Books & Reading January 2017

Well, new year, new reading tally. Any goals for this year? I'd still like to try to make my way through books I've had for a while and haven't read, and not acquire too many new books. So, three goals for 2017:

1. Read at least 100 books in 2017 (approximately 2 per week; hopefully I can accomplish this)
2. Buy/acquire fewer books each month than I remove from my TBR shelf/list
3. Read at least 1 of the books I've had since before 2015 (there are 4 on the list) and at least three of the books I  bought during 2015 (12 on the list)

They are reasonable goals (the first one seems a big ask, but I usually manage it with no problem, though 2016 was closer than I like!), which shouldn't stress me too much. 

So, let's see how I did in January:

• I read four books from my list (Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs, All That is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon, Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo, At Hawthorn Time by Melissa Harrison)
• I read one book which was in the house but not on my list (Coraline by Neil Gaiman)
• I re-read three books I already owned (Thrones, Dominations, A Presumption of Death and The Attenbury Emeralds by Dorothy L Sayers &/or Jill Paton Walsh)
• I started and abandoned one book (Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card - I liked Ender's Game very much, but this one just didn't grab me. I think it was mostly the writing style which put me off. Also maybe slightly preachy.)
• I bought two books (The Muse by Jessie Burton, Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo)

January goal progress:

1. books read: 8 of 100 books
2. books removed from list:  4 books added: 2; net result -2
3. books read/removed from list from before 2015: 0 of 4;  from before 2016: 1 of 12

Here's the updated list of Books to Read in 2017.  There were 46 books at the beginning of January, and now there are 43.

1. Charlie Jane Anders, All the Birds in the Sky (charity shop, October 2016)
2. Leigh Bardugo, Ruin and Rising (Abe Books, January 2017)
3. Susan Barker, The Incarnations (charity shop, July 2016)
4. Philip Baruth, The Brothers Boswell (Waterstones Canterbury bargain bin, July 2015)
5. Jessie Burton, The Muse (Waitrose, January 2017)
6. Rachel Caine, Paper and Fire (birthday present, November 2016)
7. Wilkie Collins, The Haunted Hotel (birthday present, November 2015)
8. Anthony Doerr, About Grace (Waterstones Piccadilly, July 2016)
9. Arthur Conan Doyle, Adventure of Sherlock Holmes (World of Books, October 2015)
10. Helen Dunmore, Ingo (charity shop, October 2016)
11. Helen Dunmore, Stormswept (charity shop, October 2016)
12. Helen Dunmore, Tide Knot (charity shop, October 2016)
13. Ford Maddox Ford, Parade's End (Nov 2012 - birthday present - bought after the BBC adaptation - but I knew I wouldn't read it straight away as I wanted to let time pass from the adaptation.  Enough time has probably passed now...) *
14. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (would be a re-read, bought shortly after his death - spring 2014 - as I was reminded how much I enjoyed it and I didn't seem to own a copy - think my old one fell apart, probably...) *
15. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South (2014)*
16. Kate Grenville, The Lieutenant (charity shop, December 2015)
17. Matt Haig, The Humans (charity shop, October 2016)
18. Antonia Hodgkin, The Devil in the Marshalsea (charity shop, May 2016)
19. Andrew Michael Hurley, The Loney (Waterstones Piccadilly, March 2016)
20. Neil MacGregor, Germany: Memories of  a Nation (birthday present, Nov 2016)
21. Rebecca MacKenzie, In a Land of Paper Gods (Christmas Present, 2016)
22. Maria McCain, The Wilding (charity shop, December 2015)
23. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (charity table, Wetland Centre, May 2015)
24. John McGregor, This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You (Waterstones Piccadilly, July 2016)
25. Philipp Meyer, American Rust (charity shop, December 2015)
26. David Mitchell, Slade House (Waterstones online, October 2016)
27. Alice Munro, Runaway (Waterstones Piccadilly, March 2016)
28. Patrick Ness, The Rest of Us Just Live Here (birthday present, November 2016)
29. Flannery O'Connor, Complete Stories (charity shop, December 2015)
30. Orhan Pamuk. A Strangeness in Mind (Christmas present 2016)
31. Natasha Pulley, The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (Waterstones Wimbledon, December 2016)
32. Elizabeth Redfern, The Music of the Spheres  (charity shop, December 2015)
33. Anna Richards, Little Gods (pound shop, November 2016)
34. Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram (Abe Books, July 2016)
35. Hannah Rothschild, The Improbability of Love (charity shop, October 2016)
36. Sunjeev Sahota, The Year of the Runaways  (Mother's Day present, March 2016)
37. Caterina Ingleman Sanders, The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules (charity shop, October 2016)
38. Jane Smiley, Some Luck (Waterstones Reading, October 2015)
39. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Barnes & Noble (in MD), Summer 2013 - a re-read, as I read it when a teen) *
40. M L Stedman, The Light Between Oceans (Waterstones Wimbledon, December 2016)
41. Rose Tremain, Tresspass (charity shop, December 2015)
42. Sarah Winman, A Year of Marvellous Ways (charity shop, October 2016)
43. Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (charity shop, October 2016)