Annual Reading Roundup

[alexiscartwheel]

At the beginning of 2015, I set some reading goals. So how did I do?

• First, I wanted to read at least 75 books. Go figure, by setting that goal lower, I actually ended up reading more. According to Goodreads, my total was 106, including rereads of the first six Toby Daye books. (There were some picture books, too, and plenty of single issue comic books, but I generally don't count those.)


• I did a much better job determining what books I was or was not interested in. There were plenty that I read 20-50 pages and abandoned. There were a few exceptions where I soldiered on, mostly for a reading challenge at work.


• I read Do Muslim Women Need Saving by anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod and The Butterfly Mosque by journalist and comic writer G. Willow Wilson. The former is more academic and provides many examples of how the lives of Muslim women are more complex than they are portrayed in Western Media. The latter is a memoir of Wilson's years living in Egypt, where she met and married her husband, after she graduated from college and converted to Islam. (I also have continued reading Wilson's Ms. Marvel comics.)


• Heather and I read lots of the same stuff. Is anyone surprised?

At work, our manager also designed a reading challenge for the staff with a different genre or category for each month of the year, e.g. a romance novel, a young adult book, a non-fiction book, a Newbery winner. There were a few duds in that bunch, but also some great books I probably would not have otherwise read.

Overall, it was a good year for books. I stayed on top of the YA releases I wanted to read, and I also read significantly more non-fiction than previous years, with excellent results.

Comments

[lunamystic]

You read 106. I read 60. This is fine. XD

[alexiscartwheel]

Are you saying I need to start physically putting the books in your hands?

[ceitfianna]

Reading nonfiction is always good and you've been better with YA releases than I have. I mean to and then spot something else to read.

[alexiscartwheel]

Oh, that happens to me, too! I usually have somewhere between 30-40 library books at home, some of which have been sitting there for months because I keep seeing some other shiny new thing to read first.