March Book Update

Back at the start of the year, I made a plan to try to read through books I owned, and not buy new books until I'd made a substantial reduction in the (unread) books I owned. I did, however, allow myself library books (both those I order in because they are part of a series I'm reading and those which I happen to see which take my fancy) and a few gifts, e.g. birthday and Mother's Day. 

In January, I didn't gain any books, but I read a lot of stuff from the library and a few re-reads from what I already own, so I only managed to remove 2 titles from my list.  In February I added one title to my pile, bought in the charity shop, but even with some re-reading of other titles, I managed to read 6 books from the list and get rid of one after a few chapters - that's a net reduction of 8 books so far in 2015. March, on the other hand, has pretty much tipped the balance the other way. I blame this on charity shops, bookshops, authors who write more than one good title and well, on my own basic lack of willpower when it comes to buying books...

Reading in March: 

• I managed to read 4 titles from my list. Not that many, but one of them was one of the longest books waiting tbr (the others being the Bill Bryson and the Amy Tan) so that's something of an accomplishment... (Island of Wings  by Karin Altenberg, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith and The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy by James Anderson, which I am less than 40 pages from the end of, so I'm counting it in March)
• I bought four books from charity shops (City of Beasts by Isabel Allende, The Whole Day Through by Patrick Gale, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood and Virals by Kathy Reichs - these are all books by authors I've read before rather than total impulse purchases, so that's something!) and got a book for Mother's Day (The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton). I also ordered one book online from AbeBooks (Goodnight, Nebraska by Tom McNeal) and bought four books in Waterstones (Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor, The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides and The Apothecary's Daughter by Charlotte Betts)
• I read one library book this month - something which a friend recommended and which sounded good from the description (To be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal) - luckily ended up being one of my favourite reads so far this year.
• I read some YA fiction which we already owned (The Maze Runner series by James Dashner), but which weren't on my reading pile, so they count as books read, but not as reductions from the list.

Which is a net loss - and 6 books added to the list (though it's still down over the whole of 2015 so far, though only just!), but then again, nobody's perfect. Especially me, when it comes to buying books. Or not buying them - I'm quite good at buying them!

Here's the updated list of Books to Read in 2015.  There are now 55 books on the list, with 9 months to go. That's 6 books from the list per month. Yes, it's still achievable, especially if I stop buying books. We'll see how that works for me!

1. Isabel Allende, City of Beasts (charity shop, March 2015)
2. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (charity shop, March 2015)
3. Gerhand Bakker, The Twin 
4. Charlotte Betts, The Apothecary's Daughter (Waterstones, March 2015)
5. Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist (Mother's Day 2015)
6. Bill Bryson, One Summer: America 1927
7. Michael Collins, The Resurrectionists
8. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (this one would be a re-read)
9. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
10. Jim Crace, Harvest
11. Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues
12. Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides (Waterstones, March 2015)
13. Jim Fergus, One Thousand White Women (Summer 2013)
14. Anne Fine, All Bones and Lies
15. Fannie Flagg, Can't Wait to get to Heaven (Feb 2015, charity shop)
16. 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...)
17. E M Forster, Howards End
18. Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Christmas 2014)
19. Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
20. Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm (Waterstones, March 2015)
21. Patrick Gale, Rough Music
22. Patrick Gale, The Whole Day Through
23. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude (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...)
24. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
25. Rumer Godden, Kingfishers Catch Fire
26. Laurie Graham, A Humble Companion
27. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
28. Nicholas Griffin, The House of Sight and Shadow
29. Jane Haddam, Glass Houses
30. Laurell K Hamilton, Bloody Bones
31. Anjali Joseph, Sarasawati Park
32. Jim Lynch, The Highest Tide
33. W Somerset Maugham, The Magician
34. Tom McNeal, Goodnight, Nebraska (AbeBooks, March 2015)
35. Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
36. Kate O'Brien, The Land of Spices
37. Regina O'Melveny, The Book of Madness and Cures
38. Michael Ondaatje, The Cat's Table
39. Anuradha Roy, An Atlas of Impossible Longing (Winter 2013, bought in a cheap shop in Oxford)
40. Kathy Reichs, Spider Bones
41. Kathy Reichs, Virals (charity shop, March 2015)
42. Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Watcher in the Shadows (Christmas 2014)
43. Richard Russo, Straight Man
44. Simon Sebag Montefiore, One Night in Winter
45. Muriel Spark, Memento Mori
46. Mark Slouka, The Visible World
47. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Summer 2013 - a re-read, as I read it when a teen)
48. Magda Szabo, The Door
49. Amy Tan, The Valley of Amazement
50. Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Waterstones, March 2015)
51. Rose Tremaine, Merivel
52. Rose Tremaine, Music & Silence
53. Barry Unsworth, The Ruby in her Navel 
54. Ayelet Waldman, Love and Treasure (new in December 2014)
55. December, Elizabeth Winthrop