Progress report

Well, dear readers, we’re sixth months in to 2019, and that’s a good time to do a little check up on my challengs. 

First up,  Science!    For the past few years I’ve organized my science reading into diverse categories to stay out of my well-established biology/anthropology rut.   I’m doing well, with six categories fulfilled, one extra, and two other categories set with planned reads.    Right on target,  though one of the six has a review waiting.

Next...the Classics Club, or more specifically my ambition to read twenty of my remaining 21 books this year. April was a dead loss,  as Red Dead Redemption II  claimed all of my time: not only did I not read any classics that month, but I read very little altogether.     June...well, I’m still working on June. I’m halfway through two Hemingway novels, Catch 22 being unavailable.  (Also: I  dislike Catch 22. I’ve tried it at least two times in the last three years...)   I’ll get through them. Grapes of Wrath, July’s designated read, should be much easier: I’ve already read it once and know the story.   My copy of the book is the same I had in September 2001, when our English class discussion of the novel  was interrupted by breaking news in New York.  

And finally, the TBR of Doom:  I’ve read four books from it this year, so that’s subpar. I did strike quite a few books from the list when  I gave them to Goodwill, though, so I’ve made progress regardless.  

  I’d also planned to do an interesting “American Summer” series that focused on odd bits of American culture – the rise of distinctly American-Chinese food, the role of the Catholic church in the frontier period,   odds and ends like this – but I’ve imposed a moratorium on myself as far as buying books goes*, so...that’ll keep.  I’d like a few more in the set, anyway. 

 All told, I’d give myself a B-.  

*BookBubs discounts excepting. I'm never too scrupulous to pass by a $1 book.