Bye January, not sure I'll miss you

Oh my god, January felt like it would never end. I know there are only two days left, but I still kind of feel like February will never come. I guess on the plus side, plenty of time for reading? No, wait, that's a lie, it felt like forever because there was so much going on, which meant NOT PLENTY OF TIME FOR READING. Of course, though, I picked a super long book for challenge #18, so I am not done with that one yet. (Surprised? I didn't think so.)

I DID, however, finish The Red Pyramid, and thus challenge #9, AND I read the shortest book of poetry I've ever seen, which checks off challenge #12, reading a poetry collection. I probably could have written that in a different way so it didn't seem like I purposely chose the shortest book of poetry I've ever seen, but it's already written, I can't go back. 

For the record, that is not at all what I did. We did a virtual program with a local author at my former job before I left, and his latest book was added to the library's collection, so I put a hold on it and THEN discovered that it was the shortest book of poetry I'd ever seen. Worked out well for me, though, since I was behind on finishing two challenges for January and my hold came in just in time to read it before the month ended. Also worked out well for me because it was a good book! 

Anyhoo, February is up! I guess I'll keep chipping away at House of Earth and Blood as one of my challenges...should I choose three challenges just in case, though? Might be a good idea.

Due to kismet in library holds, my second challenge will be #24: Pick a challenge from any of the previous years' challenges to repeat. I chose Read an Audiobook of Poetry from 2020's challenges and am VERY excited to listen to The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman. 💜

I'm torn on what to do for a third challenge, so I guess I'll see how I feel if it's taking a long time to get through my lingering January challenge. In the meantime, what challenge would you pick for #24?

New Year, Same Me

Well, well, well, what have we here...time, while a construct, continues to march on, and we are now in 2022. Given the rousing successes that my 2021 reading challenges ended up being (and by "rousing successes" I mean I barely finished both, but I fuckin did it, didn't I?!), I decided to carry that momentum into what will hopefully be a better year than the last couple. Even if it isn't, I guess at least I'll come out of it having read some good books.

Anyhoo...reading challenges. I'm making the switch from Goodreads to StoryGraph (bold, I know), and instead of choosing a reading goal for the whole year like I have the past few years, I'm going to do the StoryGraph monthly challenges. January's challenge: Read at least one page a day. Already read a chapter this morning, so I'm crushing it so far!

I'll also be doing Book Riot's Read Harder challenge again, and this time instead of choosing a couple books at a time, I spent my new year's eve the way all cool kids spend it...choosing books for each challenge. I'll still be aiming to complete two challenges each month, but I'm going to jump around this year instead of going in order. Ready for January's challenges?

#9: Read the book that's been on your TBR the longest: 

CALLED OUT. For this challenge, I will be reading The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, which has been on my to be read list since July 31st, 2015. Which isn't entirely fair because this is the first book in a series, which means I'll actually be reading the SERIES that has been on my TBR the longest, which is exactly why it was still on my TBR...but here we go. It's on now, Book Riot.

#18: Read a "Best _____ Writing of the year" book for a topic and year of your choice:

Look...I should be more plugged in with book awards, but I'm not. Pretty much the only time I pay attention to awards is when I'm teaching them to students or when I see an award announcement on Twitter and am like "yay, good job!" Could I have googled around and found a cool best whatever list? Totally. Did I? No. I picked one of the reader's choice awards from the Goodreads 2020 awards...coincidentally, one that I got last year for my birthday and still haven't read! What book is this, you ask? House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J Maas.

Which books would you choose for each of these challenges?