I ran across this, I forget how, but tell me how cute is she? I think it is the accent! I just love watching her videos! I’ll be stuck watching these for the rest of the week now!
Reading War and Peace
Yep, I’m doing it. I’m going to read the mother of all books. The big one, the doorstop, the massive tome know as War and Peace the Russian that looks a little like Rasputin to me, Leo Tolstoy. But don’t worry I have a plan. I’ve gotten the full, unabridged audio version, all 48 CDs and 61 hours! The library had that. Boom, savings of $44 bucks! I picked up the Cliff Notes too, again from the library.
However, so far, I have been reading it mostly on my phone. Strange huh? The chapters are pretty short from what I’ve read. I’m only on chapter 8. I’m reading slow. My 2 year old loves to listen to me read it at her bed time. It puts her to sleep quickly, 😉
I did borrow the paper version from the library too, but had to give it back quickly, it is just too thick to hold and read for any long amount of time.
Pitiful, I know I’m only 2.5% completed with the book. I’ll update you as I go along, but so far the book is not boring. It is not what I would call a page-turner either though. The goal is to finish the book by the end of this year. I’m not even sure if I’m on pace for that or not.
I do have ankle surgery coming up and will be unable to put any weight on my foot for at least 2 weeks, so that should give me some time to put into reading this. Next, you will ask, why I’m reading this.
Well readers love lists and this is on one of the only list I have been working on for the past several years. The BBC 100. I need to post that list up here and my progress on it too. Thats all for now, I’ll keep you updated on how it is going when I make some progress on the thing. For now, back to reading!
Isle of the Lost
I’m reading Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz with my daughter who is 7 years old. She loved the made for TV movie Descendants. We have only read the introduction so far, but it seems to be, from the goodreads description, a prequel to the movie. We also had to get the soundtrack for this for our daughter and she has some of the dolls as well.
That seems to be what happens when she sees a movie that she likes. She wants the dolls and soundtrack. I’m really happy that with this movie there are follow-up or prequel books to read with her.
Wonder Woman: The Circle
UPDATE: I didn’t think I would finish this book so soon. I forgot how quickly graphic novels are read. I loved the art in this book and the story was better than most of the Wonder Woman graphic novels I have read. I would recommend this for Wonder Woman fans. It is a strong 3 star read.
I started Wonder Woman: The Circle by Gail Simone last night. I originally got this after finding out that one of my local libraries has a very large collection of comic books, or graphic novels. Will someone tell me what the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel is please. I’ve always used comic book when talking about just one individual copy and graphic novel when referring to something like this book which is a collection of issues combined into one book. Someone please set me straight in the comments.
Anywho, the library, Yorba Linda Library, had this and I’ve always been into Wonder Woman, I mean she’s hot right? Last year I read The Secret History of Wonder Woman by by Jill Lepore, which was a little slow, but a great foundation to really understand the origins of Wonder Woman and those who created her. I was never into the early comics and I think I would have found them disappointing as Gail Simone points out in the introduction of this book.
It’s around $19 on Amazon so this goes into 2016 savings bucket! I saved $19 already this year on books because I got this from the library. Last year I saved over $800 on books because I borrowed them from the library. I really need to do a post on that as well.
I borrowed this in part because I’ve been slowly getting more interested in comic books in the last few years. I have been attending comic-con regularly with my dad (it’s kind of a tradition with us, and no we don’t dress up). Also, with the new Star Wars movie out, I know that a lot of what happens between episode 6 and 7 is being covered in the comic books and regular novels. I want to know everything so I’ve put somethings on hold and I also have plans to check out the local comic book stores soon.
There are a lot of Wonder Woman comics out there and I find it confusing to figure out where this one lies in the Wonder Woman timeline. I looked on wikipedia and I’m having trouble finding something that lays it all out on a timeline like the Star Wars novels are laid out on Wookiepedia.
I picked this up to read over the winter break, I took vacation from work, and I haven’t gotten to it until now because I was reading Shade Me.
What’s This?!
This is my new blog to post about the books that I am reading. I’ve been thinking of doing something like this for years and now finally here it is. I’ll be writing about the books I’m reading and writing reviews for those that I finish. More detail is on my about page. I read a lot so hopefully there will be lots of content on here. I read 87 books last year, let’s hope I can hit 100 in 2016!
I’ve been trying to hit 100 for years. I almost got there in 2011 and I’m very excited to write about all the books I experience this year!
The Best Books I Read in 2015
Just as in previous years I’m writing a post about the books I read in 2015. I read 87 books in total, below is the breakdown. This year I’m adding a few metrics which I think will be interesting. Like, how much I saved by borrowing books from the library ($807.40) and what percentage of the authors I read were men (67%).
Fiction was the majority of my reading at 60%. Fantasy (20%) and Science Fiction (21%) being the largest portion of all genres. Read a few series this year, meaning I read 8 books by Holly Black (Spiderwick Chronicles), 3 from C.S. Lewis (Chronicles of Narnia), 2 from Timothy Zahn (The Thrawn Trilogy) and 2 Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson). Paperback was the least popular binding at on 17% of my reads.
Most of my books came from the library (37%). Longest audio book I listened to was Capital at 1,503 minutes (25 hours), shortest was The Hamburger: A History at 180 minutes (3 hours). Total audio listening was 11,751 minutes (196 hours, 8.2 days).
Longest book I read was Hadoop in Practice (536 pages), which was for a class and I didn’t read every page. Next was All the Light We Cannot See at (530 pages). Shortest was 30 pages, a short story called Percy Jackson and the Singer of Apollo. In all I read 14,560 pages.
The longest it took me to get through a book was Capital (195 days), Michelle and I listened to it in the car. Shorts books included a lot of the Spiderwick Chronicles, in all I finished 12 books the same day I started them.
I finished the most books in July (20). The most popular book (according to goodreads) I read was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. The least was Valkyrie.
So how does this year compare to previous years? Well, I read the most I have in the past 3 years, but still not as much as 2011, when I read 96 books. That big 100 is still just out of reach. Maybe this year…
Some of my favorite books of the year were:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Star Wars: Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
Shade Me Review
So I read Shade Me by Jennifer Brown. Before we get to the spoilers let me just say quickly that this is a very strong 4 on a 1-5 scale. The only reason I held back on 5 is because of a bit too much teenage angst for my liking. Although, not nearly as much as the Twilight books. Also, there were a hand full of times, that I caught myself thinking, come on Nikki really, that’s dumb, don’t do that. But this actually might be a reason to give it more stars not less because if you are talking to yourself while reading the book, its got you. Full disclosure, I entered a contest on EpicReads and was sent this book for free. It doesn’t get officially published until 1/19/16.
**Spoilers Below**