Sunday, August 28, 2016

How I Use my Goodreads TBR List

I love making TBR lists to see what I would like to read soon. I have tons of TBR lists on my blog. This year alone I have my 2015 Releases I Want to Read, 2013/2014 Releases I Still Haven't Read, Series 2016, Books I Want to Read this Summer. But I tend to read very few books from those lists I make. My goal every single year is to reduce the number of books I have on my Goodreads TBR list. I currently have 352 books on my TBR list. I'm reading three books currently. I wanted to do this post to show you how I use my Goodreads TBR list and how I eliminate books from the list.

1. To Be Read List: this feature on my blog is often hard for me to decide which books to put on the list unless I have a specific challenge I'm participating in that month such as Take Control of Your TBR. Otherwise I really struggle, so I use a site called random.org to pick 3 books off my goodreads TBR list and they are often books I have forgotten were on my TBR list and weren't on my immediate radar, so it is a pleasant surprise sometimes to find a new favorite author through this feature.
2. Finding My Next Book to Read sometimes: Sometimes I'm stuck and I have no idea what I'm going to read next, so this is where goodreads and usually random.org comes in handy. Often times I have an idea of which books I'm going to read next in my head.
3. Challenge Planning: I participate in the Monthly Keyword challenge every year and I use my TBR list to get ideas of which books I'm going to read for the challenge. This isn't one of those challenges that gets done spontaneously. I have to plan.
4. To Save Books I Want to Read: This is probably the most important use. If you see me in Barnes and Noble I will most likely have my phone out to save books I want to read. I no longer have a Barnes and Noble membership, so I do not buy books from them that often anymore, but I always like to browse and find books that I would like to read.

There will never be enough time to read all the books that I want to read. I would be sad to run out of books to read. There are so many amazing books in the world and I'm thankful for goodreads for helping me to discover them. Before goodreads books seemed limited, but with goodreads it is a constant battle to keep up with all those amazing books.

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Summer Challenge Wrap Up


My goal for this challenge was to read 300 pages a week for the whole month of July. I made this goal. I read a lot in July and was well over the page count every week. 


Hosted by Candid Cover

I read 5 books that I would consider to be summer books. As far as my Summer TBR list. I have only read two off there. 

Saturday, August 13, 2016

My To Be Read List Winner August 2016


I gave you The Peach Keeper by Sarah Allen, Little Boy Lost by Eric Hobbs, and Fly Away Home by Jennifer Wiener to choose from. You all voted and chose my winner. 


And the Winner is.....



This book has been on my TBR list longer than any other book, so I'm excited to read it later in the month. I'm hoping it will fit into my WOBBLE challenge I'm completing on Goodreads. 


Sunday, August 7, 2016

August TBR List~ Let's Vote


This month I let random.org pick out the three books that I would have you guys vote on. How I did it is I typed in the number of TBR books I have on my goodreads TBR, which is up to 355. Then I let random.org pick 6 books. Then to narrow it down I put in numbers 1-6 and I let random.org choose 9 random numbers. Each of these books appeared three times, so they became my winners. This should be a fun month as these are books that are not on my immediate radar, so it will be fun to read a "forgotten" book from my massive TBR

The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Chased the Moon welcomes you to her newest locale: Walls of Water, North Carolina, where the secrets are thicker than the fog from the town’s famous waterfalls, and the stuff of superstition is just as real as you want it to be.

 It’s the dubious distinction of thirty-year-old Willa Jackson to hail from a fine old Southern family of means that met with financial ruin generations ago. The Blue Ridge Madam—built by Willa’s great-great-grandfather during Walls of Water’s heyday, and once the town’s grandest home—has stood for years as a lonely monument to misfortune and scandal. And Willa herself has long strived to build a life beyond the brooding Jackson family shadow. No easy task in a town shaped by years of tradition and the well-marked boundaries of the haves and have-nots.

 But Willa has lately learned that an old classmate—socialite do-gooder Paxton Osgood—of the very prominent Osgood family, has restored the Blue Ridge Madam to her former glory, with plans to open a top-flight inn. Maybe, at last, the troubled past can be laid to rest while something new and wonderful rises from its ashes. But what rises instead is a skeleton, found buried beneath the property’s lone peach tree, and certain to drag up dire consequences along with it.

 For the bones—those of charismatic traveling salesman Tucker Devlin, who worked his dark charms on Walls of Water seventy-five years ago—are not all that lay hidden out of sight and mind. Long-kept secrets surrounding the troubling remains have also come to light, seemingly heralded by a spate of sudden strange occurrences throughout the town.

Now, thrust together in an unlikely friendship, united by a full-blooded mystery, Willa and Paxton must confront the dangerous passions and tragic betrayals that once bound their families—and uncover truths of the long-dead that have transcended time and defied the grave to touch the hearts and souls of the living.

Resonant with insight into the deep and lasting power of friendship, love, and tradition, The Peach Keeper is a portrait of the unshakable bonds that—in good times and bad, from one generation to the next—endure forever.

Wesley Bates thinks his life pretty much sucks. He's landed at the bottom of his school's popularity ladder, and bully Randy Stanford seems to be waiting around every corner.

The troubled teen thinks he's found a way to escape his real-world problems when he stumbles upon strange doorways in Astoria's local library that seem to lead into the extraordinary worlds from all his favorite books. Oz, Neverland, Wonderland -- they're all a reality with Wesley's new discovery. Wesley teams with best friend Taylor Williams to embark on a great adventure, both ready to leave the drama of middle school behind.

But the two kids quickly find themselves embroiled in a centuries-old battle for the library and the magic hiding within. Now, fighting alongside the eccentric old man who's vowed to protect the building's power, the pair must help ward off an attack by a shadowy group with a strange tie to Wesley's nemesis, forcing Wesley to face the fears he's been dodging... and one of the most terrifying bullies of all time!


Sometimes all you can do is fly away home . . .

When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician's wife-her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator.

 Lizzie, the Woodruffs' younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve-a husband, a young son, the perfect home-and yet she's trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER's exam rooms, she finds herself craving more.

 After Richard's extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be.

 Written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity, Fly Away Home is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.

Wednesday, August 3, 2016

Can You Read a Series in a Month Challenge? Sign Up Post


I'm signing up for this challenge late as I wasn't sure I was going to participate in this challenge. I mean do I really need another challenge. I already have quite a few. Can You Read a Series in a Month? runs the whole month of August and the goal is to read a whole series. If you have already started the series then you must have at least three books to complete for it to qualify. 



I chose Jenny Han's Summer series as my series that I'm going to attempt to read in a month. I feel like this series is perfect to binge reading this summer. I'm excited to check it off my list. I put in my order of all three from the library and I'm going to read all of them once I finish The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson.