Wow, I don’t know if it’s the excitement of a new beginning with the first month of the year, or the excitement of working on 20ish Reading Challenges, or pure madness, that could well be all the above:

this month has been terrific, best EVER!

Ok, I did NOT finish any audiobook, mostly for technical reasons, I’ll explain when I post the review of the audiobook I finished 24 hours too late to make it for the January count.

BUT I read 11 books, with a total of 2803 pages, that is, an insane 90.4 pages/day! I had to redo the maths several times, to be sure it was correct.

Another neat thing, is that I’m working on my end of year recap as I go along,that will save tons of times at the end, and prevent mistakes.

So for instance, I add titles and numbers after each book I read on this public google recap sheet, and I update all my Reading Challenges on that one.

The cool thing is that to list the following titles, I just add to select them form my column, et voilà!

SO, here are the titles I read:

5 fiction:

Le Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier – in original French
Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – historical novel
A Midsummer Night’s Dream , by Shakespeare – play
The Man In The Brown Suit , by Agatha Christie – mystery
Remembering Babylon , by David Malouf

I enjoyed them all, but my old love for le Grand Meaulnes was too strong against Agatha Christie, so that’s my favorite fiction this month:

6 non-fiction

Gandhi: A Manga Biography, by Kazuki Ebine – graphic format
The Adventures of Hergé, by José-Louis Bocquet – graphic format
Saint Gregory Palamas As A Hagiorite, by Hierotheos of Nafpaktos
Charles Dickens: A Life  , by Claire Tomalin
Cliffs Notes on Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , by Matthew Black
Paris My Sweet: A Year in the City of Light (and Dark Chocolate) , by Amy Thomas – ebook

Difficult to resist the Parisian sweetness of Amy Thomas’ book, but I’m still giving my preference to this masterpiece, which I highly recommend for Dickens’ 200th anniversary coming up in a few days now:

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Reading Challenges recap

Around the World in 52 books:  9/52
Around the world in 12 books: 1/12
European reading challenge: 4/5
I love Italy: 0/1-3
Dewey Decimal: 8/20
We want you to read French authors: 4/5 or 10 (ends in August)
Books in translation: 2/10-12
South Asia: 1/7
Middle East: 0/18
My own reading challenge: 0/5
What’s in a Name: 3/5
Ebook challenge: 3/10
Audiobook: 0/12
Support your library: 7/37
Finishing the series: 0/1
2nds challenge: 0/3
Foodies: 1/3
Japanese literature: 0/? (starts in June)
Historical novels: 1/7-10
New authors challenge: 8/15
A Shakespeare play a month: 1/12
SHAKESPEARE READING MONTHE: 1/1   –  COMPLETED
AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE MONTH: 1/1 – COMPLETED
DICKENS READING MONTH: 1/1  – COMPLETED
Graham Green Challenge: 0/1

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Blog recap

December 2011:    29 posts =  total views =  1,718  = 55/day
January 2012:        21 posts =  total views =  2,165  = 70/day

Another very exciting event in January was my starting a book club for our block, with a very special format that everybody seems to enjoy. If you have not yet read about it, it’s here.

How was YOUR month of January?