PlaidApple's 2018: The Year Of Reading More

Hello all! Fingers crossed I'll get to for 50 this year. Since graduating it seems like I've been reading less and less every year and it's time to turn the ship around!

JANUARY: I decided to kick myself off by reading some YA. I'm calling it Yanuary.

Week 1 - Finished

- Turtles All The Way Down by John Green
I liked this well enough and it was a pretty pleasant read. I purchased while traveling to read on a train and it was enjoyable, but I'll probably set it up with one of my friends in a permanent loan type situation. I wish he had pushed the prose a little further into incomprehensibility.

- A Season In Hell & The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud translated by Louise Varese
Some parts of this were absolutely great, but I wasn't always super into the translation. Maybe it's because it was presented side by side and I was also trying to read along a bit in French, but it seemed much stiffer in English. I would be interested to read another translation.

Started
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
I'm rereading this but I love it just as much now as I did previously, if not more.

Week 2 - Finished

- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Reread this but I had forgot everything that happened. It was amazing - sped through it in two days and immediately cracked open the sequel.

- The Ask and The Answer by Patrick Ness
I am tearing through this series. Like, staying up until 2AM tearing through it. This book had so many twists! It was a pretty difficult read because it deals a lot with the subjugation and fear of women and it's very violent. I feel like it maybe can't be called YA because of how dark it is and how difficult it is to get through. But so, so good. I decided not to buy but to rent these and I feel like I might actually end up purchasing them - that's how into it I am.

Week 3 - Finished

- Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
The third book in the Chaos Walking series. So good. Just good. Good.

- The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
I FRICKIN loved this book. Great pacing, good intrigue, not over the top. I loved the magical realism element of this and could totally picture Henrietta. As soon as I finished this I immediately checked out the next book. I actually might end up purchasing this series as well ... I can already see myself rereading them.

Week 4 - Finished

- The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
YOOOOOOOOO I read this in like, 30 hours. I'm about to try and rent the next one. I love how reality and magic and time and dreams keep getting mixed up. I like how each book is focusing a little more on different characters. The only thing that I didn't think super fit in this book was the gray man but I'm assuming he'll crop up in a future book for some reason or another.

- Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater
I'm reading these so quickly I don't know that I have anything to say about these as distinct books. I am having a lot of fun with this series and at this point have decided outright that I will purchase them.

- The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater
I still can't believe I read all of these so fast. To be honest, it's all a blur.

Happy reading!

Thanks! You too!

You're off to a great start! Keep it going 😎🤘

🤘

January was a reading breeze! I can't believe I got in so many books! Definitely feel like my pace will slow down in Feb as I'm not reading 100% pure, unadulterated YA. But it was also really nice to get back into YA because I haven't read it in years.

FEBRUARY: I've got some books lined up and ordered. I think I'm going to try to get through Didion's canon of nonfiction this year so I've got a couple on deck for Feb.

WEEK 1 - Finished
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
- I really enjoyed these essays but I found it difficult to read essays in book form quickly. I wanted to sit down and just breeze through a hundred pages but also felt compelled to stop after each essay to digest it.

STARTED - rest of Feb

The White Album by Joan Didion

Dirt Road by James Kelman

DNF

The Charioteer by Mary Renault -- DNF
- I wasn't really paying attention and lost the plot. Might come back to it but have stopped with no plans to pick back up right now.

---

The Olympics really messed with my plans for reading, but it's onwards and upwards to March.

MARCH: Hoping to finish some lingering works from February and also blaze a trail in some shorter books as I wrap those up.

WEEK 1 - Started
Salvador by Joan Didion
- Why did I start another Didion book when I hadn't finished the last? Well I'm hoping this one goes by quicker because it's not a book of essays, but rather one long novella length-ed essay.

WEEK 1 - Finished

A Natural by Ross Raisin
- Y'all this book made me really sad. It was advertised to me as "if The Art of Fielding was about the Premier League" and yeah, that's pretty accurate. Stayed up until like 2AM reading it two nights in a row and finished in three days. It's paced really well. I rented it but might buy it. (Are we sensing a theme with that?)

LEFTOVER FROM FEB:
Dirt Road by James Kelman
The White Album by Joan Didion

APRIL: Wow, March was a total reading fail. I've just bought 6 books to try to bolster myself, and still trying to get through my Didion (ugh I really've let that go). Also not rereading TSH before bed right now as I've been very wrapped up in other things, but hoping to cruise to the end of that shortly.

I've been getting more into magical realism, I think, and sort of ... "intellectual thrillers" or things that aren't solid mystery/thriller but more deeply based in character. Which makes sense given my reading history, I think, but maybe I should dig more intensely into that.

Still planning on doing a lot of war reading over the summer, though, and gearing up for that is a totally different animal. Who knows.

WEEK 1 -Finished
Dirt Road by James Kelman
- I ended up liking this quite a lot once I got through to the end, but at times it felt like a slog. There were some threads I thought maybe would wrap up differently. I enjoyed the kind of swirling of Murdo's thoughts and how deeply it was framed by his experiences.

WEEK 2 - Finished
The Magic Circle by Jenny Davidson
- Sold to me as somewhat similar to TSH by the back of the book. I expect to finish it within two days, as it's quite short. Enjoying the different perspectives but maybe somewhat unsold on the foreshadowing and also wishing the tensions between the characters were a little more explored.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WEEK 3 - Finished
More Than This by Patrick Ness
- I obviously have been reading Patrick Ness this year and I'll probably finish off all his books by year's end. This was a good book and I enjoyed the sort of philosophy of /but what if we're not really here/ and /how do we know that we're real/ because those are definitely things that I think about. How you're kept in the dark about which character's theory on their existence is correct felt like an appropriate stance for the book to take to me. The ending is perhaps a bit optimistic, but that being said, I am pretty into more dark existential stuff, so that's definitely a personal thing. Would recommend to someone who wanted a quick, exciting read that wasn't difficult prose but left you with a little bit to chew on.

WEEK 2 - Started
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius transl Martin Hammond
- now reading this a bit at a time before bed and really enjoying it. I don't know anything about this translation in particular, but I personally don't use end notes and this edition has a lot of them, but no complaints on the actual prose translation thus far.

WEEK 4 - Finished
Stuck in the Middle With You by Jennifer Finney Boylan
- This is my first book by Boylan but I am zipping through her clean writing. This book combines memoir with interviews in a really masterful way. Each section of interviews adds to your own contextual understanding of the questions that Boylan struggles with as she figures out what it means to parent and build a family. Although I'm very much single and childless -- and may never have children -- it's still an interesting and moving account for me of the difficult ways in which families shape and challenge us. (I finished this at 1 AM May 1, but I'm counting it as done in April!!!)

MAY: Well, well, well. Another month gone.

BOOK TOTAL SO FAR: 17

That means I'm one behind a book a week, which was my general goal. I'm looking at you, March!!!

Leftover from previous months but still reading:

- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The White Album by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

I'm expecting 9 books in the mail next week so I suppose I'll have to find something to hold me over until then. My new plan is to just try and read an additional 50 pages before bed/in the evening every night, which would conceivably get me through about a book a week give or take not taking into account the reading which I'm already doing. IF this goes according to plan, I may even be able to get ahead on my reading plans in May.

Overall, I'd like to clear up some space to read some longer books later so the more I can pack in now, the better.

WEEK 1 - Started
Boys Among Men by Jonathan Abrams
- Hoping to start and finish this quickly before my first book comes in the mail! (spolier alert: I did not!!!)

WEEK 2 - Finished
The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic
- What I will say about this book is that it's pretty compelling because every single character has sort of a wild card vibe where you don't know what TF they're going to do next. What I will also say is that you essentially have to suspend all disbelief and/or just take it to be a slightly alternate universe because it's very much unrealistic. But overall, i had a good time. The last thing I'll say is IMO there was some unnecessary language. I get that it's kind of "locker room" sort of "sports dude" talk but like if you're gonna write a book that's not that believable anyway, there's no need for like, the r word or the f word to come up even once or twice.

The Raven King by Nora Sakavic
- Honestly what even is this series. What I have to say about these books right now is they're kind of like the book version of a CW show: very unbelievable, large amount of drama, nobody is really realistic, but overall pretty fun to read as long as you set aside your expectation that anything vaguely legit would happen with any character. I'm reading the third right now but I'm getting a little fatigue from reading 3 in 3 days so I might switch it up for a little and finish the third next week.

The King's Men by Nora Sakavic
- Surprise, surprise. I finished another YA series in a week. Were these good? Ehhhhhhhhh not really. Were they entertaining? As hell.

WEEK 3 - Finished
The White Album by Joan Didion
- I'd say I enjoyed about half of these essays. I'm glad to be done with this book just because I was reading it on and off for so long. I'm already 30 pages into my next Didion and I hopefully will have the fortitude to finish that in fewer than three months as it's 100 pages.

The Idiot by Elif Batuman
- I personally enjoyed this book a lot. The main character is a woman at her first year in college and she's trying to figure out her way a little bit and attempts to answer all of her questions with these very large existential academic concerns, which (spoiler alert) doesn't work. The book centers around her relationship/not relationship with a senior and that felt very real and very realistic to me. I have heard others say they felt this book was pretentious, but I didn't feel that way because I thought it was obvious that the narrator -- an 18 year old who has no idea what she's doing -- presents these "fake deep" kind of thoughts but in my opinion the overall message of the /book/ was that those thoughts weren't real deep and her experience isn't unique, she just can't see beyond herself.

Inside/Out by Joseph Osmundson
- I don't want to be mean, but in my opinion this book... should not have been a book. It could've been a good short multimedia literary collage/ essay but it just didn't have enough substance to be the short book it was. The conceit of the book is Osmundson working through his abusive relationship but it felt really empty. It felt frustratingly detached. I think that this probably was very important as a work for him to write but I don't know that it is a satisfying creative work in any way.

WEEK 4 - Started
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
- Currently really enjoying this. I very rarely read thrillers, but this is very well done.

Oh good lord time to face the music. Didn't really finish out May well and I haven't started June well either.

Leftover from May:
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Ill Will by Dan Chaon
- The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson

WEEK 1 -
Naught

WEEK 2 - Finished
Ill Will by Dan Chaon
- This book was really good! I am not typically one for anything scary at all, and I didn't feel like this was actually frightening. I looooooooooved what Chaon did with the narrative structure and I felt like it was experimental and ambitious in a way that paid off.

The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
- Really enjoyed this. A good blend of memoir and theory.

Well, well well. Look at what we have here. A spectacularly under-read June and July. Big move, some extra studying really took it out of me.

Let's get July shakin out here:

Leftover from June:

- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

WEEK 1 - Started
Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- Trying to read a bunch about WWI. This is the beginning, although I have been woefully neglecting it.

WEEK 2 - Started
The View From Flyover Country by Sarah Kendzior
- This book is somewhat preaching to the choir for me, but good nonetheless. It's going by muuuuuuch faster than Didion's cultural essays, probably because her writing is much less dense and the themes are much closer across each essay, which means I am taking them more as chapters and less as standalones to be digested.

WEEK 3 - Started
Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson
- Favorite from my teenage years, rereading it because its fast and I need to finish something in July.

WEEK 4 - Finished
The View from Flyover Country

Well things are a bit hectic over here with studying and moving so reading has been how to put this delicately - abysmal. Ever onward.

Leftover from July:
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman

WEEK 1 - Finished
Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson
- I read this to kick myself back into reading because it was a favorite from my highschool days and I liked it. Basically this was to pad my stats and also to try and get me back into the swing of reading.

WEEK 2 - Started
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- Honestly I am liking this more than I thought I would. I'm reading it as an ebook on my phone but I almost wish it were a super slim paper volume. I guess she'd have me KonMari it away after I was done with it, though.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

WELL AUGUST WAS A BIG PILE OF NOT READING, NOW WASN'T IT!?

To make 50 I think at this point I will need to average more than 4 a month, so well done me. I feel like reading comes in spurts and I'm trying to be more consistent.

I guess I have two goals for September reading:
1. to finish up some books that have been lingering from prior months -- not all, but some!
2. to finish campus reading for a proposal

Leftover from August:
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- The Sellout by Paul Beatty

WEEK 1 - Finished
Chemistry by Weike Wang
- I've been meaning to read this and I picked it up in an airport. I nearly finished it in one day, left 11 pages to the next. Very good, very easy to read but not boring. There were some passages that I would definitely say fall more under a modern poem than a chunk of prose, and I loved that. Great pacing.

WEEK 2 - Started
The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis
- I'm reading this for a thing, not necessarily by 100% personal choice. It's a bit...... over the top, to be honest.

WEEK 4 - Finished
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
- This was a reread for a podcast. Honestly, more fun than I remembered. Not something that I necessarily would've revisited if it weren't for this venture, but not mad that I did.

The Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis
- Still a bit over the top, imo. I know it is somewhat known as a satire, but it fails as a satire for me. I would not recommend it; there are better postmodern-type books out there that are less tiring.

Hmm..... October 29th..... and what's this I see??? I have listed NO BOOKS READ?!

oopsies

Leftovers:
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Finished in October:
Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman
- Great read. A little dry but great.

Started in October:
- Hamlet
- The Odyssey
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Why did I start three books? Why haven't I finished any of the other ones? I think at this point it's clear I'm not making 50 on the year but !?!? I guess there's always next year.

AH NOVEMBER.

If I don't finish some of my previously started books this month, I'm gonna lose it.

Leftovers:
- Hamlet
- The Odyssey
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- The Sellout by Paul Beatty

Actually, I probably shouldn't start anymore until I get these out of my partially read. But so many books call to me to start and never finish. Lord preserve me.

WEEK 2 - Started
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- I haven't read any sort of fantasy in a while it feels like. Needed something fast, interesting, and read in manageable chunks. So much for finishing any of those books.

WEEK 3 - Finished
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo
- I mostly enjoyed this and I liked all the twists. I've ordered the sequel (and two other books because lol I'm doing so much reading lol).

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
- LMAOOOOO this is not any of the books I am supposed to be finishing but I think it will get me to two in November at least. I thought the first half of this was a little too obviously ripped from Harry Potter, and I wished that the writing had been a little more weighty. I get that it's YA, and it was as fast and as fun as expected but it could've been just a little more pleasurable re: the craftsmanship.

DECEMBER

Um. Not that anyone but me is reading this thread, but if you were waiting for this leftovers list to clear out, I have bad news:
- Hamlet
- The Odyssey
- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- Salvador by Joan Didion
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
- Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman
- The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo
- The Sellout by Paul Beatty

WEEK 1 - Started
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
- A reread for me, for a project. I enjoyed it the first time around and also this time around.

WEEK 2 - Finished
The Art of Fielding
The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
- I skipped some pages in the middle, I'm not going to lie, but I slogged through so much of this I am calling it fully read because of the hours and the blood I soaked into reading it. Also read it for a project, do not recommend.

Sorry you didn't like The Great American Novel. I read it some years ago and remember loving it. Oh, well. To each his/her own.

I had high hopes, which maybe set me up for failure? I'd like to try some other Roth though, as I haven't read anything else by him!