TBR List Update: March

                 

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In March 2025

Books read: 5

Books I decided NOT to finish: 2

The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan: It's not the right style of horror for me. Things were dark but maybe too eldritch.

Tin Star: Too much telling, not enough explaining. I could not invest emotionally.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 36 (plus 11 checked out/in progress) 

Best book of the month: All the Sweeter

Technically I haven't finished it yet, but this was a nuanced exploration of foster parenting (not necessarily pitched as a 101 introduction) and it resonated with me.

Worst book of the month: A Splendid Ruin

Which is not to say it was a terrible story. Lots of architectural and social history of familiar places, but not satisfying in its tale of justified revenge.

My persistence in "only books I like" has led to a lot of impulse borrowings on Hoopla, instead of working on the TBR list. I also added a few titles to that list for later. Oh well.

TBR List Update: February

                

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In February 2025

Books read: 11

Books I decided NOT to finish: 4

Iron Flame: Yeah, I read about a chapter and then flipped ahead trying to find something to get excited about. I just don't get why everyone loves this series so much.

The Children of Men: Interesting premise, but I'm not going to ask my brain to work that hard right now.

Sing, Unburied, Sing: It's been checked out to me for almost a year (bad librarian!). If I haven't read it yet, I'm not going to.

Camp Concentration: It kept looking good on the list, but I got it in person and it didn't. That is all.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 41 (plus 6 checked out/in progress) 

Best book of the month: The Pairing

A culinary romp through western Europe with a pair of highly competitive bisexual friends-turned-lovers-turned-exes suddenly reunited. Made me laugh, scold the characters out loud, surprise-cry on the last page, and read many snippets aloud to my very tolerant wife.

Worst book of the month: 

I liked everything! It was a good reading month in that regard.

TBR List Update: January

               

I'm working my way through #VirtualMountTBR2025. Here's my current To-Be-Read List, and here's the list of titles I have read this year.

In January 2025

Books read: 5

Books I decided NOT to finish: 1

Moral Disorder: I'm treading lightly and trying not to read things I don't really like. And I'm trying not to feel like a failure for it. It's not very academically rigorous, for sure, but it's self-care.

I'm working on making the decision to DNF Iron Flame (the second in the Fourth Wing series that everyone's so get up about). I brought it along to wait in the hospital on January 30th, but didn't even finish the first chapter between everything else I was paying attention to. I'm going to give it one more chance this weekend.

Life Undercover

Books left on the TBR List: 43 (plus 8 checked out/in progress) 

Best book of the month: One Day

Loved the concept, loved the reporting that made proper chapter-length stories out of newspaper articles, TV clips, interviews, and other documents.

Worst book of the month: 

Eh. All about the same.

January's count always gets a boost from the completion of books started in the previous year. Also, it's often a quiet time with less socializing and the inclination to stay in out of the rain, so there tends to be a bit more time to read. However, this January was so full of existential anguish that I found myself scrolling the short video feeds a lot more than reading print.

#VirtualMountTBR2025

It's year three of this challenge, for me. The Virtual Mount TBR (to-be-read) challenge is hosted by Bev at My Reader's Block. Participants start with a list of books they don't own but have been meaning to read, and the challenge is scaling a virtual mountain by either reading or deciding to remove them unfinished from the list. You can sign up here! (If you have a literal pile of books, #MountTBR2025 is for you.)

Guidelines (and feel free to adapt them if you'd like to challenge yourself!):

• Have a known list to begin the year. I have consolidated mine into the tool my library uses and have a list of ~50 titles here: TBR List.
• Try not to add anything new! But it's okay to read off-list. I left a little room for this by making a less challenging goal this year.
• Keep track of what I'm reading on my usual page: Reading List.
• Remove titles from the TBR list as I complete them, OR as I decide that I will be okay never reading/finishing them.

I am aiming for White Plume Mountain (48 books) and I have 57 on my TBR list + in-progress stack at the beginning of the year. I will be updating at the end of each month (and sporadically otherwise) with a running total and some commentary.

Reading List 2024

Here's an archived copy of my reading list for this year. I'll be keeping up the new list here: http://mlisunderstanding.blogspot.com/p/reading-list.html

I would recommend the bolded titles with enthusiasm, and I enjoyed the italicized titles but probably wouldn't read them again.