Hey there — do I still have readers?! If I do, that’s super swell, and thanks for stopping by! I know I haven’t blogged for literally 6 months (yikes), but it’s Monday, there’s a little bit of time left in the workday and I’m not feeling super productive, so, you get a blog!

About books!

Probably don’t actually fold your book like this. What a tool.

Books are neat, aren’t they? I like them in the tub, I like them on a train; I like them on the balcony, sheltered from the rain.

I’m proud to say I am a card-carrying library member, and I’ve been getting a lot of use out of it lately because earlier this year I set a “goal” to read 50 books in 2018.

I don’t know where you’re at in terms of reading level/amount, but that is kind of a lot. In fact, when I got out my handy dandy work calculator (circa whenever calculators were invented) to see what that would average per month for a year, it comes to about 4.166666666666.

This is a LEGIT piece of machinery, no?

At that calculation, if I average one book every 1-2 weeks, I can keep up. That’s not a crazy feat for me… when I get sucked into something, I will read it within a couple of days at times, let alone a week. But you know, life happens, and sometimes it will take me time to get through a book, particularly if I’m not super into it. I can’t think of a time when I didn’t finish a book (well wait, I kind of can…), but I can tell you that when I read “1984” last year, I felt I was being tortured along with the people in this dystopian universe.

So, it’s basically August now, and according to calculations, I should have read about 29 books by now.

I’m actually on book number 22, so I’m … sort of close? I’m confident I can still meet my goal by the end of the year.

Why this goal, you may ask? Well, if you’re a regular reader, you know I am not big on real New Year’s Resolutions. I think more often than not, they set us up to fail and are kind of arbitrary. I’ve been letting myself off the hook the past couple years by striving for things like this:

But this year, the idea of setting a reading goal seemed like something I could work toward, and something I would benefit from yet also really enjoy, unlike exercising and drinking less.

So now that I’m close to half of my goal (and yes, I’m aware the year is MORE than half over, thankyouverymuch), I wanted to share some of the stuff I’ve enjoyed, and some I could have done without.

First and foremost, I am way late to the party, but I have discovered Jodi Picoult. It started when a friend recommended “Small Great Things,” one of her more recent novels, and I loved it and discovered she has written TONS. You may have heard of “My Sister’s Keeper” because it’s also a movie, but I haven’t read a book of hers yet that I didn’t like or finish in a few days. Next to Emily Giffin, my favorite author (I own several of her books and just finished “All We Ever Wanted,” her latest — highly recommend), Jodi is a new fav. She tackles relevant, tough issues and examines them from all angles. What’s not to love from a journalist?!

I’m also catching up on some memoir-type books I’ve been meaning to read over the years, from Amy Schumer, Tina Fey and Anna Kendrick. I’m just 2 chapters into Amy Schumer’s book, “The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo,” and I love it already. Girl gets me. I also highly recommend Chrissy Metz’s memoir, “This is Me,” whether or not you’re a “This is Us” fan (and um if you’re not… Okkkkkkkk).

I. Love. Suspense. Murder. Mysteries. Anything by Ruth Ware (“The Woman in Cabin 10,” “In a Dark, Dark Wood,” “The Lying Game”) gets devoured in a day. My friend recommended “Magpie Murders” by Anthony Horowitz, which was like a novel within a novel and very interesting. A little slower, but still gripping.

There has been one book so far I did not care for, and that was “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders. It’s basically about the death of President Lincoln’s young son Willie (true story) but explores it through a supernatural realm where ghosts in a cemetery hang out “in limbo” and get into all kinds of shenanigans. It was just kind of a chore to get through with the writing style, but to each his own. I’m still glad I read it for something different, and I definitely know more about this chapter in history now, so there’s that.

All in all, it has been a great goal for me. I watch TV maybe slightly less, and sometimes I go to bed earlier because I want to read my book, and then I fall asleep. I’m also happy to support my local library and kind of love used books. Most of them are hardback.

I’d love to hear more book recommendations if you have any! I’ve only got, oh….. 28 books to go!