Exceedingly Mundane

I had so many books I wanted to blog about, but I think rather than blogging about them separately, I’ll just do one “skim over” post. I’ve read a lot of books since the last time I chatted about them, so there’s a lot of ground to cover.

First, I’m happy to report that I met my personal reading goal I set for myself this year. Last year, in 2006, I read 70 books, so I started off by setting a goal of 75 books. A nice round number! When I reached that goal, I still had a few months left in the year, so I stretched my goal to 100 books. Another nice round number. Secretly, I was shooting for 104. Not a round number, but a good one. With 52 weeks in the year, that works out to an average of 2 books a week. I’m happy to say that I did that this year, and I’m very happy about it 🙂 I did read several “smaller” books. Some short novellas and short, sweet Christmas books. But as I was chatting with one of the librarians a couple of weeks ago, she said “a book is a book. If they sell it in the bookstore and we have it on our shelves, it counts as a book. It doesn’t matter if it has 125 pages to it, or 475 pages to it. It’s still a book”. And she’s right.

I did read several Christmas books this year, which has become a yearly tradition for me. I like the shortness of them, when my time is limited and everything else is so busy and hectic. But more than that, I like the message and story that they tell. They are usually uplifting, happy little books and I enjoy those. Especially at this time of year. I read the following Christmas books this year, and enjoyed them all:

The Christmas Shoes by Donna Van Liere
The Christmas Blessing by Donna Van Liere
The Gift of Christmas Present by Melody Carlson
Once Upon a Christmas (2 books in 1) by Lauraine Snelling and Lenora Worth
The Christmas Pearl by Dorothea Benton Frank

Before I started reading these, I read and thoroughly enjoyed some very sweet, very old-fashioned Christian fiction books, called the Tales from Grace Chapel Inn. These are Guidepost Books that apparently were issued quite a while back, and I believe they are updating and re-releasing them. I have read the first four, the two that were released in 2006 and the two released in 2007, and I just loved them. They are not for everyone though — they are very very old-fashioned and straight-laced type of books. I thought they were charming, and they were very easy to read and very predictable. For me, they were just the kind of books I was in the mood for at the time. I am hoping they release two more this year, as I love the characters and am wanting to read more from this series. The first four I read were:

Back Home Again by Melody Carlson
Recipes and Wooden Spoons by Judy Baer
Hidden History by Melody Carlson
Ready to Wed by Melody Carlson

Loved them! I am currently reading the first book in the Alaskan Quest series by Tracie Peterson. A year or two ago, I read and really liked the three books in the Yukon Quest series, and I had these follow-up books in my Amazon wish list for a while (the Alaskan ones). I was happy to see them at my library’s website listing of new books, so I am on the wait list for them. I have the first one, and have started it, but won’t finish it before the New Year. I am hoping to get them all read in January. I have so many series books that I want to read, but I’m trying really hard to limit myself to how many series I start, before I complete some others already in progress 😀

I also won a book from Deena at “A Peek at my Bookshelf“, a book by Lisa Samson, who is a new-to-me author that I have been wanting to read. I won a copy of “Hollywood Nobody” and I’m looking forward to reading it sometime in 2008. I also signed up for and won an advance copy of “Firefly Lane” by Kristin Hannah, as part of LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program. I haven’t gotten that one yet, but that’s ok – I have plenty of books to keep me busy in the mean time!

Lastly, I think I am going to participate in a reading challenge. That post to follow….

Happy Reading!