By the end of May

I know May is already two thirds of the way over, but I'm making a monthly goal anyway. It's going to be nice and small, trying to ease my way back into reading and blogging. The blogging I've already started a little bit (I've started a tv blog: similar to this book blog, but about tv instead), but the reading has not come easy for me lately. I posted back in February about being back and motivated to start reading again and nothing really came of it. Now I'm fifty pages into a new book, so I'm cautiously optimistic that things are changing back to the way they used to be. Which is good. I enjoy reading and I enjoy blogging about the books I read and I enjoy the community of book blogging. So here's hoping this is a step in the right direction...

To be Read by the End of May

Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley

Like I said, a nice and easy goal for the next eleven days. Not that I haven't crapped out on something this easy before...

Books Read in 2011

So, I normally do this post on the 1st of the year, but I guess it's better late than never...

1. Scaramouche - Rafael Sabatini 5/5
2. The Holy Thief - Ellis Peters 4/5
3. Full Dark House - Christopher Fowler 4/5
4. Of Love and Other Demons - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 4/5
5. An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro 4/5
6. Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret - Judy Blume 3/5
7. The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde 4/5
8. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck 1/5
9. Lady Chatterley's Lover - DH Lawrence 1/5
10. One Amazing Thing - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni 4/5
11. Slow Man - JM Coetzee 1/5
12. The Improper Life of Bezelia Grove - Susan Gregg Gilmore 4/5
13. Brother Cadfael's Penance - Ellis Peters 5/5
14. Dr. Faustus - Christopher Marlowe 3/5
15. Maurice - EM Forster 5/5
16. Theft: a Love Story - Peter Carey 1/5
17. The White Queen - Philippa Gregory 4/5
18. I Will Repay - Baroness Emmuska Orczy 4/5
19. Bombay Time - Thrity Umrigar 4/5
20. Amsterdam - Ian McEwan 4/5
21. Dragonwyck - Anya Seton 3/5

Favorite Fiction: Brother Cadfael's Penance
Least Favorite Fictions: Lady Chatterley's Lover

Aaaaaaaand, I'm back!

So...

I seriously don't know what happened. Somehow, when I moved to Santa Barbara in September, something took over my person and I quit reading. Like for serious, I have not finished a book since September. I've barely attempted to START a book since September.

I blame part of it on the library system in Santa Barbara. I definitely don't have the money to BUY all the books I want to read, so instead I tend to be a library girl. But I don't like to BROWSE the library. I have neither the time nor the inclination, and have always enjoyed the ability to reserve the specific books I want to read at the moment. Except the Santa Barbara library charges a dollar per book. I've never belonged to a library that charged me for reserving books. I can maybe MAYBE see charging me a flat rate to use that service (though I don't really like that either, because isn't the point of the library to let me read books for free?), like a certain amount per month or year, but a dollar per book? Considering the amount of books I would put on hold, that's way too much money to spend. So instead of reading, I've been doing other things. Like working. And watching TV.

I do miss reading, though. And blogging. My TBR list is calling out to me, begging to be browsed through. And even if I'm still judging the Santa Barbara library, there are sad, unread books on my shelf that I could be starting on. I hope this post helps break the cycle I'm on and convinces me to pick up a book soon. We'll see.

Until then, my booky friends, know I miss you and I'm thinking of you while I'm off in TV land.