Category: General

How To Meet Your 2020 Reading Goal

Posted January 1, 2020 by Nicky in General / 13 Comments

Because I read a lot (once upon a time I managed 500 books in a year; now it’s more like 200), I frequently get asked what the trick is. People seem to think I have a lifehack or something that I can share with other people. I’ll break that down a bit more below, but here’s what I think (looking back) is the biggest driver for me meeting my reading goals…

I do best when I don’t care about the goals at all.

My reading has slowed down more and more with every goal I add, every challenge I decide I have to meet. It’s also slowed down because I’m an adult working 30 hours a week and studying and trying to be a healthy person with a tidy house — there’s no denying that. And the increased amount of non-fiction I read now is a factor as well. But there’s a fairly large correlation between when I started really worrying about meeting reading goals and when my reading speed abruptly dropped.

Now, I do have some habits which I think help me read a lot, so I’ll summarise them below:

  1. Always have a book with you. You never know when you’re going to have a tedious hour stuck by the side of the road waiting for a bus or a towtruck. Or a 30-minute wait at an appointment. Even a five-minute wait for the train gives me time to fit in a chapter.
  2. Pick up the book, not your phone (unless the book is on your phone). It goes without saying, really.
  3. Give yourself at least a little room to read based on whims. Reading isn’t meant to be a chore. You don’t need a pre-planned TBR. If you’re really excited to read a book, you’ll remember it. You won’t be able to keep your hands off it.
  4. Buy books you’re excited about. If it’s just a case of “I feel like I should read this”, that book is destined to moulder on the TBR pile forever. And my TBR pile is daunting as heck now because of exactly the wrong kinds of purchasing decisions.
  5. Make the time. It’s been a shit day, but you can still turn some pages. And if you like reading and you’re reading a book you’re excited about, that’s only gonna make your day better.

That’s it. That’s my magic bullet. Everything else comes and goes, but these things are constant and always help toward meeting my goals.

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2019 Stats

Posted December 31, 2019 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Welp, here we are at the end of the year, and I don’t think I’ll be finishing another book before midnight. How’s it been? Well. I’ve read less than I have in a long time. I think I’ve enjoyed my reading more than maybe last year, when I was starting to feel painted into a corner with silly rules. I don’t know if I’ve fixed that, exactly, but I’m hoping I have.

Here are some neat figures from my organisational spreadsheet:

OTHER STATS:

Total read: 213
Number of rereads: 51 (24%)
Total page count: 62,991 (-10,090 from last year)
Most-read genre per month:

  • January: History
  • February: Science
  • March: Science & History (tied)
  • April: Fantasy
  • May: Fantasy
  • June: Fantasy
  • July: Fantasy
  • August: Fantasy
  • September: Fantasy
  • October: Mystery
  • November: Mystery
  • December: Romance

Number of ratings:

  • Five stars: 17
  • Four stars: 97
  • Three stars: 66
  • Two stars: 27
  • One star: 6

First book read: The Bell at Sealey Head (Patricia A. McKillip)
Last book read: The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal (K.J. Charles)
First book bought: A Murder Most Unladylike (Robin Stevens)
Last book bought: Sorting the Beef from the Bull (Nicola Temple & Richard Evershed)

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Game of Books 2020

Posted December 29, 2019 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

A "Game of Books" image, based on the Iron ThroneIt’s almost that time again! This is the fourth year of Game of Books, intended to incentivise reading and focus not on the total number of books read, but balancing a variety of goals like reading longer books, finishing up books in a series, reading books I’ve had on my TBR for longer…

In any case, everyone’s welcome to join in! I suggest you read through my ramble about how it works if you haven’t encountered the idea before, but skip to the end if you just want the spreadsheet!

So this year I’m personally trying to lean really hard on reading things I enjoy. Accordingly, the “joy factor” I’ve previously used has been scrapped — I’d get more points for reading books I hated, which was silly! I don’t think I did read anything I hated for that, but I did keep on with books I would probably have stopped. Also, I was supposed to guess the joy factor of a book before reading it, and that just never really worked.

So, instead I have the “enjoyment” column, which rewards me for DNFing, for being so excited about books I babble at my wife about them, for picking up a book to read the first page and accidentally getting halfway through, etc.

I’ve also nixed the one that rewards me for taking longer over reading a book, because if I can’t read a book in a couple of days, I’m probably not having fun, and that is not good.

I do also want to read books I’ve owned for longer, keep up with reading books in a series, and reward reading longer books.

Here’s my full setup:

PointsAcquisitionLength (pages)SeriesEnjoymentBonus
12020, reread, ARC, library book0-100Not in a series/not going to read more of the seriesFinished itFor each 100 pages over 500
22018-2019101-200First book in a seriesDNFed itARC 2019-2020
32016-2017201-300Middle book of a trilogyWas so excited I infodumped at LisaARC 2018 and older
42014-2015301-400Last book of a trilogy, middle book of a seriesRead the first page and accidentally ended up halfway throughBook club book read on time
52011-2013401-500+Last book of a series (to date)Read in 1-3 sittingsRead within a week of purchase or borrowing

I’ve made my monthly goal 220 points. To work that out, I tallied up how some random books I enjoyed from 2019 would score in the new system, and figured out the average score (11), and then multiplied that by how many books I would want to read each month if I was setting a simple reading goal. In theory, then, I can read fewer than 20 books as long as I enjoy them a lot or finish series I’m reading or whatever scores the high points. This usually gets revised a bit when I have a feel for how it’s going.

And that’s it! Feel free to share, join in, modify it however you wish (the idea is to ignore simplistic targets of books read to incentivise your ideal reading experience — which won’t be the same as mine!) and have fun with it!

You can find the spreadsheet here, and then:

  • Claim a sheet that isn’t already named (or duplicate the template sheet)
  • Rename it to your name/blog name/a unique identifier
  • Click on the arrow next to it and select “Protect the sheet”
  • Set it so only you can edit your own sheet
  • Copy over anything you want from the template
  • Personalise
  • Fill in throughout the year!
  • Profit???

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Weekly Roundup

Posted December 28, 2019 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

Greetings, folks! It’s been Christmas, so I’ve got quite a few new books… for instance, I got my wish for more physical copies of K.J. Charles’ work! 😍 (Some of these I bought myself, mind you.)

Stack of KJ Charles books with a stuffie hedgehog on top

(Sssh, don’t disturb the Librarian Hog, he’s been deliberating for days about how to shelve these!)

So here’s a selection of my new books…

Newly Acquired:

Cover of Romancing the Duke Cover of The Duchess Deal by Tessa Dare Cover of Proper English by KJ Charles

Cover of Death in Fancy Dress Cover of Steel Crow Saga by Paul Krueger Cover of Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch

Cover of The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly Cover of The Pursuit of by Courtney Milan Cover of This Wicked Gift by Courtney Milan

In no particular order, because why not enjoy the eclectic way things come into my brain?

Thank you again to the anonymous friend who bought me Steel Crow Saga via Portal Bookshop. Also the anonymous friend who bought me The Private Life of Jane Maxwell, because you only identified yourself as “a Habitican book blogger”, and I know a few. Much much love to you and to everyone who’s bought me books lately. <3

Reviews posted:

–Magic Rises, by Ilona Andrews. This book drives me a little bit mad because there’s a lot of awesome, but then also a stupid miscommunication plot between Kate and Curran, just when they were acting like sensible people. 4/5 stars
–This Wicked Gift, by Courtney Milan. I have (serious) issues with the male love interest, but there is a lot to enjoy here as well. 3/5 stars
–The Pursuit of…, by Courtney Milan. Okay, this one’s really cute. 4/5 stars
–The Christmas Egg, by Mary Kelly. Rather meandering and unfocused, but not a bad seasonal read. 2/5 stars

And that’s it for this week! How’s everyone doing?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted December 21, 2019 by Nicky in General / 9 Comments

Hi folks! It’s been a while since I did one because stuff got overwhelming, so I’m calling bankruptcy on an actual roundup. Here are a few books I’ve been granted e-ARCs of or been gifted recently, and I’ll start next week’s roundup from here!

E-ARCs

Cover of Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey Cover of Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire Cover of Hearts of Oak by Eddie Robson Cover of The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

SantaThing

Cover of The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi Cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid Cover of Lady Killers by Tori Telfer

Now back to crocheting Christmas presents! But what have you guys been up to lately?

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Weekly Roundup

Posted November 23, 2019 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

Two weeks since the last roundup! What have I been doing? Working, mostly, and doing NaNoWriMo. I’m hoping in December I’ll get back into the swing of reading more… but if I don’t, that’s fine too. Here’s everything that’s been going on…

New books:

Cover of The Secret Chapter by Genevieve Cogman Cover of The Light Years by R.W.W. Greene Stormsong by C.L. Polk

Thanks to Angry Robot and Tor for the ARCs!

Books finished:

Cover of Quick Curtain by Alan Melville Cover of Akhenaten: Egypt's False Prophet by Nicholas Reeves Cover of The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

Cover of The Masked City by Genevieve Cogman Cover of A Mourning Wedding by Carola Dunn. Cover of The Burning Page by Genevieve Cogman

Reviews posted:

–Heraclix and Pomp, by Forrest Aguirre. Not quite my cup of tea. 1/5 stars
–Hekla’s Children, by James Brogden. I found this rather predictable and nasty, with one of those entitled male protagonists that bug me so much. Sure, that’s part of the point, but it doesn’t make it more enjoyable. 2/5 stars
–Akhenaten: Egypt’s False Prophet, by Nicholas Reeves. Misleadingly still billed by the publishers as revolutionary for this 2019 reissue, when it was in fact written in 2005. Not updated. Rests on some very tenuous evidence and generally entirely skippable. 2/5 stars
–The Invisible Library, by Genevieve Cogman. Remains one hell of a romp, and a book I recommend. 4/5 stars
–Quick Curtain, by Alan Melville. Unfortunately, this is another one that was solidly not my thing. Comedic and incompetent crime detection story? Meh. 2/5 stars
–The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer. Still enjoyable, but the male lead drove me a bit nuts on this reread. 4/5 stars

Other posts:

–The Sparrow Readalong Week One: I need to catch up! Way behind now. But here were my thoughts on week one…

And that’s it! Here’s hoping things will be busier around here in the next couple of weeks. *blows away the cobwebs*

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Readalong – The Sparrow (Week One)

Posted November 13, 2019 by Nicky in General / 2 Comments

So it’s SciFi Month on some blogs, and okay, I’m not really properly participating, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity to pick The Sparrow back up and read it again. I’ve only reread about 8 chapters at this point, and technically this post is for the first week of the schedule (up to chapter 11), but ssshh. Go read other people’s thoughts on week one here!

So, right, where are we. When I first read this, it was the first ebook I ever owned, and I read it more or less in one go (yes, all 500 pages of it) on my computer screen, so hooked was I. I didn’t even own an ereader yet. The site I bought it from no longer exists and the format is obsolete. I must’ve been 16, 17? 18 at the most, because I certainly read it before I went to university. I am wondering if I will get more out of it now from this perspective — though I got plenty out of it back then, and though I haven’t reread it before now, I have consistently recommended it as an excellent sci-fi novel.

Here goes, let’s see if it’s just as good now. Suck Fairy, stay away.

Cover of The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell“They went ad majorem Dei gloriam: for the greater glory of God. They meant no harm.” What was your initial/gut response to the Prologue?

“Oh god, it’s gonna kill me all over again, isn’t it.”

That’s really it. I’ve read this book before and I remember what a glorious horrible amazing gut punch it all is, and it starts it right there.

How are you getting on with the split timeline and the many points of view? How about Mary Doria Russell’s predictions for 2019?

I had totally forgotten that it was set in 2019. I did just read one bit that made me laugh, given the whole “ok boomer” meme: “The whole damned baby boom is retiring. Sixty-nine million old farts playing golf and complaining about their haemorrhoids.”

There are definitely disturbing parallels with things I see in the real 2019. It feels like a parallel universe where things just happened a little differently; not like she guessed terribly, laughably wrong. Her technology is a bit too far ahead in some ways, while other things are absent (the ubiquity of mobile phones, for instance), but all in all, it doesn’t feel too strange.

What are your first impressions of the characters? Any favourites so far?

I feel odd about how little I remember! Of course, I’m not really having first impressions, since I’ve read this before. I’d forgotten how little we get to see inside Sandoz — okay, obviously it preserves some of the mystery, but the memory of the book was that it was mostly about him, and so far, well. It does revolve around him, but right now we’re still seeing him entirely from the outside, with pity (in some sections) and with curiosity (how is he going to end up that broken from here?) in others.

It does feel rather like we don’t get inside the characters often in general, though, beyond one or two scenes for Jimmy and Anne, where we get to know what they’re thinking (mostly about Sandoz).

From what we learn of Emilio’s training and what we see in the ‘present’ day (2050s), what do you make of the Society of Jesus as portrayed here?

Like most things, it’s both the best and worst of humanity. Behr and Candotti, the best; Voelker and (in a more complex way) Giuliani, the worst. At times, it shows the irony of that they meant no harm line; clearly, harm is meant (for example during Sandoz’s training, just for starters) and committed in hope of a later, greater good.

Any other thoughts you’d like to share so far?

Edward Behr being nicknamed “Teddy Bear” is the best thing. Over and out.

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Weekly Roundup

Posted November 9, 2019 by Nicky in General / 9 Comments

Welp, it’s been a quiet time on the blog since I’ve been doing plenty of work — and doing NaNoWriMo for the first time in years! Last weekend we went out on a trip to the lovely Portal Bookshop in York, which I thoroughly recommend, so I have a few new books! (Also some dead tree copies of beloved books I only had in ebook, but I won’t list those too. Still, have this lovely pic of Biscuit investigating my haul!)

Pic of a small brown bunny standing up against a pile of books

Books acquired:

Cover of Hexbreaker by Jordan L. Hawk Cover of Murder on the Titania by Alex Acks Cover of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

Books read since the last roundup:

Cover of Women & Power: A Manifesto by Mary Beard Cover of Provenance by Ann Leckie Cover of Excellent Intentions by Richard Hull Cover of Murder at the Fitzwilliam by Jim Eldridge

Cover of Ivory Vikings by Nancy Marie Brown Cover of Lord Roworth's Reward by Carola Dunn Cover of It's All In Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan

Reviews posted since the last roundup:

–Ancillary Mercy, by Ann Leckie. This remains a great favourite of mine, and one I’m sure I’ll come back to again. 5/5 stars
–Murder at the Fitzwilliam, by Jim Eldridge. Kind of meh, despite a promising setting. 2/5 stars
–Excellent Intentions, by Richard Hull. Slightly odd format, interestingly carried out but a bit lacking in personality. 3/5 stars
–Women & Power: A Manifesto, by Mary Beard. The first essay is very worth the read; the second a bit less sure ground. 4/5 stars
–Lord Roworth’s Reward, by Carola Dunn. An unsurprising but sweet Regency romance. 4/5 stars
–It’s All In Your Head, by Suzanne O’Sullivan. Interesting discussion of psychosomatic illness, but simplifies things rather through idealised cases, and the chapter on ME/CFS would make folks I know see red. 3/5 stars

Other posts:

–WWW Wednesday. This week’s update!

Out and about:

–NEAT science: ‘Pain and hunger.‘ Can the sensation of hunger change how you perceive pain? Yep, there is good evidence that it can — in both directions.
–NEAT science: ‘The biopsychosocial model of mental health.‘ A pet peeve and a cry for holistic care…

And whew, that’s everything. How’re you folks?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted November 6, 2019 by Nicky in General / 4 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts. Since this post isn’t pre-scheduled, the exact post is up so go here to join in for this week!

Cover of Lord Roworth's Reward by Carola DunnWhat are you currently reading?

As ever, I have several books on the go, but most actively I’m reading Lord Roworth’s Reward. It’s actually the second in a series of Regency romances by Carola Dunn, author of the Daisy Dalrymple books, and it’s really sweet. The male lead is an idiot, of course, but it has a surprisingly (but naturally) diverse cast. I’m definitely intending to get my hands on the first book (though it’ll be weird to read about a younger Felix being an antiSemitic idiot before he learns better), and the third is already on my stack.

Cover of Ivory Vikings by Nancy Marie BrownWhat have you recently finished reading?

I just finished Ivory Vikings, by Nancy Marie Brown. It was… okay. If you accept her identification of the person who made the chessmen as Margret the Adroit, some of her detours make more sense. If she’s wrong about the person or even just the general location, a lot of the geopolitical context she discusses is only very, very distantly related to the pieces. I’d have preferred more analysis and descriptions (and photos) of the actual Lewis chessmen, instead of such pure guesswork.

Cover of Heartstone by Elle Katharine WhiteWhat will you be reading next?

Probably something that’s been languishing on my pile half-read. I’m feeling contrary and reading a lot of romance since events conspired to hear a lot of people dissing romance novels, so it’s possible I’ll pick Heartstone back up. Or even Her Royal Spyness, which definitely seems to have a heavy romance subplot, if the unsuitable Irish man is any indication. (Though more serious than the title sounds, that book is bothering me, though — maybe just a slight embarassment squick!)

What about you? What are you currently reading?

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WWW Wednesday

Posted October 24, 2019 by Nicky in General / 6 Comments

The three ‘W’s are what are you reading now, what have you recently finished reading, and what are you going to read next, and you can find this week’s post at the host’s blog here if you want to check out other posts.

Cover of Barbary Station by R.E. StearnsWhat are you currently reading?

Lots of things at once, as ever. I just started Barbary Station last night, more or less on a whim: I’d forgotten everything about it except the space pirates, and so I was surprised and pleased to remember that it involves lesbian space pirates. I’m not seeing hugely positive reviews for it when I cast around quickly, but I’m only 10% into it and haven’t really made a decision myself yet. Candidate for my sister’s Christmas present, perhaps (it’s the lesbians).

Cover of Ancillary Sword by Ann LeckieWhat have you recently finished reading?

I just finally sat down and finished my reread of Ancillary Sword. Every time, it surprises me how quiet these books are really — most of it is not civilisations crashing into each other, or high octane combat: it’s Breq drinking tea, talking to people, managing relationships. There is an action-filled climactic scene, and one or two in the middle, but this isn’t sensawonder space battles, and it’s even less so than the first book. Which is a thing I enjoy, but is possibly another reason some people don’t get along with these books. You expect something earthshaking, but Breq’s not going to bring down the Radch alone, and doesn’t even want to try. She’s lit the fuse, but now she’s off in another system protecting those important to her and letting what will happen go on without her.

Cover of Gilded Cage by KJ CharlesWhat will you be reading next?

Ancillary Mercy is probably a good bet, but also K.J. Charles’ Gilded Cage came out today, so that’s high on my list! I didn’t get into either of the characters that much from the first book, but I trust Charles to deliver what I didn’t know I wanted.

What are you currently reading?

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