[Books] November 2021 Reads

Despite the great progress I made in October and me still being ahead of pace to hit my end-of-year reading goal, I rather fell behind on my reading this November. I didn't quite read the equivalent of one book a day and I can only attribute my delays to things at work and other sources of stress. And in the middle of a pandemic, it's not like we're ever in short supply for things to worry about.

But hey, reading is ultimately an activity meant to help us relax or even escape our troubles for a while. As "competitive" as I can get when it comes to my reading goals, I also don't want to force myself to read just for the sake of " numbers". I love reading for the sake of reading and I know I'll end my reading year pretty well despite all this.

[Books] October 2021 Reads

 I was worried that I wouldn't keep up my one-book-a-day reading pace last month, so I was pleasantly surprised by my actual tally. It never feels like I read "enough", but in the end, I guess I generally do?

If anything, I did manage to pivot mid-way through the month to read more "thematically" given the month. And how I got to that point was pretty surprising, even to me.

[Books] September 2021 Reads

 I thought that I had read a lot more books last month, but when I sat down to do my tally, it seems that wasn't quite the case. Don't get me wrong - I'm still way ahead of my end-of-year reading goal. But it seems that August was even more productive than September for some reason. Go figure.

So let's dive into my summary of all the different titles I managed to consume cover over the course of the last month. 

[Books] August 2021 Reads

 

Wow, I thought I had already done an August update for everything I had read, but I guess it had somehow slipped my mind. At had a quick TikTok update at the start of September but that was it. And here we are pretty much at the end of the month and I'm still playing catch-up. 

So here's a very late report on the many things I read during my birthday month. I made a sincere effort to make up for lost ground and slower reading in recent months and I think I managed to make some REALLY good progress for the month.

[Books] July 2021 Reads

From a "competitive" reading perspective, I read more books in July than I did in June, which is good. However, I still didn't read at a pace that was the equivalent of 1 title per day, and that means I'm still off my game. Then again, July was also a very busy and eventful month at work, so it couldn't be helped, I suppose. 

I enjoyed the mix of things I read, that's for sure. But I'm still balancing fulfilling titles versus also racking up enough numbers to hit my goals before the end of the year. It's just how things go.

[Books] May 2021 Reads

 I still managed to keep pace with my reading goals during the month of May and I feel like I managed to explore some interesting territory. A focus on more franchise-based fiction like the different Doctor Who and Star Wars books certainly helped in that area.

But that didn't limit me from exploring some interesting pieces that had been sitting in my collection for a while. So on the whole, it felt like a good month for reading. I certainly read a bit faster a the beginning of the month, but things sort of bogged down towards the end and I felt I slowed down. But maybe that's just me.

[Books] March 2021 Reads

March was a bit of a mixed bag for reading, and my decision to invest time in reading a longer Haruki Murakami novel this month means that I had to lean heavily on comic books to make up my numbers. I'm glad that I still managed to keep apace, but I also feel like I cheated a bit since my reading included a few single-issue stories.

But hey, when it comes to competitive reading and a one-book-a-day reading goal, you also have to read smarter at times to balance our more enthusiastic reading, if you get my drift.

[Books] January 2021 Reads

I think I started 2021 fairly strong from a reading perspective and managed to make good progress towards my reading goals. A new year means starting from zero again and I'm pretty happy trying to maintain my one book a day target of 365 books covered for the year.

So let's break things down in detail, shall we?

[Books] December 2020 Reads

And now we get to the end of 2020 and the last few titles that made up my reading for the year. I didn't just hit my one-book-day reading goal, but actually managed to cover a total of 388 titles, which is sort of a new record for me. 

I guess the quarantine has had some geeky benefits for me. But let's focus on just December and see how things panned out.

[Books] October 2020 Reads

 

October was a pretty good reading month for me and I've generally kept up the pace I established in September. If I stay on track, I'm very likely to hit my annual reading goal before November is over, which should free me up to read longer titles once I'm not as stressed over the overall timing.

I like the challenge an annual reading goal provides, but it can influence one's reading decisions to make sure to factor in reading efficiency apart from just reading what you want. It's all good fun though.

On to this month's numbers!

[Books] September 2020 Reads

September 2020 represents a bit of a turning point in my efforts to hit my end-of-year reading goal of 365 titles. I had fallen behind my goal ever since the lockdown began  (which sounds kind of ironic), and it was only last month that I finally got caught up again and got back on pace.

Admittedly, this means reading a lot more comic books instead of just focusing on novels because I really do go faster when it comes to comics. But I think I also made some smart choices in terms of what to read so that I didn't get overly bogged down by heavier or longer books. There'll be time enough for reading of that variety once I hit my goal or something.

[Books] August 2020 Reads

 August was a pretty good month for reading for me, even though I felt like I slowed down a bit right at the very end of the month. But hey, it was my birthday, so I had other activities to focus on apart from reading, so it's understandable, right?

My novel reading has generally been more productive thanks to my return to the BattleTech novels, but that segment of my library is mostly covered by now. At least I still have comics to fill in the gaps.

[Books] July 2020 Reads

 

July 2020 will stand out as one of the rare months this year where I actually read more novels than comics. I guess it helps that I got super excited about revisiting the BattleTech universe again, and I was determined to finally finish my internal project to read all of the Classic novels. Thus most of my leisure reading while catching up on Fitbit steps involved a BattleTech title somehow.

It was a pretty good month, but on the whole, I'm still way behind on my 365 book goal for the year. I gotta pick up the pace this August!

[Books] June 2020 Reads

Things started to feel more the right reading pace come June 2020, so that's a good thing. 

And I finally finished the Mistborn books this month, which freed me up to read other titles of shorter length, so that helped me get more back on track. 

[Books] May 2020 Reads

May 2020 was one of my worst months for reading this year. But I guess it makes sense, as this was well within the lockdown period and I know I was feeling pretty frustrated with how things were going in the country.

But that's not what this blog is about.

This one's going to be short, but there's still stuff to talk about for the month.

[Books] April 2020 Reads

 

Still playing catch-up with my month-end updates on my reading efforts for the year. Looking back at all this, we see a steady decline in the number of books that I get to cover each month, which in turn probably reflects my mental state as the lockdown period as progressed.

So let's talk about the April books.

[Books] February 2020 Reads

Despite the relative brevity of February, I actually covered more titles this month versus the last, probably because for part of the time I was out of the country for work and that resulted in more reading time while I was physically apart from Tobie.

I read a total of 32 titles, only 1 of which was an actual novel, while 25 were comics and 6 were audiobooks. I actually did a lot of re-reading this month including titles like Warren Ellis' Global Frequency. But I suppose the title of focus was Locke & Key, since I ended up wanting to review the series after watching the first season of the Netflix adaptation. It remains to be one of my favorite comic book reads and coincidentally was one of my first purchases on comiXology.

Re-reading the books helped me appreciate what aspects of the comics were translated beautifully in the show but also stressed just how much had been changed and moved around in terms of the story. They remain two distinct pieces of fiction and I can't necessarily argue that one is better or worse than the other. The real challenge will be in terms of the ending of the series (should we ever get there) and whether they opt to go as dark as the comic did or try to find a more palatable ending for their wider audience.

[Books] January 2020 Reads

I wanted to start 2020 right, and thus I tried to balance "smarter" reading choices so I wouldn't feel so pressured at the end of the year to read for quantity instead of just enjoyment. That meant making sure to cover a good mix of quick titles amid the more complex ones in order to set a good pace for the year.

I finished the month with 28 titles, just short of 31 titles had I covered a full book a day. It's not terrible, considering this broke down into 2 Star Wars novels, 14 comic book volumes and a whopping 12 audiobooks.

My efforts to finish up my Legends period books with the 9 different Fate of the Jedi titles took up the bulk of my book-based efforts, so the title I really wanted to highlight for this month is MIND MGMT, which I finally covered in a fairly speedy amount of time. It's an amazing series about psychic espionage agents with amazing abilities. There are so many different layers to this story (both in terms of the narrative and its imagery) that I know that I'll need to re-read this series a few times to fully understand all the possible nuances to this tale. This is a serious must-read and we'd all be better for it.

On the audiobook front, I covered a mix of self-help books on finance and leadership along with fluffier Classic Doctor Who audio dramas. I hope your reading for the year is off to a great start as well.

[Books] December 2019 Reads

In December my reading efforts weren't all that substantial since I was determined NOT to miss my annual reading target of at least 365 titles. That resulted in my blitzing through a total of 38 titles, 27 of which were the equivalent of comic book trade paperbacks versus a measly 3 novels. I also augmented my reading numbers with the help of the fact that many of the older Big Finish Doctor Who audiobooks are available on Spotify.

If anything, the most notable comic that I read during this period was The Immortal Hulk, which added a sense of mysticism to Bruce Banner's story by bringing him back from the dead again and making this a key aspect of what the Hulk is. It could have come out pretty cheesy to claim that all gamma-irradiated heroes and villains were all tied to some mystical green door connected to another dimension, but the way it was carried out worked out quite well. Good job, Al Ewing.

And in case you're wondering, yes, I did hit my annual reading target. You can ready my reviews of the books I read at my Goodreads account.

[Books] November 2019 Reads

As of the time of this blog post, I'm still 7 books behind target in order to achieve my reading goal of 365 books for the year. November has been a sort of slow month in terms of completion and no single franchise really defined my reading activities for the period. It's a slow crawl to catch up, but I remain optimistic that I'll get there eventually.

Here are last month's numbers: