August has been the month of I’d Like To Be Reading But I Just Need To Do This Other Thing. Some of those things have been work; some have been amazing (come to the Nine Worlds Geekfest next summer! Make it your Worldcon warm-up!); and some have been distressing (although thankfully all’s well that end’s well).
Category Archive: Redux
I have a history of having a little reading slump through the summer, and this year appears to be no exception: partly because of a couple of longer-term reading projects in progress (The Republic of Thieves read-along and my weekly helping of Tremontaine) and partly because Life Wins All Ties (family visiting from overseas, not being very well, and a delightful trip to Paris).
June was a busy month at work for me, which has meant less reading outside of read-alongs. I also became a slush reader for a certain magazine I love, which now gets a portion of my reading time. In between, I’ve chosen to focus on bite-sized books, continuing my sashay through award nominees and dipping in and out of anthologies as time permitted.
It feels like spring has arrived here in the UK, and I haven’t been as busy at work as I should have been. In spite of this, I don’t feel like I’ve read an awful lot to fill the gaps – partly because I’m engaged in a lot of read-alongs, which stretch books out longer and often deter me from picking up something else in between. However, it’s all been good reading and I’m loving the discussions with my fellow readers.
April feels like it has zoomed by when I wasn’t looking, and I’m not quite sure where it went. My reading has been dominated by bite-size books and read-alongs, with distractions and a number of DNFs that have stopped me sinking my teeth into much else.
I have really enjoyed March, not least because of Rinn’s excellent March into Middle-earth, which let me dive into books I’ve loved since childhood. I’ve balanced those doorstops with read-alongs and bite-size books for a varied diet. And as March involved an intercontinental trip and Easter, I’ve got through a lot of books…
A slightly early recap for February, because this evening will be full of Swordspoint (hurray!). It’s been a busy month of travelling, visitors and read-alongs, so my reading has been somewhat fractured – if very rewarding.
January has felt very episodic as I started the year travelling around Iceland (I’ll write about it at some point, but instagram has day by day scenery porn picspam), had to take unexpected trips north and work has been fragmentary. Sadly, this hasn’t resulted in READING ALL THE BOOKS, because exploring Iceland was distracting and Lagoon took longer than expected (a sure sign I’m not enjoying something).
2015 has been an excellent reading year for quantity (over 70 books) and quality. I’m back to working more or less full time in 2016, so I think I’m going to have to be a bit less ambitious and a bit more selective in what I focus on…
…which is a problem, because I want to (re)read all the things.
I have paid my money at the cinema to see the following this year: The Second Best Exotic […]
The Girl With All The Gifts – M R Carey Mockingjay – Suzanne Collins John Saturnall's Feast – […]
I've left it a bit later than usual to do my annual look back through my media and literary consumption, and I'm going to keep it shorter this year too (at least for books) as I've done a much better job of noting down my thoughts as I've gone along.
Movies
Another year, another crop of books read and films watched. It’s been a bumper year in books – 60 completed, and 2 more weighty tomes mostly-completed before being abandoned in disgust (well, that makes the Worst Of The Year easy). Movies have been pretty typical (12, plus the cinema presentation of the NT Frankenstein), and very typically front-loaded. Autumns are not about cinema, apparently. Again, being frugal in going means we don’t see things we don’t want to, so a high satisfaction index for the year.
I have paid my money at the cinema to see the following this year: 1) Skyfall 2) Les […]
I used to try to remind myself (and inflict on you) what I particularly loved and loathed each year amongst the various books and films I consumed. Since joining the circus, I've failed to do this thanks to big work-related requirements in the first week of the year. However, it seems to be a week into 2012 and I'm procrastinating about going for a run, so this seems like a good time to revive that old meme.
We managed to get to the movies a lot more often this year, with several binges between long gaps of workiness. The habit of only going to things we really want to see on a big screen mean the hit rate of enjoyment was high (needless to say, no Transformers 3 for us). Honourable mentions go to Source Code, Hanna, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Ides of March, and Contagion, all of which were thoroughly polished and much enjoyed.
onemore.org 