Tuesday, July 2, 2019

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. 

4 comments:

  1. I've yet to read Catch-22, but I've have that experience with other classics (Bronte's The Professor and Conrad's Nostromo)...tried it several times, just can't get into it. I hate giving up though. Incidentally both of those are on this year's challenges as well...at, least, I think...haven't been keeping good track. :P

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    1. Well, I wish you the best of luck. I'm going to be using Cliff notes to help me get through Catch-22. Watching the movie helped with Sense and Sensibility, so I'm hoping another kind of aid will help here. (I'm too tired of the book to care if it's cheating at this point!)

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  2. 21 classics a year?!

    Also- Red Dead Redemption 2 is a perfectly valid reason to falls behind on reading. :)

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  3. That's the dream, but I'm a little behind right now.

    And I'm STILL loving RDR2, even if I don't play it every day like I did in June. BTW, I'm curious as to how you were able to comment? The page is rigged to transfer everyone to readingfreely once that element loads. Is there a blocker that affects it?

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