2025 & 2026 Reading Challenge discussion

Completed books list here, stats in the next post.

Reading log

1. The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (3 stars)
2. I, Columbus: My Journal, 1492–1493 by Peter & Connie Roop (eds.) (2 stars)
3. Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (5 stars)
4. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky (4 stars)
5. Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya von Bremzen (3 stars)
6. Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (5 stars)
7. City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris (3 stars)
8. The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer (4 stars)
9. The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (4 stars)
10. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (5 stars)
11. The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore (5 stars)
12. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4 stars)
13. The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (3 stars)
14. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (5 stars)
15. The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (3 stars)
16. Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944 by Aranka Siegal (4 stars)
17. Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood (3 stars)
18. Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (4 stars)
19. Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (4 stars)
20. Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (5 stars)
21. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (5 stars)
22. A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (3 stars)
23.
24.
25.

2018 Reading Statistics

Genre/Type:
Biography/Memoir: 4
The Arts:
Classics: 1
Fantasy:
Graphic Novel:
Gender: 1
Historical Fiction: 1
General Fiction: 1
Plays:
Literary Fiction: 6
Mystery: 2
Essays:
Myths: 1
How-to:
Humor:
History: 2
Archaeology:
Language:
Social Action:
Psychology: 1
Food & Nutrition: 1
Other Nonfiction:
Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic:
Science Fiction:
Science:
Short Stories:
Poetry: 1
Children's:
Young Adult: 1
Religion:

Length
Short (<250 pages): 3
Medium (250-500 pages): 16
Long (501-800 pages): 1
Very Long (>800 pages):

Author Gender
Female: 13
Male: 9

New to Me or Repeat Author?
New to Me: 17
Repeat: 5

Series or Standalone Book?
Series: 2
Stand alone: 20

Re-read?
Yes:

Format
eBook: 17
Hard or paperback: 5
Audiobook: 1

I own: 10
From library: 10
Borrowed: 2

Decade Published
2010's: 13
2000's: 2
1990's: 2
1980's: 2
1970's:
1960's: 1
1950's:
1940's:
1930's: 1
1920's:
1910's:
1900's:
Pre-1900's:

Total books this year:
January - 10
February - 7
March - 5
April -
May -
June -
July -
August -
September -
October -
November -
December -

Love your stats!

I think I'll have to steal some of them! :p

D.G. wrote: "Love your stats!

I think I'll have to steal some of them! :p"

Help yourself! I got some of these from other people myself. :)

Kristin wrote: "I love how you track your reading, Cheri! I can tell you love to read and try to read diversely. That's wonderful. Your enthusiasm is contagious. I am excited to see your progress throughout 2018 :-)"

Thanks, Kristin! I'm very excited for the new challenge to begin!

Goodluck Cheri :) I look forward to seeing what you'll be reading in the new year. Perhaps we'll coincide on some buddy reads again in 2018 :)

Lisa wrote: "Goodluck Cheri :) I look forward to seeing what you'll be reading in the new year. Perhaps we'll coincide on some buddy reads again in 2018 :)"

Hi, Lisa! Thanks, and it would be fun to do more buddy reads! I enjoyed them this year. :)

Good luck Cheri I look forward to seeing what book starts off your journey this year.

Cheri wrote: "Can't wait to start! Stats in the next post."

Me too! :)
Good luck with your goal and happy reading Cheri!

Nice stats by the way!!

1/75 The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (3 stars)

Reading this book is like watching a movie - lots of dramatic entrances and exits, plenty of meaningful looks, and very little privileged insight into what the characters are thinking. It would make a sweet romantic comedy. I enjoyed the how-to-listen to music descriptions and wish I had seen that there's a playlist for the book when I started reading (it's mentioned at the end in the Personal Note).

2/75 I, Columbus: My Journal, 1492–1493 by Peter & Connie Roop (eds.) (2 stars)

I've been wanting to read Christopher Columbus' journal ever since I read some disturbing excerpts from it. When I picked this up from the library, I discovered that I had somehow requested an edited version meant to give middle schoolers a taste of reading primary sources. I once taught 9th grade history and loved using primary sources in the classroom, so decided to check this out. I was appalled. No context is given, no explanations are provided, and no thought-provoking questions are asked. Not finding some of the passages I remembered reading elsewhere, I was able to locate the full text of the journal online to see what was missing. Edited out was a passage on how easy it would be to conquer the "Indians." The book does mention captives being taken to bring back to Spain, but does not say that two captives managed to escape even though it records the story that one native asked to join the captives because he was related to them. These edits have bolstered the rosy view of Columbus that school children have long been taught, but it's not acceptable to perpetuate this view in our diverse society. And how is reading this teaching kids to use primary sources?

3/75 Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine (5 stars)

Take off your shoes and step into Claudia Rankine's. She'll give you a powerful experience of what her life is like Every. Single. Day. The book uses poetry, scripts, photography, and drawings to tell the story, but it is the words, especially when relating the author's own daily encounters, that make the book. I may forget the details, but I will not forget the feeling.

4/75 Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky (4 stars)

Fascinating info! Not only is Sapolsky a renowned scholar, he's a wonderful story teller. Even his explanations of complicated physiological cascades are easy to follow. The book is about the stress response, in animals and in humans, and the basic take-home lesson is that stress is a double edged sword. This is not a self-help book (do this and feel better), but a book to clarify something that we all experience (stress) and discuss how it affects us, and what the science says might help or harm, maybe, in particular circumstances. The book is worth it for Chapter 17 alone, in which Sapolsky examines the devastating effects of poverty, especially the perception of poverty in the midst of plenty, and its multi-generational biological effects.

Cheri wrote: "1/75 The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce (3 stars)

Reading this book is like watching a movie - lots of dramatic entrances and exits, plenty of meaningful looks, and ve..."

added this one to my growing pile!

I love the idea of keeping track of your reading statistics! I think I'll do the same!!!
Good luck Cheri, and happy reading!

Bibliophile Britt wrote: "I love the idea of keeping track of your reading statistics! I think I'll do the same!!!
Good luck Cheri, and happy reading!"

Thanks! It's really fun to see patterns in your reading that you didn't know where there. :) Enjoy -- and happy reading to you, too!

5/75 Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing by Anya von Bremzen (3 stars)

Lots of interesting tidbits here, but it seemed unfocused - sometimes history, sometimes personal, sometimes about food. A little more depth in one aspect or another would have helped.

6/75 Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (5 stars)

This is an absorbing historical novel with a plausible mystery and a deep sense of time and place. The story centers around three people who are coming to grips with who they are, who they want to be, and how the world sees them. As the book neared the end, it began to feel contrived and a little far-fetched, like a novel pulling all the threads together to make a point (and of course, that's what it is), but until then I had felt immersed in something that seemed real.

7/75 City of Veils by Zoë Ferraris (3 stars)

I enjoyed the mystery and the setting very much, but was disappointed in the character development. I no longer understood the continued attraction between Katya and Nayir that was so well done in the previous book (Finding Nouf).

8/75 The Mathematician's Shiva by Stuart Rojstaczer (4 stars)

I kept thinking about all the possible worlds we might inhabit while I was reading this warm and engaging novel - an overarching world described by mathematics, an academic community, a family, a midwestern town, and most poignant, the lost world of Eastern European Jews. I wasn't always sure where the book was going, but I enjoyed the characters and the mixture of intellect and emotion.

9/75 The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen (4 stars)

Suspenseful! Well written/translated with an unusual plot. The main detective is a jerk (along the lines of many male detectives in the genre), but otherwise this was quite a good book.

10/75 Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz (5 stars)

All the great things I heard about this book are true. :) And a bonus - Lin Manuel Miranda read the audio version!

Awesome job so far!

On a roll there Cheri! Nice going!

Susy wrote: "On a roll there Cheri! Nice going!"

Thanks, Susy and Blagica! So much fun...

Cheri wrote: "Susy wrote: "On a roll there Cheri! Nice going!"

Thanks, Susy and Blagica! So much fun..."

👍😃

11/75 The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore (5 stars)

Narrative non-fiction at its best, this is the story of the young women and girls (as young as 14) who painted the glowing radium numbers on dials. I became one with them as I got to know their hopes and dreams, and so I, too, felt betrayed as they were lied to and thrown away when the radium made them sick. Sadly, I couldn't help but draw parallels to our present situation, with powerful men telling lies in callous disregard for the lives of others.

12/75 Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (4 stars)

I read this because I liked Americanah and discovered that I like this even more. Safety and security are not always what they seem, and family never is. What kind of peace do we need to make with our situation just to get through one day after another? I kept wanting to put my arms around young Kambili to protect and comfort her, but how could I have explained the "right" thing for her to do? The last quarter of the book added some distracting elements, but even so, it was a wonderful story that I expect to stay with me for a long time.

13/75 The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin (3 stars)

This book uses the lives of four siblings to explore how knowing the date of your death might affect how you live. It's a provocative question, and the author has some lovely passages about it, especially with regard to the borders of reality - "a space where the impossible becomes possible." I was not convinced, however, that it was the prophecy of their death that motived the characters. There were too many complicating factors (being bipolar, having OCD, being gay in the 1970s) and too many shifting reactions to knowing their fate, or even being sure they believed the prophecy. The family connection was also a confusion, as the siblings generally did not seem close (with one exception), yet the characters kept asserting that as an essential bond.

The book was written in the simple present tense, usually reserved for speaking general truths, and so it often felt artificial and at times pretentious.

14/75 Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt (5 stars)

I feel like I'm caught on the other side of a time warp, breathing sticky Savannah air. Reading this book was a completely immersive experience into another place, with people more foreign than my countrymen should be, yet more frighteningly like all of us than I care to believe. I think it's time to crawl back to my own world and try to forget what squiggles on the other side.

15/75 The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (3 stars)

Nicely told story of a living past. I think I would have really enjoyed this as a young teenager.

15/75 The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera (3 stars)

Nicely told story of a living past. I think I would have really enjoyed this as a young teenager.

16/75 Upon the Head of the Goat: A Childhood in Hungary 1939-1944 by Aranka Siegal (4 stars)

This is a heartrending account of one young girl's experience of the Holocaust. Even though the author was a child at the time, and the book received a Newbery Honor, it's not a book for children. I wish there had been a final chapter to say what happened to all the people we got to know in the book, especially to Piri's family.

You are doing great! Hoping March is a smashing success for you.

18/75 Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth (4 stars)

I really liked this book but couldn't figure out why. Fortunately, Bernard Avishai figured it out for me: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernar...

19/75 Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney (4 stars)

I really enjoyed this book, especially Lillian's wit and wordplay. Some of the encounters she had on her walk seemed a little contrived, but overall her outing provided a good way to tell her story and I was sorry to leave this formidable, insightful, reflective woman once she returned home.

17/75 Priestdaddy: A Memoir by Patricia Lockwood (3 stars)

Several reviews call this book "hilarious," but it's not. There are some cartoonish characters, a bit of sophomoric humor, and some wry observations that are more clever than insightful, but for the most part the brash attempt at humor detracts from otherwise lovely writing and reflection. Figuring this out took awhile, and I almost quit reading. Eventually, though, I was drawn into Lockwood's writing enough to want to read her poetry. An image from the last chapter: "...my mother is drinking champagne. It rises glittering to the top of her head like a tiara..."

20/75 Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard (5 stars)

In these two short lectures on women's public voice and women's power, Mary Beard shines a light on long-held cultural restrictions on women's ability to participate in public discourse and governance. It's chilling to see how much resonance her examples from ancient Greece have in modern times. I hope Beard expands this work and discusses ideas for making change. As she rightly points out, "You cannot easily fit women into a structure that is already coded as male; you have to change the structure."

21/75 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (5 stars)

How could I not have read this before?!? Wow. So well done. The edition I read has an afterword by Sally Beaumont that is well worth reading.

22/75 A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (3 stars)

Amor Towles writes witty, sparkling prose, with plenty of delightful piffle. It was my favorite thing about the book, as well as my least favorite thing. Partly there was just too much piffle, and it became annoying. (This is a long book!) But mostly it set a tone for the book that felt wrong for the story. Outside the hotel were revolution, famine, war, and terror, but inside the hotel it seems that you could just put on a happy face and everything would be okay. If only!

A book is a dream that you hold in your hand. I hope that April brings you many more five star reads. Do you have a stand out book so far this year?

I hope May is a fantastic month filled with books and sunshine!