Reading Challenges

2021 Reading Goals Revisited

Hello and welcome to my reflection on my 2021 reading goals. I feel like the first half of the year went really, really slow and then the second half ended up going way too fast. Funny how time seems to do that. Anyway, as I do with other years, I wanted to take a moment to look at the goals I set for myself a year ago and see how I faired.

Achieved

Use the library once a month-I did this for sure! I used the library for audiobooks constantly this year and I am so thankful they have the digital resources that they do between those audiobooks and ebooks.

Read 12 nonfiction books-As of writing this post I have read a total of 19 nonfiction books!

Read 50 books – As of writing this post I have read a total of 73 books, so I accomplished this!

Reread The Hobbit and the Lord of the Ring Trilogy – I did it! I reread The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy over again. It was a lot of fun to dive back into these books the last few months of 2021.

Not Achieved

Read the International Booker Prize – I read 4 of the 6 books from the shortlist this year. I do have the other two on my kobo and I still plan to read them, but I am such a mood reader I didn’t want to read these great books when I was not in the mood.

Read The Farseer Trilogy and The Liveship Traders Trilogy by Robin Hobb – This one I half did. I read the entire Farseer Trilogy, but I ended up DNFing The Liveship Traders Trilogy for now.

Keep my owned TBR under 10 books – I have it in the 20s, so not too far off, but not the goal I set for myself.

How did you do with your 2021 goals?

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Reading Challenges

Reading Challenge | 2021 Reading Goals

Hello and welcome to a quick post to showcase the reading goals I have for myself this upcoming year. This year I am keeping some of the same I have had for year and others are new. I feel like it is a good mixture to challenge myself, but keeping in mind the unexpected nature 2021 will most likely have.


The Goals

Use the library once a month – I plan on using the digital resources that are part of my library membership this year. I want to use it at least once a month, but I hope to use it more.

Read 12 nonfiction books – I love reading non-fiction and I want to ensure it stays part of my reading rotation because I know as 2020 went on I read less and less of it because I wanted a bit of escapism.

Read 50 books – I do this goal every year, this is just to ensure that I read a book a week, but also some leeway if life gets in the way.

Read the International Booker Prize – I read a shortlist every year and this year I decided to read this one. I dedicated an entire post to it, Reading Challenge | Reading a Shortlist 2021, where I went over all the books that I plan on reading for this one.

I want to read 2 trilogies by Robin Hobb – I want to read both The Farseer Trilogy and Liveship Traders Trilogy this year because I hear such wonderful things about her works. Thanks to my wonderful boyfriend, I have the first two books of The Farseer Trilogy in the illustrated editions!

Reread The Hobbit and the Lord of the Ring Trilogy – I love these books and it has been quite a while since I last read them and I feel like I have forgotten so much. It is time to remedy that!

Lastly, keep my owned TBR under 10 books – in 2020 I was able to get my owned TBR to 0 and I want to keep it under 20 books. I will give myself exceptions to this around gift giving holidays and my birthday because I always get books as gifts.


What reading goals do you have for yourself in 2021?

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Reading Challenges

Reading Challenge | Reading a Shortlist 2021

Hello and welcome to one of the first posts where I go through some of the goals I have for myself in 2021. One challenge I have for myself is reading a shortlist. This past year I did the Man Booker Prize, which is not just the Booker Prize. I will be posting a wrap up to that tomorrow, so keep an eye out! This year I decided I am going to read the International Booker Prize 2020 Shortlist.


I decided to do the international edition of this literary award so I read more from around the world and read some more translated works. I realized in 2020 I do like translated books quite a bit and I thought this would be a great way to learn about new authors.

The Shortlisted Books


After reading the description of each of these books I can honestly say I think this year is the most I have been excited to complete this reading challenge. These stories sound wonderfully written, unique, and they all sound like something I would be interested in if I was not doing this challenge. I already picked up Hurricane Season to get started on this in January and I will continue from there.

Do you have any book awards that you follow or keep tabs on?

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Reading Challenges

Reflection | 2020 Goals, 9 Month Check In

Reflection

Hello and welcome to a post where I check in with my 2020 reading goals. I cannot believe that we are already in the final quarter of the year so it really is go time to get these goals finished. So, I am really hoping I have done a good job keeping up and getting some things done!


The List

  1. Read a shortlist: Man Booker 2019 (4/6)
          • The Testaments by Margaret Atwood
          • ✔️Ducks, Newburyport  by Lucy Ellmann
          • ✔️Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
          • An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma (Owned)
          • ✔️Quichotte by Salman Rushdie
          • ✔️10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak
  2. ✔️Read 50 books, 91 books read. 
  3. ✔️Read all backlisted books, 46 books in all.
  4. ✔️ Read 30,000 pages.
  5. ✔️ Read 16 nonfiction books.
  6. Read 16 books from the library. Read 9 so far. 
  7. ✔️  Read a book from each continent 
          • ✔️North America: The Dutch Houseby Ann Patchett
          • ✔️South America Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin
          • ✔️ Europe: Crime And Punishmentby Fyodor Dostoyevsky
          • ✔️Asia Before the Coffee Gets Coldby Toshikazu Kawaguchi
          • ✔️ Australia: The Secret River by Kate Grenville
          • ✔️Antarctica: The Magicians by Lev Grossman 
          • ✔️Africa Don’t Touch My Hair byEmma Dabiri
  8. ✔️Read a book recommended by Joe Hill or Stephen King
          • ✔️Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
  9. Read a Shakespeare play a month, (9/12)
          • January: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
          • February: Othello
          • March: Hamlet
          • April: Macbeth
          • May: The Taming of the Shrew
          • June: Twelfth Night
          • July: The Tempest
          • August: A Comedy of Errors
          • September: Much Ado About Nothing
          • October: Julius Caesar
          • November: The Merchant of Venice
          • December: King Lear

Reflection

Overall, I am doing pretty well with the goals. I am a bit worried about my reading a shortlist one because I really do not want to read The Testaments, but I am still on the fence about doing it because I set out to finish the shortlist. We shall see what happens! Another goal I am a little iffy about is reading books from the library. My library is still limited when it comes to browsing and such and I have holds for digital stuff, but since everyone is using the digital resources currently I have not gotten a ton in. This one might be out of my hands, but I am still going to try.

As for all of the other goals I have already achieved or I am well on my way. I am surprised that I have kept up with my Shakespeare challenge this year that there are only 3 more plays left.


How are your goals going?

Have you decided to change any of yours or introduce new ones?

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Reading Challenges

Reflection | 2020 Goals, 6 Month Checkin

Reflection

Hello everyone and welcome to my 6 month 2020 goals check in. I cannot believe that wee are halfway through 2020 already. Anyway, I am going to keep this short and sweet and just get into the goal. The thing is I wanted to give you a bit of a heads up. I am writing this blog post in advance so my numbers might be a tad bit higher in real time.


The List

  1. Read a shortlist: Man Booker 2019
    • The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Not really excited about this one…
    • ✔️Ducks, Newburyport  by Lucy Ellmann
    • ✔️Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
    • An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma
    • Quichotte by Salman Rushdie Owned
    • 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak Owned
  2. Read 50 books, 55 books read. 
  3. Read all backlisted books, 46 books in all. Down to 10.
  4. Read 30,000 pages. Read 20,068 pages so far. 
  5. Read 16 nonfiction books. Read 8 so far. 
  6. Read 16 books from the library. Read 7 so far. 
  7. Read a book from each continent
    • ✔️North America: The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
    • South America
    • ✔️ Europe: Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • ✔️Antarctica: The Magicians by Lev Grossman 
    • Africa
  8. Read a book recommended by Joe Hill or Stephen King
    • The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard
    • Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman Purchased 
    • Brutal Youth by Anthony Breznican
    • Frankenstorm by Ray Garton
  9. Read a Shakespeare play a month, you can join the fun by going to the goodreads group 2020 Shakespeare Challenge Group.
    • January: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
    • February: Othello
    • March: Hamlet
    • April: Macbeth
    • May: The Taming of the Shrew
    • June: Twelfth Night
    • July:
    • August:
    • September:
    • October:
    • November:
    • December:

Reflection

  1.  I read two of these books and did a review here:Reflection | Reading a Shortlist Vol. 1. I picked up two more I am veery excited to get to. Two I still need to buy or get from the library. One I am really not looking forward to it The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. I read the first book and I did not like it at all. I am technically a little behind on this one, but I am not too far behind.
  2. Did it!!
  3. I only have 10 more books to go, so I am very excited about that, I thought I was going to have a lot more left on my TBR.
  4. I am more than halfway to my page goal, yay! This is always the goal I am more worried about since I can’t just read short books, manga, or graphic novels to just pump up my numbers. I need to put in the reading work for this one.
  5. I am exactly at the halfway mark for reading 16 non-fictions books. I am really happy to be on track for this one. I have been really in the mood to learn lately and I feel like I will have this goal done very soon.
  6. With everything going on with a pandemic, my library was closed for a very long time so I was not able to borrow from them too much. I could request ebooks, but the ebook waits have sky rocketed since that is the only option for many people. I am not too worried about this goal though since I am not too far off.
  7. I am halfway through this one so I am very much on track. I also have the 3 books in mind I am going to be reading. So, I think this is another “win”.
  8. I picked the book I am going to read and purchased it, I just need to get my butt in gear and actually read it.
  9. As for this year long challenge I am very much on track. I was kinda worried I would have given it up at this point.

How are your goals going?

Have you decided to change any of yours or introduce new ones?

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Reading Challenges

Year in Review | 2019 Final Check-In

Year in Review!

Hello and welcome to my little review of 2019. I love these types of posts, being able to reflect and look back on what you have accomplished. This post will be broken down into two parts, the first being reviewing my goals and the second will be my yearly stats, which will be taken from the data given on December 29th. So, with all of that information being packed into this post, lets jump right into it.


Goals

  1. ✔️Read all of the short listed books for the 2018 Man Booker Prize
  2. ✔️Read a book set in each of the 7 continents
  3. ✔️Read 50 books
  4. ✔️Read 30,000 pages
  5. ✔️Read at least one book per month from the library
  6. ✔️Read 12 non-fiction books
  7. ✔️Read a book recommended by someone I look up to
  8. ✔️Read my classic of 2019, War and Peace
  9. ✔️Take part in 2019 Beat the Backlist

Yearly Reading Stats

Books Read: 106

Pages Read: 38, 421

Nonfiction: 17

Fiction: 89

Money Saved Using Library:

Average Rating: 4.0

Shortest Book: Quidditch Through the Ages

Longest Book: Death Note All-in-One

Most Popular:Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Least Popular: Independence Haul and the Liberty Bell

Highest Rated on Goodreads: Good Omens

If you would like to see all of the books I read in 2019, you can find all that information over on goodreads here: Bookish Luna’s Year in Review.


Yearly Blog Stats

Views: 13,872

Comments:1,226

Followers: 783

Likes: 3,724

Posts: 148

 


How did you do with your 2019 goals?

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Reading Challenges

Blogmas | Goals | 2020 Shakespeare Challenge

Reading Goals NEW

Hello and welcome to a little my little chat about one of my goals for 2020. In the past I have been adamant about hating Shakespeare. I never enjoyed any of his plays that I read, I found them dull and just boring honestly. But, the last time I read one of his works, any of this works honestly, I was always told to read them.

Now, I don’t know about you, but even though I am a book lover and avid reader, the fastest way to not get me to read a book is to make it required. I hate being told what to read. In fact, I didn’t read this much until I went to college, high school made me hate reading because they were never anything that interested me. Now, that is an entire other discussion I can get into another time. For now, let’s get back to Shakespeare.

So, I am not sure why, but I want to give Ol’ Shakespeare  another go and see if my tastes have either changed or simply not making his work required changed me view.

While going to my local indie bookstore I was looking at the classics, my go to there for some reason and I saw a bunch of Shakespeare’s plays. For some reason the idea for this challenge hit me. Currently, I think this is a wonderful idea. In the future, past me might be a huge jerk. Only time will tell. So, this is my plan, every month I will read 1 Shakespeare and review it. Nice and simple right? Wrong, I honestly have no idea what plays might be interesting. I picked up the ones pictured above because A Midsummers Night Dream was one I was able to tolerate reading all those moons ago and the second, Twelfth Night I have never even heard of and I thought I would give it a go.

So, there is my year long classics challenge for myself. If you have a favorite play or work by him please comment below the name and why you liked it. I could really use the help!

Also, I will be starting off with reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, thanks to those who voted for the first month! Also, please feel free to join me in this challenge. It would be a ton of fun to read along with you! In fact, I created a goodreads group so we can all connect and you can see which plays are coming up, you can find that group here: 2020 Shakespeare Challenge Group.


Which one of Shakespeare works did you enjoy reading?

Which one did you detest?

Have you read any of his works?

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Bullet Journal & Planning

Bullet Journal | New Bujo & November Set Up

Recs

Hello and welcome to my new bullet journal! I am so excited to be sharing with you how I decided to see it up and the spreads I migrated over. It is really interesting how over time the spreads you need change, that is just the most wonderful thing about bullet journals, they change with you. Anyway, I don’t want to write a huge introduction because I have a ton of pictures to share!


This time around I decided to stick with an Archer and Olive A5 notebook. The main reason being the page quality and I really enjoy the fact that the pages are crispy white as well. I personally do not use an index so not having page numbers is not a big deal. What I need is good quality paper, good binding, a pen loop, and roughly enough pages to get me through 4-6 months. This note book has all of that for me, a nice bonus is the beautiful cover. I found a Tombow marker in the shade 837 that matched the cover pretty darn well and I am using that during the set up as well as November.

I am not a big number person, but I love to celebrate milestone. I had this page in my previous bullet journal and I updated it normally towards the end of the month. As you can see I already needed to update a few since creating this spread. I do have an instagram, but quite frankly instagram normally just stays the same and it is more for me than anything.

These spreads I feel like are going to be used and reference a lot over the next few weeks. I decided to put my buddy read picks and order for Jenna, Amy, Reg and myself because if I don’t write them down I never remember. It is also a fun memory. Underneath this I have decided to start to watch the Outlander series instead of just reading it. I decided to put a little progress tracker because I don’t watch a ton of TV so I tend to forget my progress in shows if they aren’t on netflix or prime since those services keep track for me. On the right I just redid my 2019 goals spread that was in my previous bujo.

I decided to also keep my grid spacing page as well as my period tracker. I did not add the 1/2 and 1/4 points because it was a lot of work that I never really references because my spreads were never broken up like that. Having the number of boxes across and down is more useful for me.

Next and one of my more important spreads is my TBR. I have a box on the left of each title which tracks whether I have started, read, or unhauled/DNFed a book. On the right of the book title there are four boxes with checkmarks. These are codes for audiobooks since all of these books are already owned via print or ebook. A means it is available on audible, S means it is available on Scribed, * means I own it, L means my library has it. This is all for reference so I can decide which books to listen to on my commute to and from work.

I have added a new Read 5, Buy 1 to this bujo, but I am putting this on hold until the new year because I tend to get books for the holidays and it would throw this off a bit. But, I love being prepared so I added it now.

Now we are on to November, I was one again influenced by Plant Based Bride over on youtube. She shared this printable on the left and I just loved the cozy feel and on the right I used more of her doodles to decorate a shelf above the monthly calendar.

Next I have my habit tracker, which is a layout I have been loving over the past few months. This month I decided to track sleeping 7 hours or more, meditation, reading, vitamins, tidying, and nature time. On the right I have a social media tracker to track when I am meant to post on my blog, but I will also mark when I upload to instagram. On the bottom you can see my blog post tracker. On the left is the date, PWS is from my previous bujo, which means pictures, write, schedule. Just so I can track my progress and stay on top of my posts. I really loved doing this last month so I am looking forward to using this again.

So this month I am going back to my old book tracker, I have realized I don’t really care how many pages a day I read, but more so how long it is taking me to read a book. So, if you have not seen this spread before. On the left I will use a color that represents a book and I will color in the blocks next to the days I read that particular book. You can see this filled out in my post called Bullet Journal | May 2019. On the right I used another one of Plant Based Bride print, I thought it was a nice reminder to do things that make you happy and feel good inside.

Next up is my TBR, which I talked about in my TBR post, TBR | November 2019. If you have not noticed already I decided to use the N from the first page of the month as a guide to decorate the titles of each page. I thought it would help tie everything together.

Those are my weekly spreads. I decided to try something new again. I was watching Plant Based Brides November set up and I thought it looked so functional and simple and for me that is the best when setting up my weeklies as of late so I can focus on the items on the page instead of the fluff.

Anyway, this is my new bujo and my November set up! I hope you enjoyed this little peak!


What theme are you using this month?

What do you track on your habit tracker?

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Lists & Recommendations

Lists | Top 5 Books I Want to Read Before 2020

Lists

Hello everyone, today I wanted to take a moment to talk about the top 5 books I want to read before the end of 2019. We are officially into the last quarter of the year, which always goes by super quickly. It is a time to focus to meet my goals if I have not already. On top of that, there is one Beat my Backlist book that still needs to be read and I will have read all the books I bought before 2019. Anyway, on to the books!


The one I think I am most excited to get to would be The Institute by Stephen King. It is no secret that I really enjoy creepy/horror reads and I really enjoy King’s works. I am really excited to have my hands on his most recent release and I want to read it before the year is through. 

Next in line would be It Would Be Night in Caracas by Karina Sainz Borgo & Translator Elizabeth Bryer. I am really excited to be reading a book set in South America. I don’t know about you, but it is not a setting I come across often in books and I would honestly like to read more. 

Now, The Overstory by Richard Powers is one I need to read for my Reading Goals | Reading a Shortlist 2019 challenge so I really need to get my butt in gear. I have two books left to go and for some reason this one is the one I have owned the longest, but have not felt the need or want to read. So, I am hoping putting it on this list will really put my butt in gear. At this one I have the other from the library and plan on starting it within the week. *Update* I have read this since prewriting this post, I am updating this to the final book on this list I need to read, The Long Take by Robin Robertson. This is what happens when I prewrite posts too darn early.

Then, we have Middlemarch by George Eliot. I picked up this classic it sounds so interesting. I decided that I would read it over the summer when I  was enjoying the weather outside… well. Summer is now over and I still have not read it. I would say that now my goal is to just read it before the year is finished. I feel like Classics are really good cold weather reads anyway. 

Lastly, we have Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb. I am really interested in this series, but I always out it off because it is digital. While I do enjoy reading on my kindle, I always find myself only really using it for library books not for my owned TBR books. I need to change this ASAP and read this. Also, it is the oldest owned book on my owned TBR. So, it is really time to get my butt into gear. 


What 5 books do you want to read before the year is up?

Which one do you think I should read first?

Who things I will actually read all of these before the year is up? 😂

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Reading Challenges

Reading & Blog Goals | 2019 Third Quarter Check In

Reading Goals NEW

Hello everyone, I am here will a bit of a late Third Quarter check in, but I wanted to check back on my goals so I didn’t lose track of them. If you wanted to look at my initial goals post and my previous check ins, I will link them here for your connivence.

I have to say, that I am really happy with my progress over all, there are just a few goals I have been putting off because I am such a mood reader and I have not been in the mood to read particular books on my shelf. I am hoping that over the next few weeks this turns around and I can get all of these taken care of.


-My Goals-

  1. Read all of the short listed books for the 2018 Man Booker Prize
  2. Read a book set in each of the 7 continents
  3. Read 50 books
  4. Read 30,000 pages
  5. Read at least one book per month from the library
  6. Read 12 non-fiction books
  7. Read a book recommended by someone I look up to
  8. Read my classic of 2019, War and Peace
  9. Take part in 2019 Beat the Backlist
    • My backlisted books are here.

-My Updates-

  1. Reading a backlist is both my favorite and least favorite challenge. I am having a series love hate relationship with it. I have previously did a catch up post with this goal, Revisiting | Reading a Shortlist 2019, since this post, I have read more of these books, in fact I only have 1 left! So, I am very much on track to hitting this goal. I am planning on reading it in November. Fingers crossed!
  2. I am still in need of reading 3 more continents. This one is another challenge that has been very much affected by my mood reading. I have picked for each of these continents, but I just have not been in the mood.
  3. I have surpassed this goal! I have read a total of 87 books at the time of writing this.
  4. At this point in time I have read 31,931 pages, which means I have also met this goal! It is so nice to be able to check some of these off.
  5. At this point in time I have read a library book every month and I am so happy to be able to support my local library as well as getting to know some of my librarians. It is a wonderful feeling.
  6. At this point in the year I have read at least 16 non-fiction books, so I met this goal as well!
  7. So, this goal was one I was iffy about. I decided since I set the goal of reading one book recommended by someone I look up to, I did do that, but did not enjoy it in the slightest and it stinks.
  8. I have finished War and Peace and I have to admit, I liked Anna Karenina a lot more. It was not bad, but I was not blow away by it.
  9. So, beat the backlist was a huge success for me. As of October I read every book I bought before the start of 2019. I really was not sure if I was going to meet this one, but I am so excited that I did.

-Completion Status-

  1. ✔️
  2. ✔️
  3. ✔️
  4. ✔️
  5. ✔️
  6. ✔️

I can’t believe I only have 3 more goals to work on this year, I am proud of myself for sticking with a lot of these throughout the year instead of putting a lot of them off, which would have been very easy to do. At this time I need to read a total of 4-6 more books to reach each of my goals. I am hoping I can get them all done before December so I have some breathing room and time to do some goal planning for 2020. It is mind blowing to already be writing the year 2020.


How are your 2019 goals going?

Do you have any ideas for your reading goals for 2020?

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