November Wrap-Up and December TBR

Slacker slacker slacker. That's me.

It suddenly struck me today that it's already December 3 and I still hadn't posted my November wrap up OR my December To Be Read lists so here we go with a combined post.

November was kind of hectic for me. Between holiday preparation, a busy workload at my day job and a little traveling (not to mention a fabulous ice storm that knocked out our power for 3 days...) I have barely had time to read, let alone write about reading.

Still, I did manage to get a little bit accomplished.

I finished off the Anne of Green Gables series. I'm so glad I took the time to re-read these books. They are such gentle, peaceful reads. I have to say, the final book in the series, Rilla Of Ingleside, is possibly one of the better books I've read about World War I. I'm a little surprised that this one isn't taught in schools alongside the WWI history unit.  There's lots of detail and it really brings the events of the war, the different battles, the effect it had on the folks back home, etc, into focus without getting mundane or boring.

Along with the Anne books, I worked my way a little way down on my stack of books for review. This month I had the pleasure of reading Now That She's Gone, by Gregg Olsen as well as Coal River by Ellen Marie Wiseman.  Now That She's Gone was ok - I think I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first book in the series (imagine that!) and Coal River was great, even if the ending was a little... implausible.

I also read some Rainbow Rowell: Fan Girl (not such a fan) and Landline (loved it) to be exact. I still can't quite put my finger on what it is that keeps me from just going nuts over Rowell like so many of my fellow bloggers, but there's just something...

For December my plan is to just get to the end of this year in one piece! I had originally set a goal for myself this year of reading 150 books. Well, that's not going to happen. According to my tracker on Goodreads, I'm 98 books. Given that I have a full time job, a side business (I dye yarn! check it out here!), a social life and this blog... I'm calling it good if I get to 100 for the year.

Now that I'm done with the Anne books, I've started on the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. If you've never read them and have only seen the movie, I highly recommend you check them out. They're fantastic, silly, wonderful little books that are great distractions from the heaviness that day-to-day life can bring.

I'm determined to finish up Avenue of Mysteries in the next week or so. This latest work by John Irving was given to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, I didn't get it until the day before it published (11/3) so I'm a little late with my thoughts on it. I'm liking the book a lot... that's all I can really say for now.

At the library the other night I couldn't help but pick up the latest in the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella. Sigh. All I can really say about this guilty pleasure book is that, as much as I enjoyed the first few books in the series, please stop writing them Ms. Kinsella. For the love of god. Please. Stop. Writing. These. Books. I started off loving Becky Bloomwood and now I'm just so disgusted by her inability to achieve real, lasting maturity that I could scream. And yet I can't quit reading these awful crack books!  I'm about a quarter of the way through Shopaholic To The Rescue and I just want my life back.

I've got big plans to read a few more books for review (and even get the reviews published on time this month!) and a few more new releases picked up at my local library. Last but not least, I've started on the Mark of the Lion trilogy by Francine Rivers. These books are Christian Fiction classics that have somehow been recommended to me several times (if you knew me in real life, you'd know how funny it is to see me reading Christian Fiction). The first book is good so far. Some of the history is suspect, but the overall view of ancient Roman culture is right up my alley.