Here’s my January wrap up of what I read – it was a great month of reading!

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Another year, another Goodreads challenge met. I started using Goodreads several years ago and I truly believe it has encouraged me read more. I love having a place dedicated to books and reading and keeping it all organized in a sense – and seeing what my friends are reading as well. Joining the yearly Goodreads challenge always motivates me to read more. This is definitely the most I’ve ever read! Reading relaxes me and takes me places – sounds hokey, I know, but I swear it’s true.

Every time I post what I’m reading on social media (Instagram specifically) I get comments from friends wanting to read more. My advice is always to just pick up a book and start. I know from personal experience that having my phone nearby keeps me from reading so I really make an effort to put it somewhere I can’t reach when I am sitting with a book to avoid the distraction. It really helps.

For 2018, I set my reading goal at 45 books. I achieved that goal, barely. I read my 45th book just last week and it ended up being one of my favorites this year (A Place For Us, see below). I love sharing book posts like this with you, mostly because I know I personally love to read book posts like this.

Please leave a note in the comments and share what you’ve read and loved, I love hearing from you!

Books I Read in 2018:

(Each link below will bring you to Amazon – affiliate link – where you will find a summary and option to purchase. Or find them on my 2018 bookshelf here on Goodreads where you can see ratings and add them to your To Read bookshelf. I’ve also starred ** the books I enjoyed and recommend!)

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine | The Child Finder | The Lying Game ** | In A Dark, Dark Wood | Seven Days Of Us | Little Fires Everywhere ** | Watch Me Disappear | The Good Daughter |                           The Great  Alone **

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My goal for 2017 was my biggest one yet – 40 books. I am happy to report I made goal and surpassed it by officially reading 48 books in 2017, woo hoo!

I get my reading in mostly from books from the library but I’m always listening to an audiobook as well. I find I love listening to autobiographies or memoirs on audio, especially when they are narrated by the author. I try to listen in the car, as well as when I’m killing time at my kids’ practices. But nothing makes me happier than coming home from my weekly trip from the library with a stack.

Find all of my book lists and recs in my Book section on the blog.

Here are the books I’ve read this year, followed by my favorites:

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Books I’ve Read:

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It’s been an interesting month of reading. I’ve been slow at it, most of my books have felt a bit “heavy” lately. I finished up Little Mercies on audio from last month, I liked it, but paired up with Pretty Baby was a bit too much I think. Both good books though!

One thing I am really excited about right now and wanted to share with you is Hoopla. Do you know about it? It was a suggestion from Debbi (who I’ve known through this blog for many years now!) and I am so happy she mentioned it. I downloaded the app, put in my library card number and I officially now have access to check out sooo many digital books and audiobooks at my fingertips (for free!). This is very exciting to me. I don’t normally read e-books but it’s definitely nice to have, especially for audiobooks (I do like reading parenting/self help/spiritual books digitally). There’s music and movies too. I’m still digging around but so far I’ve checked out a parenting book, a cookbook and am currently listening to an audiobook. You can check out 6 titles a month per library card. My kids are using it on our family iPad too, my daughter loved listening to a couple of books on over Spring Break. Friends, get Hoopla! (Can you tell I’m excited?)

Ok, here’s what I’ve read this month:

Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica – I enjoyed reading this one, but like I mentioned earlier – the subject matter paired up with Little Mercies (a good read too!) was a little heavy to be reading both at same time. The description from Amazon:

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I can’t even believe February is about to end. Reading was a little slow for me this month, mostly because our month seemed to have been filled with birthday celebrations, work around the house, studying and other stuff that kept me away from my books. I get most of my reading done right before going to sleep and I’ve been more tired than usual lately and not getting to bed as early as I would like, hence that 15-30 minutes of good reading in bed has been cut down to about 2 minutes before I start falling asleep.

But the book I finished just this morning was a good one!

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Let’s start with today!

Over the holiday break I got a little obsessed with reading. I found myself squeezing it in every chance I got, mostly because now that I started my first class (Anatomy & Physiology – insert red-faced, circle-eyed emoticon here), I’ve been experiencing a bit of panic thinking that I may never have time to read for fun ever again. Obviously, that’s not true. I pretty much can’t fall asleep at night unless I at least attempt to read a couple of pages before I close my eyes.

I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read so far this month:

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Around this time last year, a friend of mine started a group on Facebook that connected several of us that enjoyed reading. Once you get a group of book lovers talking it’s hard to get us to stop. Readers unite! I loved getting recommendations and hearing about what books others were enjoying. Most of the books I read this year happen to have come recommended by my good friend Kristen (who’s like my Oprah when it comes to picking out books!).

Something new I tried this year was settiing a reading goal on Goodreads, as suggested in our FB group. I had no idea how much I was capable of reading so I selected 30 books as my goal. I quickly realized that reading that many books might be a little overzealous. I’m happy to report that I met that goal this week (I’m literally finishing up my last book, Inside the O’briens as I type). If you are not on Goodreads I highly recommend you check it out! It’s such a great site/app to use to keep track of books you have read or want to read. I can’t tell you how many times I pull it up while at the library.

I have to say, it was fun to work toward a reading goal. A huge help toward meeting my goal was listening to audiobooks via Audible (Try Audible and Get Two Free Audiobooks <—affiliate link). It took me longer to listen to the books, but I was basically always reading two books at a time. I’ve learned that I really enjoy listening to books in the historical fiction genre, there is something about using your imagination to visualize the story while listening versus reading. I don’t know if I would be able to read those types of books as well as I listen to them if that makes any sense.

My favorites? There were quite a few. I would have to say What Alice Forgot, The Boston Girl, The Snow Child (audio), The Nightingale (audio) and The Invention of Wings (audio). Looking over my books, I feel like this year I read a lot more “tragic” stories (Everything I Never Told You and Five Days Left really hurt my heart and were tough at times, though excellent books). I read a few books with my 11 year old son which I plan to do more of this year – The Giver (I bought the rest of the series for him for Christmas), Wonder and Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban (he’s already read series 4 times and is impatiently waiting for me to catch up). If you have any recommendations for reading along with an 11 year old boy (who loves to read) please send them my way!

So here you have it – my books of 2015. Have you read any of them? What did you read that you loved? I would love to hear from you!!

Books I Read in 2015:

We Are Called To Rise by Laura McBride

The Good Girl by Mary Kubica

The Giver by Lois Lowry

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

Tell The Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Five Days Left by Julie Lawson Timmer

Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burbo

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

Happiness For Beginners by Katherine Center

All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner

The Signature Of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert

Wonder by RJ Palacio

Cooking As Fast I Can by Cat Cora

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

Paper Towns by John Green

Little Bee by Chris Cleave

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight

The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins

Left Neglected by Lisa Genova

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

Love Anthony by Lisa Genova

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty

Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling

Happy Reading!! Follow me on Goodreads throughout the year for book ideas, and check out the Book Love section of my blog for past posts on what I’ve read.

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So much reading happening right now! I can’t get enough…my Goodreads to-read list is growing each day with books I can’t wait to get into.

Here are my current book reviews and what I’m reading now:

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
by Marie Kondo

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I’ve been reading some really great books lately, so much book love! Around the first of the year, one of my friends who is an avid reader started a Facebook group for a few of us who like to “Read Every Day”. As nerdy as this sounds, I am loving the interaction with others who are book worms like me. We share book lists and recommendations with each other and I have more books saved on my Goodreads list than ever. I even set a 2015 reading goal for myself – 30 books, but after a little thought I think 24 more (2 a month) might be a little more realistic. What is so cool about Goodreads is you can easily create a folder to keep track of the books you read in the year you read them, if you want to keep track of stuff like that.

In addition to my new FB group that is getting me all kinds of excited about reading, I’ve recently discovered a love of audiobooks thanks to my friend Kristen. I signed up for a free trial month on audible.com and have been listening to my my first audiobook (The Invention of Wings – also recommended by Kristen) non stop. My audiobook is filling in the quiet spots of my day – in the car, when I’m folding laundry, when I’m cooking, when I want to close my eyes for a second or when I’m taking stroller walks with my little one. Normally I would listen to music during these times, but I’m pretty engrossed in this story and look forward to any time I can plug in my headphones and listen along. It’s a whole different experience listening to a book being read to you as opposed to reading it yourself. I’m enjoying the character voices (there are two readers in this book) and I am amazed at how listening to a book challenges your imagination in a whole new way. Audiobooks – for the win. (I am trying to figure out what my next one will be – any suggestions?).

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