Book Plan Update - July

Back at the beginning of 2015, 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 already had. Here's the scoop

• In January I didn't gain any books, but also didn't remove many titles from my list as I read a lot of library books and had some re-reads. (2 titles removed, 0 added; net result -2)
• In February, I made bigger inroads in my owned titles (7 titles removed, 1 added; net result -6)
• In March, well, you win some, you lose some (4 titles removed, 10 titles added; net result +6)
• In April, better, but not perfect (6 titles removed, 7 added; net result +1)
• Not too bad in May, either (5 titles removed, 6 added; net result +1)
• Great inroads in June (11 titles removed, 3 added; net result -8)

which brings us to July

• I managed to read 9 titles from my list (Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs, Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor, The Magician by Somerset Maugham, The Visible World by Mark Slouka, The Miniaturist by Jesse Burton, City of the Beasts by Isabel Allende, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka, Glass Houses by Jane Haddam and The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon) 
• I bought one book from a bargain bin outside Waterstones in Canterbury (The Brothers Boswell by Philip Baruth)
• I bought two books in the airport in Rome (By Its Cover by Donna Leon and The Good Italian by Stephen Burke), one of which I read straight away in the airport and on the plane to London (thanks to a 3 hour delay), so I'm not even adding it to the list.
• I read 1  library book this month (The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester)
• I re-read a book from my bookshelf (Goodnight Irene by Jan Burke) - been saving this crime fiction series in case I wanted to read them again, and decided I needed to make space on the shelves, so I'm going to re-read them in order and get rid of them as I go... plus there's three or so I haven't read, so I'll have to get ahold of those!)
• I read two books we already own which weren't on my list (Alex's bedtime book, The Silver Chair by C S Lewis (ok, we aren't quite done with this, but it's nearly finished, so I've counted it in July)  and Clariel by Garth Nix)
• I removed one title from my list because in entering all my old read books onto GoodReads I realised that the reason it always sounds familiar when I read the blurb was that I'd read it before (December by Elizabeth Winthrop)

July's tally is therefore...

books read: 14

titles removed: 10,  titles added: 2; net result -8

Here's the updated list of Books to Read in 2015.  There are now 40 books on the list, with 5 months to go - so that's 8 books per month excluding any additions which might sneak in there (as if!)...

1. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (charity shop, March 2015)
2. Philip Baruth, The Brothers Boswell (Waterstones bargain bin, July 2015)
3. Charlotte Betts, The Apothecary's Daughter (Waterstones, March 2015)
4. Stephen Burke, The Good Italian (Fiumicino Airport, July 2015)
5. Michael Collins, The Resurrectionists
6. Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone (this one would be a re-read)
7. Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
8. Jim Crace, Harvest
9. Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides (Waterstones, March 2015)
10. Barbara Ewing, Circus of Ghosts  (charity shop, April 2015)
11. Jim Fergus, One Thousand White Women (Barnes & Noble (in MD), Summer 2013)
12. Fannie Flagg, Can't Wait to get to Heaven (Feb 2015, charity shop)
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. E M Forster, Howards End (late 2014)
15. Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (Christmas 2014)
16. Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career
17. Patrick Gale, Tree Surgery for Beginners (charity shop, April 2015)
18. 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...)
19. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
20. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock
21. Alice Hoffman, The Museum of Extraordinary Things (Waterstones online, June 2015)
22. Anjali Joseph, Saraswati Park
23. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (charity table, Wetland Centre, May 2015)
24. John McGregor, If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (charity shop, April 2015 - will be a re-read as have read it in (apparently) October 2004 for a book group)
25. Tom McNeal, Goodnight, Nebraska (AbeBooks, March 2015)
26. Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran
27. Patrick Ness, The Crane Wife (charity shop, April 2015)
28. Kate O'Brien, The Land of Spices
29. Tracy Rees, Amy Snow (WH Smith, May 2015)
30. Kathy Reichs, Virals (charity shop, March 2015)
31. Anuradha Roy, An Atlas of Impossible Longing (Winter 2013, bought in a cheap shop in Oxford)
32. Simon Sebag Montefiore, One Night in Winter (Waterstones Piccadilly, not sure of date)
33. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Barnes & Noble (in MD), Summer 2013 - a re-read, as I read it when a teen)
34. Shanna Swendson,  Don't Hex with Texas (Abe Books, May 2015)
35. Amy Tan, The Valley of Amazement
36. Andrew Taylor, The Anatomy of Ghosts (passed on from Geoff, April 2015)
37. Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods and Monsters (Waterstones, March 2015)
38. Rosie Thomas, The Illusionists (WH Smith, May 2015)
39. Rose Tremaine, Merivel (Birthdy, 2014)
40. Barry Unsworth, The Ruby in her Navel