ShelfLove Update!

Hello, everyone! June’s been an eventful month, with my wedding date now set (5th August) and a honeymoon booked (we didn’t choose Dublin because there’s a bookshop I want to visit there, nope)… and the UK deciding in a referendum, incomprehensibly from my point of view, to leave the European Union. Honestly, I kind of hope the last part is a bad dream.

Still, I’ve got a fair amount of reading done, woohoo!

The goals where I’m ahead are in blue; bang on are in green; behind by up to five books are in orange; anything else is in red. I now have a running total to show where I should be for the month too (e.g. by June I should’ve read 182 books overall).

• Targets: 
  • 250 or less books bought;
  • 366 books read overall;
  • 200 books read which I owned prior to 2016;
  • no more than 10% of income on books per month.
• Books bought this year so far: 101/120.
• May books bought: 8/20.
• May budget: £0/£30 (purchases were with vouchers).
• Owned books read this month: 23/16.
• Books read this month: 34/30.
• Owned books read overall: 95/100 (5 books behind).
• Books read overall: 175/182 (7 books behind).

The discussion question for this month’s post is:

Why do you read the books you read? Explore why you gravitate towards certain genres and/or authors. How do you pick the next book you will read?

And the answer is, mostly whim. SF/F has always been the main genre I read; probably because my mother does. And I pick the next book I’ll read by whim, or by asking everyone what I should read next and then doing something opposite, because I’m contrary. Or sometimes I’ll just pick something off a shelf and accidentally consume it.

And a to-read list for July, since I do find having the guidance useful, even if — cough — I don’t stick to it all that well. I’m carrying over the books left from last month, as they’re part of series I’d like to get finished. The others are ARCs or books from the backlist I’ve been meaning to get to.

• Peter S. Beagle, Summerlong.
• Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, The Tempering of Men.
• Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette, An Apprentice to Elves.
• Diane Duane, The Door into Sunset.
• Marie Brennan, In Ashes Lie.
• Tanya Huff, Blood Pact.
• Tanya Huff, Blood Debt.
• Sarah Kuhn, Heroine Complex.
• Laura Lam, False Hearts.
• Yoon Ha Lee, Ninefox Gambit.
• Juliet Marillier, Tower of Thorns.
• Naomi Novik, Uprooted.
• V.E. Schwab, A Gathering of Shadows.
• Jen Williams, The Iron Ghost.
• Jen Williams, The Silver Tide.

Here’s hoping it’s a productive month for all of us.