October Book Report

Oct. 2021, Littleton, NH

I finished 15 books in October 2021.

A quote from this month's reading:

"Procrastination of some kind is inevitable: indeed, at any given moment, you'll be procrastinating on almost everything, and by the end of your life, you'll have gotten around to doing virtually none of the things you theoretically could have done. So the point isn't to eradicate procrastination, but to choose more wisely what your going to procrastinate on, in order to focus on what matters most." --Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (p. 72)

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 5 were non-fiction and none were poetry (toward my goal of 10 non-fiction books and some poetry this year) 
• 5 were books I own but hadn't read before (#unreadshelfproject2021) 
• 1 counts toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• 1 counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge 
• 2 were from my Classics Club List and both counted toward the Back to the Classics Challenge this month

Here are the books I finished in October 2021: 

1. Creating Your Best Life by Caroline Adams Miller (3-stars)
2. Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather (5-stars)
3. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett  (4-stars)
4. Atomic Habits by James Clear (3-stars) -- This got on my TBR because of an episode of the podcast Beyond the To Do List
5. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (4-stars)
6. The Ultimate Guide to Frugal Living by Daisy Luther (3-stars)
   
7. The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz (4-stars)
8. Pippa Passes by Rumer Godden (3-stars)
9. We Are Our Mothers' Daughters by Cokie Roberts (3-stars)
10. Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman (4-stars)
11. The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis (4-stars)
12. A Wreath for Rivera by Ngaio Marsh (audiobook, 4-stars)
13. Last Bus to Woodstock by Colin Dexter (3-stars) -- This is the first of the Inspector Morse novels
14. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (5-stars)
15. Death Times Three by Rex Stout (3-stars)

I accepted the Classics Club Dare to read a book from your classics club list that scares you. I selected Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen. It wasn't too scary, but it wasn't for me so it is officially marked abandoned on my CC list. I gave away my copy so it has also been removed from my #unreadshelfproject2021. 

On a related note the #unreadshelfproject2021 challenge for October was to read a book that secretly scares you and for that I chose The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. It is 746 pages long and deals with both biology and philosophy. I didn't finish it yet, but am about 80% of the way through. Classics Club had a spin recently (to finish by Dec. 12) and Second Sex is what came up for me so I took that as a sign that I get an extension on the original end-of-October deadline and expect to finish this doorstop. It is interesting--though extremely dated.