Book Plan Update - August

Back in January, 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. I've been tracking my progress/recidivism:

• 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)
• Well done for July, as well (10 titles removed, 2 added; net result -8)

and so, on to August: 

• I managed to read 7 titles from my list (Harvest by Jim Crace, Can't Wait to Get to Heaven by Fannie Flagg, Tree Surgery for Beginners by Patrick Gale, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler, Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor, Amy Snow by Tracy Rees, Don't Hex with Texas by Shanna Swendson)
• I started (and abandoned) 1 title from my list, which I just couldn't get into (Circus of Ghosts by Barbara Ewing)
• I bought 4 books in the Big Waterstones in Piccadilly (Longbourn by Jo Baker, Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson, All the Light we Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Darkling by Laura Beatty) and three books in the Waterstones in Durham (The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge, Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey, Us by David Nicholls)
• I bought 1 book at a church jumble sale (The Mammoth Book of Edwardian and Victorian Ghost Stories) but it's one of those I will dip in and out of, so it won't go on the To be Read shelf.
• I bought 6 books in charity shops, including some crime fiction, so although they will go on the list, I'm sure it won't be long until at least some of them are read (A Cold Day for Murder and Play with Fire by Dana Stabenow, Abbatoir Blues by Peter Robinson, The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruis Zafon, Only Say the Word by Niall Williams, The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer)
• I read 2 library books this month (Ratking by Michael Dibdin, Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee)
• I re-read 5 books I already own (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - as I had ordered Go Set a Watchman from the library I thought I'd re-read Mockingbird, as it's probably been 30 years since I first read it, Sweet Dreams, Irene, Dear Irene and Remember Me, Irene by Jan Burke (working my way through the series again as I get rid of the books) and The Heroine's Sister by France Murray because it's set in Venice)

August's tally is therefore...

books read: 14

titles removed: 8,  titles added: 13 ; net result +5

Here's the updated list of Books to Read in 2015.  There are now 45 books on the list, with 4 months to go - so that's 10 and a half books per month if I buy/receive no more books before the end of the year (unlikely with both a birthday and Christmas to come!) (Books with an asterisk are ones which were on the list at the start of the year.)

1. Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin (charity shop, March 2015)
2. Jo Baker, Longbourn (Big Waterstones, August 2015)
3. Philip Baruth, The Brothers Boswell (Waterstones Canterbury bargain bin, July 2015)
4. Laura Beatty, Darkling (Big Waterstones, August 2015)
5. Charlotte Betts, The Apothecary's Daughter (Waterstones Kingston, March 2015)
6. Stephen Burke, The Good Italian (Fiumicino Airport, July 2015)
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. Anthony Doerr, All the Light we Cannot See (Big Waterstones, August 2015)
11. Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides (Waterstones Kingston, March 2015)
12. Jim Fergus, One Thousand White Women (Barnes & Noble (in MD), Summer 2013) *
13. Nathan Filer, The Shock of the Fall (charity shop, August 2015)
14. 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...) *
15. E M Forster, Howards End (late 2014) *
16. Miles Franklin, My Brilliant Career *
17. 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...) *
18. Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South *
19. Graham Greene, Brighton Rock *
20. Frances Hardinge, The Lie Tree (Waterstones Durham, August 2015)
21. Emma, Healey, Elizabeth is Missing (Waterstones Durham, August 2015)
22. Smith Henderson, Fourth of July Creek (Big Waterstones, August 2015)
23. Alice Hoffman, The Museum of Extraordinary Things (Waterstones online, June 2015)
24. Anjali Joseph, Saraswati Park *
25. Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (charity table, Wetland Centre, May 2015)
26. 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)
27. Tom McNeal, Goodnight, Nebraska (AbeBooks, March 2015)
28. Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran *
29. Patrick Ness, The Crane Wife (charity shop, April 2015)
30. David Nicholls, Us (Waterstones Durham, August 2015)
31. Kate O'Brien, The Land of Spices *
32. Kathy Reichs, Virals (charity shop, March 2015)
33. Peter Robinson, Abbatoir Blues (charity shop, August 2015)
34. Anuradha Roy, An Atlas of Impossible Longing (Winter 2013, bought in a cheap shop in Oxford) *
35. Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Prisoner of Heaven (charity shop, August 2015)
36. Simon Sebag Montefiore, One Night in Winter (Waterstones Piccadilly, not sure of date) *
37. Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Barnes & Noble (in MD), Summer 2013 - a re-read, as I read it when a teen) *
38. Dana Stabenow, A Cold Day for Murder (charity shop, August 2015)
39. Dana Stabenow, Play with Fire (charity shop, August 2015)
40. Amy Tan, Valley of Amazement *
41. Andrew Taylor, The Anatomy of Ghosts (passed on from Geoff, April 2015)
42. Rosie Thomas, The Illusionists (WH Smith, May 2015)
43. Rose Tremaine, Merivel (Birthday, 2014) *
44. Barry Unsworth, The Ruby in her Navel  *
45. Niall Williams, Only Say the Word (charity shop, August 2015)