November 2012 Recap

I hope all you American’s had a Happy Thanksgiving and everyone else had a warm(ish) November. It’s starting to get really cold here and although I’m loving it, I was not ready for this weather. I can’t believe December 1st is tomorrow and December brings my birthday, Christmas and New Years are all flying up fast. Here’s my last monthly update of the year!

Once again this month I have another awesome Tweet to share. Katherine Winter, author of Annabel responded to my response to her novel on Twitter. Awesome, right? Once again just to reiterate, sometimes you just have to love social media.

Recent Acquisitions (Yes, still a library :-D)
I didn’t go on a book buying ban like I should have, but I of course have brilliant reasons/excuses. However, I am rapidly running out of excuses/reasons – my to-be-read bookshelf is officially overflowing, I only have one Groupon left and only a bit left on my gift card!

The first purchases this month, to the right, I purchased with my gift card from my previous job. They are The Necromancer and The Warlock, of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flamel series. The Casual Vacancy, was my second I just HAD to buy! It was only $18 and I had $25 in store credit from selling back books. I was still in the 100s on the hold list at my local library and wanted to be able to read it when I was ready and not HAVE to read it in a certain time frame. I’m very excited about it and definitely

The next two sets I bought because I had a Groupon for one (the left) and the second was for Small Business Saturday (the right), where if I spent at least $25 I would get a $25 credit on my credit card, so free books really!  I did really well not straying too far from my shopping or to-be-read lists – nine of the books appeared on one or more lists of books I intended to read at some point. and the last one is Picking for Cotton by Jennifer Thompson-Canning and Robert Cotton which is was the selected reading for entering students where I work.

Groupon Books:

• Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote
• The Children of Men – P.D. James
• Briefing for a Descent into Hell – Doris Lessing
• Clock without Hands – Carson McCullers
• Lolita – Vladimir Nobakov

Small Business Saturday Books:

• Year of Wonders – Geraldine Brooks
• People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
• The Unberaable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safran Froer
• Water for Elephants – Sara Gruen

Challenge Progress
The most exciting change this month is I COMPLETED the Mount TBR Challenge! I’m also incredibly close to finishing my final challenge, Back to the Classics. This month was actually the perfect month reading wise. When I planned my year I budgeted five books per month and I read five books this month. I read 1 NetGalley ARC, 2 Kindle pre-1923 free Classics and 2 physical books.

• Mount TBR Reading Challenge
  • Monthly Progress: 2 books
  • Overall Progress – 25/25 (100%)
• Back to the Classics Challenge
  • Monthly Progress: 2 book
  • Overall Progress – 8/9 (89%)
• Tea and Books Reading Challenge – Completed in September
• The Classics Club
  • Monthly Progress: 3 books
  • Overall Progress – 15/100 (15%)