[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] June 2021 Reads

 Wow, looking back at the stuff I managed to read during the month of June left me feeling disappointed with myself. While I'm still "ahead" in terms of the pacing of my end-of-year reading goal, I definitely didn't cover as many titles this time around. In fact, I was short of reading at least one book a day, which is a little troubling since it severely ate into my buffer.

But that just speaks to how busy things have been at work, I guess, and all the craziness of trying to get vaccinated (which thankfully I did). So let's see what I did manage to cover this month.

[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] April 2021 Reads

April was not a great month for reading for me. As much as I read a lot of interesting things, my overall number of titles read in the month wasn't just lower than previous months, but it was also below the a-book-a-day pace I need to keep up with my end of year reading goal.

But these things happen. Work was pretty busy, so that's a big "barrier" to extra reading. but perhaps my decision to finally read Haruki Murakami's Killing Commentadore may have played a larger role as well. Allow me to explain once I've gone over the numbers.

[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] February 2021 Reads

While I haven't quite figured out what else I want to invest in when it comes to updates on this blog, one of the things I still enjoy posting is these sort of reports on what I've read during the previous month. It's not like we should be keeping score, but I guess I sort of am given my annual participation in the Goodreads Reading Challenge.

While February is only shorter by most months by only a few days, it still felt crazy short given everything else. I thought I had read more than a book a day, but come the end of the month that's how things played out. I guess I should be thankful - at least I'm not falling behind the pace I need to maintain to hit my goal before the end of the year.

[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] November 2020 Reads

November 2020 was another good month for reading for me since I had clearly hit my reading goal for the year and was free to enjoy more of the titles I just wanted to read. But the "productivity" of this month was in part because of several comic book efforts along with my continued exploration of the Target Doctor Who books.

So let's dive into my reading for this month.

[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.