{"id":4791,"date":"2015-07-04T22:17:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T02:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/?p=4791"},"modified":"2015-07-04T22:17:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-05T02:17:21","slug":"mid-year-check-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/?p=4791","title":{"rendered":"Mid-Year Check-In"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I honestly can&#8217;t remember the last time I did a mid-year check-in to report on the books I&#8217;ve read and it feels like this would be as good a time as any to start these again. After all, it&#8217;s mid-year, right?<\/p>\n<p>I still love to keep track of my books in LibraryThing but I&#8217;ve also joined Goodreads. This year I signed up for a 52-book reading challenge. According to the Goodreads statistics I&#8217;ve achieved 31% of my goal and I&#8217;m 10 books behind where I should be. My reading habits have changed. I used to read almost every day and now I can only grab 10 or 15 minutes a few times a week during lunch. It&#8217;s a luxury when I can read for a few hours in the evening or on the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Below is the list of books read so far in 2015 in no particular order:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><em>Graceling<\/em> by Kristin Cashore<\/li>\n<li><em>Wisconsin Vamp<\/em> by Scott Burtness<\/li>\n<li><em>Lock In<\/em> by John Scalzi<\/li>\n<li><em>The Great Zoo of China<\/em> by Matthew Reilly<\/li>\n<li><em>Station Eleven: A Novel<\/em> by Emily St. John Mandel<\/li>\n<li><em>How to be a Woman<\/em> by Caitlin Moran<\/li>\n<li><em>Hellfire &amp; Damnation III<\/em> by Connie Corcoran Wilson<\/li>\n<li><em>Assertiveness for Earth Angels: How to be Loving Instead of &#8220;Too Nice&#8221;<\/em> by Doreen Virtue<\/li>\n<li><em>Gwendolen: A Novel<\/em> by Diana Souhami<\/li>\n<li><em>White Heat 25<\/em> by Marco Pierre White<\/li>\n<li><em>The Dream Lover<\/em> by Elizabeth Berg<\/li>\n<li><em>Balm: A Novel<\/em> by Dolen Perkins-Valdez<\/li>\n<li><em>The Darkest Part of the Forest<\/em> by Holly Black<\/li>\n<li><em>The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help<\/em> by Amanda Palmer<\/li>\n<li><em>Deep Fried and Pickled<\/em> by Paisley Ray<\/li>\n<li><em>The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing<\/em> by Marie Kondo<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Are you participating in any reading challenges or looking to beat the number of books you read last year? I read 62 books in 2011 and haven&#8217;t been able to get close since then. The 52 is a stretch for me but I&#8217;m certain I can do it. I have a longish commute to work and started listening to audio books to make the\u00c2\u00a0trip seem not so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I honestly can&#8217;t remember the last time I did a mid-year check-in to report on the books I&#8217;ve read and it feels like this would be as good a time as any to start these again. After all, it&#8217;s mid-year, right? I still love to keep track of my books in LibraryThing but I&#8217;ve also&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/?p=4791\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Mid-Year Check-In<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[768,771,777,769,765,782,774,778,772,766,762,755,773,764,779,770,758,754,759,776,784,761,783,757,763,781,780,767,760,785,775,756],"class_list":["post-4791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-status-report","tag-amanda-palmer","tag-assertiveness-for-earth-angels","tag-balm-a-novel","tag-caitlin-moran","tag-connie-corcoran-wilson","tag-deep-fried-and-pickled","tag-diana-souhami","tag-dolen-perkins-valdez","tag-doreen-virtue","tag-elizabeth-berg","tag-emily-st-john-mandel","tag-graceling","tag-gwendolen-a-novel","tag-hellfire-damnation-iii","tag-holly-black","tag-how-to-be-a-woman","tag-john-scalzi","tag-kristin-cashore","tag-lock-in","tag-marco-pierre-white","tag-marie-kondo","tag-matthew-reilly","tag-paisley-ray","tag-scott-burtness","tag-station-eleven","tag-the-art-of-asking","tag-the-darkest-part-of-the-forest","tag-the-dream-lover","tag-the-great-zoo-of-china","tag-the-life-changing-magic-of-tidying-up","tag-white-heat-25","tag-wisconsin-vamp","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4791"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4793,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4791\/revisions\/4793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.amberstults.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}