Cross-Posted from Book-Ed
As the month comes to an end it’s time for a reading recap and update. Yesterday I finished reading Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried which is the fourth book I’ve finished in February. Previously I finished The Promise of a Pencil, Throne of Glass and Revelation Space. The Things They Carried had been on my TBR pile so it counts toward my goal on the TBR Pile Challenge and since it is about the Vietnam War it counts toward the 2015 Historical Fiction Challenge. Here is a current update on my Reading Challenges…..
| Reading Challenge | From TBR Pile | Buy/Library | Total | Goal | % of Goal |
| 2015 Nonfiction Reading Challenge | 0 | 1 | 1 | 11 | 9% |
| 2015 Cloak & Dagger Reading Challenge | 3 | 1 | 4 | 23 | 17% |
| 2015 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 20% |
| 2015 Science Fiction/Fantasy Challenge | 1 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 17% |
| Totals | 5 | 3 | 8 | 51 | 16% |
I am not doing too badly after the first two months of the year. I will try to write a review of The Things They Carried,, which by the way was really, really good Guess that’s why it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award!
Early this week I added to my new daily routine The Music and Reading Hour, of course, I did for it for the first to days of the week and then came babysitting Oliver and Zoe and work at Target and two Reading Hours were all that happened. Next week I hope to do better. Anyway, what I did was I selected a genre of music that goes well with reading, Monday it was jazz and the other day it was New Age and created a 60 minute playlist at Spotify. Then I gathered the four books that I am currently reading, set the timer for 15 minutes, and spent that time on each of the four books. It was a nice hour! The genre for the second Music and Reading Hour was New Age.Here are the artists and albums included and the album;’s position of the December 2014 Zone Music Reporter Chart.
| No | Album | Artist |
| 1 | Spirits | Erik Scott |
| 5 | Midnight Rhumba | Johannes Linstead |
| 8 | Whispers in the Winter Snow* | Dan Chadburn |
| 10 | Gymnosperm: Song of the Rose | Jordan de la Sierra |
| * initially listened to Nocturnes |
It was a nice way to read and also listen to some new music! I have even used the Jordan de la Sierra track for meditating and Midnight Rhumba has been in my music rotation and you’ll read more about that album soon!!