Monthly Challenge Wrap-Up — April 2016

Challenges

Title links go to reviews.

Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge

I’m rockin’ this!!! I read 25 books in April toward my year-end goal of 180 books. I’m currently at 57% of my yearly goal, or a total of 102 books — 43 books ahead of schedule! This month’s total includes 10 ARC or review copies, 3 new-to-me books, 1 lecture series, and 11 re-reads. (The figures don’t add up because one re-read was also a review copy.) You can see my reading list here.

Cruisin’ Thru the Cozies –  read in March

Title links take you to my review.

1. The Murder of Mary Russell (Laurie R. King)
2. The Corpse with the Garnet Face (Cathy Ace)
3. An Unhappy Medium (Dawn Eastman)
4. Death Mask (Ellis Peters)
5. Crime and Poetry (Amanda Flower) (review to come)
6. A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall (Hannah Dennison) (review to come)

The Backlist Reader (TBR) Challenge –  read in March

These are older titles (before 2016) that I’ve wanted to read. Title links take you to my review.

1. Heart of Evil (Heather Graham) (review to come)
2. Great World Religions: Judaism (Isaiah M. Gafni) (lecture series) (review to come)

2016 Resolutions

Bookish Resolutions

1. Read more of the books I really want to read. This went pretty well this month. I didn’t read a lot of backlist-but-new-to-me books, but I reread a favorite series (Emily March’s Eternity Springs books) and another old favorite, plus a bunch of new titles that I wanted to read — some were ARCs and some I bought or borrowed from the library.
2. Request fewer ARCs. Well…  I was approved for 8 ARCs this month; at least half were requested in March. I have 3 more pending. However, I’ve tried to only request books I really, really want to read.
3. Catch up on some older ARCs and improve my NetGalley review percentage. Because of the new ARCs, my NG percentage dropped to 74%, and I haven’t gotten around to any of the older ones. Hopefully I can knock out a few during the Clean Sweep ARC Challenge this month.
4. Build and maintain a 3-week cushion of reviews and other posts. Not so good, though I did get a smidgen further ahead. OTOH, the first two weeks of May are the Blog Ahead Mini-Challenge, so hopefully I can get at least some reviews and posts prepared ahead.
5. Cross-post reviews on time. I’ve kept up with this fairly well during April.
6. Stay on top of challenges. I’ve kept up with linking to the Cruisin’ Through the Cozies challenge, which is the only applicable one this month.

Personal Resolutions

1. Find time and the discipline to write. FAIL.
2. Clean and revamp my study. FAIL. 
3. Exercise more. Well… I’ve started. I haven’t done much, but I’ve been out for a few walks.
4. Be more consistently disciplined about my freelance work. *grimaces*
5. Make more time and space for the things I love to do: I’m working on two knitting projects — a mindless moss-stitch scarf for TV knitting and conversations, and a more intricate leaf-pattern lace scarf for a challenge. I made time to work on my concert program and publicity before the final crunch week. I’ve been watching Poirot mysteries, and I finished Season 1 of Avatar: The Last Airbender. But I didn’t fit in any writing or photography, and my voice lessons still haven’t started back up.

Robin will be home mid-month. My youth and children’s choruses’ concert is also mid-May. And I’ll be going to my 30th college reunion, where I’ll see some old and dear friends, go to a tree-planting in honor of a friend who passed away, and sing in a pop-up madrigal group. So there’s lots to look forward to!

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