Murder 💻
57. Changing Our Mind: Definitive 3rd Edition of the Landmark Call for Inclusion of LGBTQ Christians with Response to Critics 📖
58. God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships 📖
59. A Man Lay Dead 🎧
60. People from My Neighborhood 📖

10 📖
10 💻
9 🎧

Well, March is starting out strong, with Proven Guilty in mass market and the next three Dresden in audiobook. I've read through Skin Game previously, but am rereading so I can *finally* get to Peace Talks and Battle Ground, because it's been a solid ten years since I read any of them, and I barely remembered anything except the big points.

I'm enjoying my reread so far, although the things that bugged me about the books are still very much there, and I'll admit I'm thinking about just skimming (or skipping) Ghost Story, which was very much not my favorite of the series.

Finished La Hipótesis del Amor; technically a reread, but it's part of my project to read more books in Spanish this year to keep from losing more of my vocab.

Also finished Changes on audiobook, because I promised a friend, years ago when they came out, that I"d catch up and read Battle Ground and Peace Talks and never did and she's still on me about it. And there's some cool stuff there, fun story things, lots of plot, but oof, the issues I had with this series are so glaringly obvious when you try binging it. Yikes.

I needed something light after a really heavy workload this week; finished Harley Merlin, which was quite silly but sort of fun, Miss Hastings', which was cute, fun, and very period-inaccurate, and The Reluctant Heartthrob, which I think is my third Jackie Lau book? And I've enjoyed all of them :D. It was really cute. Just what I needed.

Wow, you're really smashing your reading goal! Way to go!

Alex wrote: "Wow, you're really smashing your reading goal! Way to go!"

Thanks! I'd gotten about 100 last year, but I set a lower goal for 2024 since I wanted to focus on my physical tbr, which I'm not doing as much as I'd hoped (though more than usual :D)

Finished The Uninvited and Eggs, Beans, & Crumpets today and realized I should probably swap out to a bigger goal folder.

EB&C was fine; I didn't feel like it was one of Wodehouse's best collections. But I really dug The Uninvited. I'd seen the movie first and wasn't expecting all of what got cut out, but I really enjoyed it.

Finished two cozy mysteries today, and might finish another regency romance, because I felt awful b/c of chronic health issues today and needed something light and fluffy. :)

Reading/rereading some theological books to recommend to someone, so I'm trying to get through them quickly.

April Books!:

61. Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church 💻
62. UnClobber 📖
63. The Pale Horse 🎧
64. What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality 📖

Expecting April to be a lot slower than Jan-March, because I've got a ton of things going on this month. But it's not off to a bad start, finishing up The Pale Horse, which I can't remember if I actually read previously, way back when, or if I've just watched the Marple adaptation enough times I thought I had xD