Welcome to another reading update from the very weird 2020!  I hope you are staying safe and well, and enjoying many great books.  I’m still staying home and reading a lot.  That’s good for my overarching goal of the year, to read more, aiming for 125 books.  I’m at 104 books so far, putting me well on target.

Here’s my monthly totals:

January: 14 books
February: 11 books
March: 7 books
April: 12 books
May: 9 books
June: 9 books
July: 11 books
August: 14 books
September: 10 books
October: 7 books (so far)

Now onto the specific challenges…

The Phantom of the Opera Reading & Viewing Challenge
Host: Tales of the Marvelous
Goal: Lon Chaney Level

I posted the update for this challenge last week (share your updates if you have them!) and I’m on track for my goal.  Just to need to watch a Phantom movie still…

Diversity  Reading Challenge
Host: Celebrity Readers
Goal: 18 Books

A little progress here, and more work to be done – but I have a few more diverse books on reserve the library, so hopefully more on the way for the final quarter of the year.

1. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant (Jewish community)
2. In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan (bisexual hero)
3. Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell (dark-skinned fantasy-world hero)
4. Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld (Latino hero)
5. Clover by Dori Sanders (African-American heroine)
6. The Wayward Children Series (ensemble diverse cast)
7. Time Pieces by Virginia Hamilton (African-American heroine)
8. Heroine’s Journey by Sarah Kuhn (Asian-American heroine)
9. The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion (non-neurotypical hero)
10. The Way to Bea (Asian-American heroine)
11. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia (African-American hero)
12. The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson (non-fiction, exploring the Black experience in America)

Tackle My TBR Reading Challenge
Host: Kimberly Faye Reads
Goal: 34 books

I have in one way made lots of progress on this one…and in another way have not!  I’ve read 32 books off of my TBR list, bringing me very close to my goal.  But I’ve also added a bunch of books, to wind up with a current total of 64.  That is down from 68 at beginning of the year…but not down by much!  It’s at least satisfying to have the TBR list gradually shifting towards more recent adds overall…though plenty of old ones are still on here too.

1. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
2. The Librarian by Christy Sloat
3. Cinnamon and Gunpowder by Eli Brown
4. The Heroines by Eileen Favorite
5. The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
6. The Fledgling by Elizabeth Cadell
7. Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
8. The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
9. One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
10. In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
11. Your One & Only by Adrianne Finlay
12. You Just Don’t Understand by Deborah Tannen
13. Mechanica by Betsy Cornwell
14. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
15. The Bully at Work by Gary Namie
16. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
17. The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
18. Shatter City by Scott Westerfeld
19. The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan
20. The Library at the Edge of the World by Felicity Hayes-McCoy
21. The Rosie Result by Graeme Simsion
22. Landscape with Invisible Hand by M. T. Anderson
23. A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
24. Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
25. The Sinister Mystery of the Mesmerizing Girl by Theodora Goss
26. The Way to Bea by Kat Yeh
27. Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pesel
28. The Jane Austen Project by Kathleen A. Flynn
29. Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mballa
30. Oz Reimagined edited by Douglas Cohen and John Joseph Adams
31. Steal Like an Artist by Austin Klein
32. Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

Do you have reading goals for the year?  How are they going so far?