52 books project - first quarter

I am pleased and surprised at how well my "52 books" project has gone so far. My goal is to buy only 52 new books - meaning books I haven't read yet - over the course of the year.

As of April 1st, I've bought 10 new books. I've read three of them:

Deborah Crombie's A Killing of Innocents

Paula Tarnapol Whitacre's A Civil Life in an Uncivil Time

Seanan McGuire's Backpacking Through Bedlam

One book I decided wasn't for me, Talia Hibbert's Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute. I enjoy her adult romances but I don't read a lot of young adult, or New Adult for that matter. I was happy to donate it to the library sale.

Of the 10 books that fall under the project, listed over on the right, most have been anticipated pre-orders. Only one recently, The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older, was an impulse buy. I heard it reviewed on a podcast and decided not to wait for a library copy.

I haven't spent much time in bookstores lately, which feels OK, not like a deprivation. I am visiting the library on my usual weekly visits and bringing home stacks of books that I don't usually get around to reading. That's where I do my browsing these days.

Otherwise, I've bought four books that I read originally as e-books and wanted to have on my shelves, from Victoria Goddard's Greenwing and Dart fantasy series.

What I haven't managed to do is cross too many books off the TBR list. I've been re-reading a lot lately, including Anthony Trollope for the first time in years. It's been a complicated time at work, and I had to travel to Oregon for a family memorial service. It was my first trip since COVID, which added to my usual travel anxiety. There were a couple of posts on the Tor website in the past months that mirrored my reading and re-reading. First, Malka Older wrote about "Comfort Reading" (this was before I was introduced to her via podcast). Like her, I have been looking for kindness in books lately. Second, Molly Templeton wrote about "Reading in a Fallow Month." Her post really spoke to me.

I have a couple of books to pre-order for May, including a new fantasy novel from Martha Wells that I am very excited about, Witch King. I'm also looking forward to the long Easter weekend, with some extra time for reading. Meanwhile, I'll keep working on the TBR stacks, and carting books home from the library.