Usually, a book with short stories can be found by my bed - and at least 1 story must be completed before I go to sleep. So, last year I made a list of 10 Book of Short Stories From 2011 That I Want to Read ... most were excellent, but 1 or 2 left me trying to remember who/ where recommended the book - so I could go give them a good scolding!
In April, I decided that I would tailor my reading for the rest of the year to nominees for (some) book awards. While that narrowed my reading choices considerably - it helps give me focus, because there are just too many books out there that catch my eye otherwise, and I stress out about wanting to read them all!
Every month I make a short list of books being published that I'm looking forward to reading.
Do you read books & watch the movie? For me, it's usually one or the other, but there are a few exceptions I'm looking forward to this year.
Whether a book is fiction or non-fiction, whether it's about werewolves & vampires, or about real life issues - all books can teach us a little life lesson. Here are some lessons I've learned from the last 10 books I've read ... from the mouths of the main fictional character involved.
The Nebula Awards are given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), for the best science fiction/ fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year. The 2011 awards will be presented on May 19, 2012, so I'm going to try and read as many of the novels as I can in the Best Novel and Young Adult categories, and then make my predictions as to who will win - and I'm notoriously BAD at predicting award winners! So the nominees are ...
The blog post title is a bit of a pun on the book, How to Win Friends & Influence People
Last year, I made a list of 10 Books To Read During Halloween - The 2011 Edition. It was made a tad late, so it took a while to get through them all. Now I'm done, and looking at back at whether those books were good & scary ... here's a hint - none of them were but I enjoyed them all.
Every month I make a short list of books being published that I'm looking forward to reading.
Many of the un-putdownable "books I've read in one day", have been part of book series that I haven't yet finished. So here's my list of book series that I hope to complete by the end of the year.
It's fascinating to see which books win the awards every year, so this is a list of many of the major book awards - it's not exhaustive, but more representative of what I'm interested in following.
I can't believe how many books I read over the winter. I suppose I made good use of the 2.5 hours/ 5 days a week I have to sit through the kids swim practice. Not to mention the numerous all-day weekend swim meets, and the 1 hour commute back & forth to work now that I've discovered audio-books.
I usually have a seasonal reading list with at least 10 books that I MUST read. With spring coming up, it's time for a new list, so I decided to pick books that will count towards some of the reading challenges I'm participating in.
Dystopian novels are rocking my world right now. I know some people say they are too many of them, and they are trying too hard to be The Hunger Games - but whatevs! The few I've read have been really good - and I plan to read more before the year is out.
A short sweet list of just 2 books that I'm eagerly anticipating to be released this month. I have a thing where I don't read books published in the current year until July - but boy has it been hard to stick to this rule this year - curse you book bloggers and your advanced copies that just tease me with reviews :-)
The Bram Stoker Awards, is presented annually for outstanding horror writing in a number of different categories. The 2011 awards winners will be announced on March 31, 2012 (along with the Vampire Novel of the Century Award), and I'm super excited to see which books will win. I thought it would be interesting to pick the creepiest book covers from the nominees - 2 books in 5 different categories. This will be my reading list (one of MANY) leading up to Halloween. Then I'll post a list with which proved to be scarier - the covers or the book!
I've already mentioned 2 of these books in the 10 Books Coming Out in the First Half of 2012 That I'm Excited About Reading - but I'm also doing a monthly list with anything else that catches my eye.
I saw a post at Amy's Book Den, which inspired this list. She said that something can be learned from every book, and I totally agree - whether the book is fiction or non-fiction, whether it's about werewolves & vampires, or about real life issues - all books can teach us a little life lesson. Some lessons you might be able to use right now to deal with your crazy co-workers ... and some of those lessons might be useful in a future zombie attack ... you never know what could happen!
So, here are a few things I learned from the first 10 books I read in 2012 (excluding collection of short-stories).
If I had to move to a bomb shelter and could only come up to the surface for short periods of time, then the books I would scavenge for would be big 450+ pagers, that would keep me entertained for a while. Hopefully, this scenario won't ever happen BUT I plan on reading a few chunky books in 2012 anyway, and thought the bomb shelter scenario was a better introduction than saying, "here are 10 big books I want to read this year."
