September wrap-up

Seriously, September already over?!
I just celebrated my 8th blogiversary this past Saturday, September 29. I knew it was coming, but it came too fast and I didn’t have time to do anything special for it!
It was not a stellar month for reading, though better than the summer.

Here is what I read in September:

6 books:
5 in print and 1 in audio 
=  with 1,441 pages, an average of 48 pages/day
1 in audio
= with 10H54, an average of 21 mn/day

3 in nonfiction

1. The Piano Shop on the Left Bank, by Thad Carhart

2. Democracy in Chains, by Nancy MacLean – audio

3. Fear: Trump in the White House, by Bob Woodward

2 in mystery:

1. The Lady Killer, by Masako Togawa – ebook, for review

2. Point Blank, by Anthony Horowitz

1 in literary fiction:

1. Love and Invention, by Benjamin Constable – for review

 

My favorites in September

 

Reading Challenges recap

Classics Club: 24/50 (until end of 2020) or 36/62!
The 2018 TBR Pile Challenge: 3/12, but not none reviewed yet !!
Where Are You Reading?: 21/50 – to be finished in ??

Total of books read in 2018= 46/100

Number of books added to my TBR this past month= 31

Most popular book review this past month

click on the cover to access my review

Most popular post this past month
– non book review –

Born a Crime: 
chapters 1-3 read-along at
Book Bloggers International

Book blog that brought me
most traffic this past month

That Artsy Reader Girl

Top commenters of the month

Kristyn at Reading to Unwind

Karen at Booker Talk

Judy K.

Blog milestones

8th blogiversary on September 29!
1,823 posts
over 4,490 subscribers
over 160,350 hits

Plans for October

• Catch up with a few long reviews, and start doing short reviews posts!! Possibly experiment with weekly wrap up.
• I have tons of quotations from books I read this past year, I would like to start scheduling some of that.
• Possibly also a meme based on top Google search queries and my Goodreads shelves! 

Come back tomorrow
to see the books I plan to read in October!

How was YOUR month of September?

Kathryn at The Book Date
has created a Month In Review meme
I’ll now be linking my monthly recap posts
Thanks Kathryn, great idea!

June-July-August 2018 wrap-up

I can’t believe I have not posted a summary for 3 months. End of June I was just back from vacation and had a zillion other things to do. Then end of July was my husband’s open-heart surgery, so no time for blogging either. Thanks for everyone who expressed their support through social media. It’s amazing to feel help from so many people we have not even met. He’s now on the road to full recovery.

So here are the books I read these past 3 months.
Not tons. I’m far behind my usual numbers. One reason being I started and DNFed quite a few books that had been on my shelves for far too long. They may have been good, but I was not in the mood for these.

But I have done many more translations – I’m mostly the one translating posting in English here (yes, it’s nonfiction, so I translate from French-English for a change): when I have to face some ordeals, I’m in better mental health if I make my brain work actively; reading is not enough. I have always noticed that in my life, and studies have always been a great safety net.

Not sure if this is related, but these days, I also spend more time learning languages – hence less time for reading.
You may have noticed here how much I enjoy Calvino. One of my dreams would be to read him in Italian. So after starting-abandoning-restarting so many times, I’m finally doing it a bit everyday. I use Duolingo and enjoy it a lot. I’m currently studying prepositions, which is the most challenging for me. Otherwise, Italian is close enough to French, Spanish, and Latin, so not really a big deal.

While I was at it, I thought it might be good to review my Spanish. I can still read and listen to it pretty easily, but I’d like to be more comfortable again to speak it.

AND, jamais deux sans trois, three is a charm, I have restarted learning Russian – lots of members of my Orthodox Church speak Russian. NOW, that’s a bit more challenging, and I can actually FEEL physically my head is working when I study it. I love working with other alphabets (I taught myself Biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek), it’s like a game. Now it’s super easy to turn your American keyboard into any alphabet, so I just clicked on each key to figure out where each Russian letter was on my keyboard. I just need to keep the eyes on that list, et voilà ! Duoligo does a great job to teach you progressively each letter of the alphabet, starting with words that sound the same in English, such as radio, motor, sweater, Mama, Papa, taxi, circus, or funny things such as: том – тим там ? = Tom, is Tim there?

So, is this wrap-up coming or not? ok ok, here it is! The above might actually be a sign of a slight change in the format of this blog, we’ll see.

What I read in June-July-August:

13 books:
9 in print and 4 in audio 
=  with 2,850 pages, an average of 30 pages/day
4 in audio
= with 34H14, an average of 22 mn/day

7 in mystery

1. Sans feu ni lieu, by Fred Vargas – audio in French

2. Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers – audio, for Classic Club

3. Coffin Road, by Peter May

4. Alex Rider: Stormbreaker, by Anthony Horowitz

5. Ceux qui vont mourir te saluent, by Fred Vargas – audio in French

6. The Mystery of Three Quarters, by Sophie Hannah – ebook, for review

7. Le temps est assassin, by Michel Bussi  – audio in French

3 in nonfiction:

1. Conan Doyle for the Defense, by Margalit Fox – ebook, for review

2. Elder Sebastian of Optina, by Tatiana Torstensen

3. Journal de mon voyage d’Amérique, by Louis-Philippe – in French

2 in historical fiction:

1. The Romanov Empress, by CW Gortner  – ebook, for review

2. Defy the Night, by Heather and Lydian Munn

1 in literary fiction:

1. Smoking Kills, by Antoine Laurain – for review

 

My favorites in June – July – August

   

Reading Challenges recap

Classics Club: 24/50 (until end of 2020) or 36/62!
The 2018 TBR Pile Challenge: 3/12, but not none reviewed yet !!
Where Are You Reading?: 21/50 – to be finished in ??

Total of books read in 2018= 40/100

Number of books added to my TBR these last 3 months= 24

Most popular book review these last 3 months

click on the cover to access my review.

Most popular post these last 3 months
– non book review –

Born a Crime: 
chapters 1-3 read-along at
Book Bloggers International

Book blog that brought me
most traffic these past 3 months

Edith’s Miscellany

Top commenters of the month

Kristyn at Reading to Unwind

Karen at Booker Talk

Freda @Fredalicious

Blog milestones

1,814 posts
over 4,490 subscribers
over 158,400 hits

Plans for September

Catch up with reviewing, ah!! By the way, we have a great giveaway on France Book Tours!

 

Come back on Monday
to see the books I plan to read in September!

How was YOUR month of  August?

Kathryn at The Book Date
has created a Month In Review meme
I’ll now be linking my monthly recap posts
Thanks Kathryn, great idea!

Discovering reader preferences, habits and attitudes – Announcing the 2018 Reader Survey

by M.K. Tod, Heather Burch and Patricia Sands

 

Readers and writers – a symbiotic relationship. Ideas spark writers to create stories and build worlds and characters for readers’ consumption. Readers add imagination and thought to interpret those stories, deriving meaning and enjoyment in the process. A story is incomplete without both reader and writer.

What then do readers want? What constitutes a compelling story? How do men and women differ in their preferences? Where do readers find recommendations? How do readers share their book experiences?

ANNOUNCING A 2018 READER SURVEY

designed to solicit input on these topics and others.

Please take the survey
and share the link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/68HL6F2 

with friends and family via email or your favourite social media.

Robust participation across age groups, genders, and countries will make this year’s survey – the 4^th – even more significant.

 

Participate by clicking this link.

Those who take the survey will be able to sign up to receive a summary report when it becomes available.

 

M.K. (Mary) Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel, Time and Regret was published by Lake Union. Fellow authors Patricia Sands and Heather Burch helped design and plan the survey. Mary can be contacted on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads or on her blog A Writer of History.