Book Club

Summer Reading: Library Edition

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This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but you do not pay any more.

Today I am sharing the books I have checked out from the library and hope to dig through for my summer reading. I am also taking part in Sue Jackson’s Big Book Summer Reading Challenge. which is basically reading a book that is 400 pages or more during the summer months. I have a few contenders for this challenge the first one being “A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness This book was recommended to me by one of my local librarians and I am excited to finally dig in. It’s a pretty hefty book-over 500 pages and I have run out of renewals so I plan on starting off with this book on June 20th!

Next up is “The Prince of the Skies” by Antonio Iturbe which is also a candidate for Big Book Summer. I love the little prince and this book caught my eye when I was browsing the local libraries one evening. It’s the story of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, author of “The Little Prince” and his work as a pilot. It sounds like a really fascinating read.

The same night I also found “The Miniaturist” by Jessie Burton As you know I am a beginning miniaturist so this book really called to me and sounds like a unique story.

During the same wander I found “Royal” by Danielle Steel novel which is not a normal pick for me but this one sounded like an interesting read. It takes place during WWII with a princess in hiding and I had to pick it up.

I always have a large stack of books both in my own collection and checked out from the library that I never have a problem DNFing a book if it doesn’t grip me in the first few pages. I love to read books I enjoy and, as you can see, books of varying genres so there is always something new to pique my interest.

Are you taking part in Big Book Summer or do you have any reading plans for the summer? I would love to hear what you are reading. I will be back next with my Summer TBR Kindle edition. Wishing you a lovely week!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Summer Reading: Bookshelf Edition

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I love summer reading.

As a kid I would always sign up for the summer reading program at our local library. They would give you a paper booklet to right down the books you read. They had posters hung up for each of the local schools and you received stars next to your name.

Every Friday my mother would bring me to the library and I would walk out with a stack of books. Home on my own all summer while Mom worked I would read constantly-well into the night. I usually finished a book a day, give or take, and it was probably my favorite thing about summer.

Last year my local library held an adults version of the summer reading program with reading challenges and raffle prizes-I won an owl mug 🙂

This year, as a new Book Tuber I decided to share my summer reading pile of possibilities. This week is my book shelf edition. I had fun wandering my book shelf to find books I hadn’t read yet to add. I picked enough books that should I finish them all I will catch up on my yearly reading goal but then I glanced over to the library book shelf.

It’s full.

So I thought it would be fun to share a bookshelf edition-books I personally own. A library edition-books I have currently checked out and a Kindle edition since I have quite a few books on there waiting to be read.

I wish I could spend hours every day doing nothing but reading like I did as a child but the adult world is nothing if not relentless. While I may not be able to read a book a day, I think I can do 2 a week which will catch me up and give me a lovely sense of accomplishment.

I am also thinking I giving myself a little summer reading reward. Maybe if I read my goal of 25 books this summer I will have a fun prize at the end. What do you think?

If I counted correctly we have 13 weeks of summer so I am starting my summer reading on June 20th the official first day of summer and reading up to September 21st the last day of summer. As I said I am planning to read 2 books a week but my overall goal is 25 books just because it’s a nice round number.

I will let you know what I decide as my prize before the summer reading challenge starts but I would love for you to join me! Comment below and let me know your summer reading plans and if you are reading or have read any of the books on my list. For now here are my summer reading goals.

I have provided links to all the books if you click on the image. These are affiliate links and you make a purchase using these links you do not pay anymore but I may earn a small commission.

“In a land without magic, where the king rules with an iron hand, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She comes not to kill the king, but to win her freedom. If she defeats twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition, she is released from prison to serve as the king’s champion. Her name is Celaena Sardothien.

The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. But something evil dwells in the castle of glass—and it’s there to kill. When her competitors start dying one by one, Celaena’s fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the evil before it destroys her world.”

 

Paris, 1885: Aubry Tourvel, a spoiled and stubborn nine-year-old girl, comes across a wooden puzzle ball on her walk home from school. She tosses it over the fence, only to find it in her backpack that evening. Days later, at the family dinner table, she starts to bleed to death.

When medical treatment only makes her worse, she flees to the outskirts of the city, where she realizes that it is this very act of movement that keeps her alive. So begins her lifelong journey on the run from her condition, which won’t allow her to stay anywhere for longer than a few days nor return to a place where she’s already been.

 

(Book #2 in the Victorian Book Club Mystery Series)

“Bath, England, 1891. Mr. James Harding was a lot of things–businessman, well-to-do, probable scoundrel–but a drinker he most assuredly was not. So when Harding is believed to have drunkenly fallen to his death into the icy River Avon, Lord William Wethington is immediately suspicious. Finding Lord William’s name on a letter in the victim’s pocket, the local constabulary summons William to identify the victim. Police detectives learn that William had been one of Harding’s business clients–and undoubtedly not the only client the dead man had cheated.

William entreats Lady Amy Lovell, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath, to help him deduce what really happened to the late Mr. Harding. Lady Amy, a celebrated mystery author herself, once called on William to help her solve a real-life mystery, and now she fully intends to return the favor. But it won’t be easy.

Practically every one of Harding’s many clients had ample reason to want to do him in. And there’s precious little time to narrow down the list: William and Amy soon become prime suspects themselves when the police discover them ruffling through files in Harding’s house. Lady Amy will have to be as clever as her characters if she’s to save William from the gallows…and herself from Harding’s real killer.”

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9781643858029(Book #3 in the Victorian Book Club Mystery Series)

“Bath, England, 1892. Celebrated mystery author Lady Amy Lovell is set to tie the knot with Lord William Wethington, a fellow member of the Mystery Book Club of Bath. Amy’s great-aunt, Lady Priscilla Granville, has offered to host their wedding at her stately Derby Manor House. But on the eve of the ceremony, the festive air in the drawing room is marred by Mrs. Alice Finch’s argument with her husband, Albert, in another room. The next morning at the wedding breakfast, Alice falls face-first into her breakfast—dead.

When Amy and William’s favorite detectives are summoned to the house, they see two champagne glasses in front of Mrs. Finch and none in front of her husband. Did Albert give his wife a poisoned drink? Always looking for the easiest solution, the detectives charge Albert with the murder.

But Lady Amy is not convinced that Albert is guilty. There are too many things that don’t add up. In the hopes of being able to leave Bath and begin their honeymoon, Amy and William once again take things into their own hands. Suspects begin to pop up, but nothing takes them more by surprise than the discovery of a second body.”

“All her life, Jani has dreamed of Elsewhere. Just barely scraping by with her job at a tannery, she’s resigned to a dreary life in the port town of Durc, caring for her younger sister Zosa. That is, until the Hotel Magnifique comes to town.

The hotel is legendary not only for its whimsical enchantments, but also for its ability to travel—appearing in a different destination every morning. While Jani and Zosa can’t afford the exorbitant costs of a guest’s stay, they can interview to join the staff, and are soon whisked away on the greatest adventure of their lives. But once inside, Jani quickly discovers their contracts are unbreakable and that beneath the marvelous glamour, the hotel is hiding dangerous secrets.”

“Atticus O’Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona, running an occult bookshop and shape-shifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbors and customers think that this handsome, tattooed Irish dude is about twenty-one years old—when in actuality, he’s twenty-one centuries old. Not to mention: He draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit, and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants that sword, and he’s hounded Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down, and Atticus will need all his power—plus the help of a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of attorneys, a bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good old-fashioned luck of the Irish—to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.”

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9780593483589“Thirteen-year-old Annabella Ballinkay has never been normal, even by her psychic family’s standards. Every generation uses their abilities to help run the Ravenfall Inn, a sprawling, magical B&B at the crossroads of the human world and the Otherworld. But it’s hard to contribute when your only power is foreseeing death.

So when fourteen-year-old Colin Pierce arrives at Ravenfall searching for his missing older brother and the supernatural creature who killed their parents, Anna jumps at the chance to help. But the mysteries tied to Colin go much deeper than either of them expects. . . .

As the two team up to find answers, they unearth Colin’s family’s secret past and discover that Colin has powers beyond his imagination. And now the supernatural creature, one with eerie origins in Celtic mythology, is coming after him. If Anna and Colin can’t stop the creature by Halloween night, the veil to the Otherworld could be ripped open–which would spell destruction for their world as they know it.”

“When Enola Holmes, much younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes, discovers her mother has disappeared—and on her 14th birthday, to make matters worse—she knows she alone can find her. Disguising herself as a grieving widow, Enola sets out to the heart of London to uncover her mother’s whereabouts—but not even the last name Holmes can prepare her for what awaits.

Suddenly involved in the kidnapping of the young Marquess of Basilwether, Enola must escape murderous villains, free the spoiled Marquess, and perhaps hardest of all, elude her shrewd older brother—all while collecting clues to her mother’s disappearance!

https://bookshop.org/a/80889/9781250838810“When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change.

Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

Told in turn by a ghost librarian named Al, an aging (but beautiful) cat named Mortimer, and Evan himself, The Lost Library is a timeless story from award-winning authors Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass. It’s about owning your truth, choosing the life you want, and the power of a good book (and, of course, the librarian who gave it to you).”

“Precious Ramotswe has only just set up shop as Botswana’s No.1 (and only) lady detective when she is hired to track down a missing husband, uncover a con man, and follow a wayward daughter. However, the case that tugs at her heart, and lands her in danger, is a missing eleven-year-old boy, who may have been snatched by witch doctors.”

 

 

 

 

So that is my Summer Reading Pile of Possibilities: Bookshelf Edition. You can watch the video below but I do hope you have found a book or two to add to your own TBR this summer.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

February Reads: Once Upon a Faebruary Challenge

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February is wrapping up and I am looking forward to March. I have seeds started already and I cannot wait to get out in the garden. For now I’ll content myself with all the books I want to read.

If you saw my February TBR video you know that I was super excited to take part in the Faebruary Challenge and it did not disappoint! I just loved the books I chose and only DNF’d one from my list. The best part was finding a new to me genre that I absolutely love.

For the challenge I read:

Scarlett and the Dark Woods by Mary Mecham: Red on the Cover, On a Quest, Girl with Long Hair and Animal Integral to the Plot.

To Defy a Dream by Mary Mecham:  Short Book and A Notorious Villian

To Break a Silence by Lydia Mae: Book Incorporates Music/Singing

Becoming Hook by Mary Mecham:  Last to Read Book, Male Main Character, Magical Creature

Bluebeard and the Outlaw by Tara Grayce:  Lesser Known Retelling.

I didn’t finish “Court of Swans” by Melanie Dickerson. I was listening to it on audiobook and I felt the book was going to be darker than I anticipated so I stopped it. If you have read it and have any information on it I would love to know.

In short-I loved them all! I also found that I enjoy books around 200 pages for everyday reading. There is just something so satisfying to complete a book every other day.

Did you take part in the challenge? I would love to hear what you read.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Book Club and the Faebruary Challenge

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I am so excited for this month’s Pile of Possibilities!

I found about this Book Tube Challenge from Chantel Reads and I watched all the host videos and compiled my list accordingly. The challenge is focused on Fairy Tale Re-tellings and after reading Heartless by Marissa Meyer in January I feel like I need more for this genre. I absolutely LOVED “Heartless” which is a story all about the Queen of Hearts before she became the Queen of Hearts. Someone left it in our Little Free Library and I am so happy I picked it up.

For the Faebruary Challenge (and you can get all the details here) I have picked out a few reads that will all check multiple boxes on the challenge. Here is what I have chosen:

 “A pirate, a pixie, and a plot to foil Peter Pan…
James Hook never meant to become a pirate, and never dreamed that he would turn against best friend, Peter Pan. Every adventure and eternal youth awaited them… until a pixie exposes a shocking revelation. Tinkerbell’s information forces James into acknowledging that, far from being the benevolent hero he painted himself to be, Peter Pan was kidnapping innocent children.
After accepting the traumatic loss of his hand and of the family he can barely remember, James deserts Pan. In the fight to rescue the Lost Boys, Hook will risk everything, even if that means becoming the most notorious villain in Neverland… or losing the fiery pixie who is stealing his heart.
Can the original Lost Boy vanquish Neverland’s greatest threat?”

 

 

“A siren’s song holds power over skies and men.

Stella has never seen the sky until the day she speaks her oaths and is brought above the surface. After her first encounter with a land-walker’s ship forces her to sing up a storm that pulls a prince into the water, she chooses to rescue him.
When Stella’s blossoming affection for the prince is threatened by another, she makes a choice to trade her fins for legs. The phantom glass in her throat if she dares to use her voice and in her feet when she walks.
Captain Dillon Carvy is determined to have his revenge after a siren’s song costs him his both his ship and his favored position as the Prince’s captain. While searching for signs of the siren, Dillon discovers a struggling maiden instead. Pulling a silent girl from the sea, he sees the perfect opportunity to gain his position back.
A case of mistaken identity puts Stella right where she wants to be in the Prince’s palace. But unless she breaks her silence, continuing her charade may cost her the happiness she hopes for, and quite possibly her life.

“She is one of the protected elect. He is a shunned shapeshifter. Can Scarlett rescue her grandmother before her heart is stolen?
When her grandmother is cast out as unworthy after facing Hamelin’s annual Shunning, Scarlett knows she must brave the dangers of Darkwood Forest if she will have any chance of saving her grandmother. Her perilous adventure becomes a race against time. She needs to find Gran before the previously shunned get to her first.
Scarlett’s efforts came too late. As her magic dwindles the farther into the forest she ventures, she becomes hopelessly lost, and is forced to accept help from Greyson, the shapeshifting wolf who is stalking her every footstep—and who Scarlett suspects of knowing Gran’s location.
If she manages to save her grandmother, Scarlett is faced with another impossible join Gran and live her life as an outcast or return to the rest of the elect, safe but alone. As she struggles to find the right path forward, Scarlett realizes that more than her grandmother’s future is at stake. Her heart is too.
Can Scarlett resist her inexplicable, rising attraction to the shunned wolf she despises long enough to protect the woman who raised her?”

“What if Sleeping Beauty pricked her finger on purpose?

Princess Aurelia’s kingdom is plagued by the Eternal Slumber, a disease progressively ensnaring the minds of her subjects. After Aurelia wishes for the means to revive her brother, her sinister fairy godmother presents an ominous Aurelia must stab herself with a poisoned spindle.
Accepting this fate plunges Aurelia into a nightmare where victims of the Eternal Slumber are being held hostage by a dark djinni. However, Aurelia’s brother isn’t the only familiar face she finds herself reunited with; Everett, the love of her life who mysteriously disappeared years ago, is there as well. As the djinni’s power grows, Aurelia must decide who to save before the djinni escapes and enters the waking world.
Failing on her quest could trap her in the dream world forever. Will she forgo her chance at a happily ever after and protect her brother, or will she choose to rescue herself and the man she loves?
No matter who she chooses, someone will be doomed to remain in the nightmare that never ends.
To Defy a Dream is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. It is one of twelve novellas in The Shattered Tales, a collection of twelve fractured retellings of your favorite fairy tales. They can be enjoyed in any order, so fall in love with the swoony sweet romance, magical adventures, and tale-shattering twists one happily-ever-after at a time!”

“Robin of the Wood spends her days robbing from the rich to feed the poor. But she and her merry band of brothers never seem to get anywhere. The more she steals, the more the evil Lord Guy “Bluebeard” taxes the villagers.
When Robin discovers that Lord Guy plans to marry yet again, she conceives a plan for a final, big score. As Guy’s wife, she will have access to his wealth. The lord is notorious for killing his wives shortly after he marries them, but Robin has no plans to be dead wife number four.
The only problem is that Lord Guy is devastatingly handsome, brooding, and nothing at all what she expected. If she isn’t careful, she might just find that he steals her heart before she can rob his riches.”

 

 

 

“England, 1381: Delia’s idyllic life as daughter of an earl is shattered when her father dies and his wife accuses Delia’s seven brothers of treason and murder. The youngest is only ten years old, but this doesn’t stop the guards from hauling them off to the Tower of London. There they await a grim fate, as child-king Richard II is executing anyone who poses a threat to his throne. Delia is their only hope for pardon and freedom.
Sir Geoffrey did not expect his first assignment as captain of the guard to be the arrest of boys so young. He dutifully imprisons the brothers, but he can’t ignore the sense, rooted in personal experience, that injustice and treachery are at work.
Determined to rescue her brothers, Delia secures a position as a seamstress for the queen. Her quest is all but impossible as the executions continue. Sir Geoffrey offers to be her ally, but should she trust him in a court where everyone has an agenda?”

 

So that is my list of potential reads for February. If you end up taking part in this challenge please let me know I would love to hear!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

 

Book Haul: First Used Book Purchase of 2024

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Welcome to Book Club. I hope your reading year is off to a great start. I have already fallen in love with a book that has completely ruined all other books for me. I’ll be sharing more about it in my January reads but I am excited to find some more books by this author.

I also placed a Thrift Books purchase (affiliate link-if you use this link you can earn a free book and so can I 🙂 The books pretty much all came from a videos I watched on OceanaGottaReademAll’s channel but I thought it might be fun to share with you as well. So here we go!

First up is Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard which is book 1 in a series and you know how much I love a series! Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

“This is a world divided by blood—red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance—Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart.”

It sounds like a really interesting read. I’m not quite sure when I will get to it. I wonder if you have a TBR shelf? I’m thinking about organizing my books a bit more but for now this one will stay stacked with it’s other newly acquired siblings.

“The Bridge of Belle Island” by Julie Klassen is the next purchase I made. I am not really a romance reader but I do love historical fiction so I thought I would give this one a try. Here’s the Goodreads synopsis:

“After a humiliating mistake, lawyer Benjamin Booker resolves to never again trust a beautiful woman. When an old friend is killed, the senior partner isn’t satisfied with Bow Street’s efforts and asks Benjamin to investigate. Eager to leave London for a while, Benjamin agrees. Evidence takes him to a remote island on the Thames, a world unto itself, shrouded in mist and mystery. Soon he finds himself falling for the main suspect—a woman who claims not to have left the island in ten years. But should he trust her?

On Belle Island, Isabelle feels safe and leads a productive life, but fear keeps her trapped there. When Mr. Booker arrives with news of her trustee’s murder in London, Isabelle is stunned. She has not left the island, yet she has a recurring dream about the man’s death. Or is it a memory? She had been furious with him, but she never intended…this.

When a second person dies, and evidence shockingly points to her, Isabelle doesn’t know who to trust: the attractive lawyer or the admirer and friends who assemble on the island, each with grudges against the victim. Can she even trust her own mind? While they search for the truth, secrets come to light and danger comes calling.”

Then I picked up “Husband Auditions” by Angela Ruth Strong. Again, not really a romance reader but this book seemed to have enough of a story line beyond the inevitable romance angle that I feel like it might be an interesting read. Here’s the synopsis:

“In a world full of happily-ever-after love, Meri Newberg feels like the last young woman on the planet to be single, at least in her Christian friend group. So when she’s handed a strange present at the latest wedding–a 1950s magazine article of “ways to get a husband”–she decides there’s nothing to lose by trying out its advice. After all, she can’t get any more single, can she?

Her brother’s roommate sees the whole thing as a great opportunity. Not to fall in love–Kai Kamaka has no interest in the effort a serious relationship takes. No, this is a career jump start. He talks Meri into letting him film every silly husband-catching attempt for a new online show. If it goes viral, his career as a cameraman will be made.

When Meri Me debuts, it’s an instant hit. People love watching her lasso men on street corners, drop handkerchiefs for unsuspecting potential beaus, and otherwise embarrass herself in pursuit of true love. But the longer this game goes on, the less sure Kai is that he wants Meri to snag anyone but him. The only problem is that he may not be the kind of husband material she’s looking for . . .

With droll comic timing, unbeatable chemistry, and a zany but relatable cast of characters, Angela Ruth Strong has created a heartfelt look at the reality of modern Christian dating that readers will both resonate with and fall for.”

I also picked up “The Soulmate” by Sally Hepworth.

“There’s a cottage on a cliff. Gabe and Pippa’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Night after night Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge. Until he doesn’t.

When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral…Did the victim jump? Was she pushed?

And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate…lie? As the perfect facade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel.”

And lastly I picked up “Drawing & Painting Expressive Little Faces” by Amarilys Henderson. I am really focusing on my art this year and drawing faces is part of that. I have had this book on my wish list for a while and when I saw it on Thrift Books I had to pick it up.

“In Drawing and Painting Expressive Little Faces, artist and popular Skillshare instructor Amarilys Henderson shares her practical and creative techniques for drawing and painting faces with style and personality.

Gathering supplies. Consider the creative possibilities of watercolor, ink, and markers, and create a mobile sketch pack so you can capture faces and expressions on the go.

Simplifying the face and identifying proportions. Use photos to simplify the face’s key elements, learn about facial proportions and factors and variables for placing facial features, and apply these concepts through a simple warm up using a single color to paint a face in multiple values.

Facial shapes and features. Learn about the five basic facial shapes and how to modify the chin line, ears, and hairline, and how to draw and paint mouths, eyes, and noses and make alterations to show pose and personality.

Mixing color. The pigments and brushes you’ll need to achieve a wide range of realistic skin tones, shadows, and expressions.

Bringing faces to life. Navigate the process from start to finish, learn to adjust line quality to suggest different genders and ethnicities, and change up artistic styling to put a unique spin on your creations.

Project ideas. Get inspired by some cool ways to apply your new skills: party invitations, repeat patterns, comic books, and more!

Don’t be intimidated by the challenge of drawing and painting faces. Improve your face game with Drawing and Painting Expressive Little Faces!
So that is my recent book purchases. I will of course update you all as I read them and how I like them. You can follow me on Goodreads if you are on there. Wishing you a bookish day!

Until next time…
-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

 

 

My 2024 Reading Journal

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I am really excited to share with you my new reading journal.

The idea of a reading journal never really occurred to me. I have kept a list of all the books I read each year for a while but I never did more than that. I made a reading journal last year sometime but never did anything beyond that so when I went down the rabbit hole of seeing all these beautiful reading journals people were creating I felt completely overwhelmed.

Thankfully I came to my senses and decided to make a journal that fit with who I am and would capture things that were fun to me in an easy, no pressure way.

I ordered this journal off of Amazon originally to be a writing journal and quickly realized it wouldn’t work for that purpose and how I write. Instead I decided to cover up what I had already written with some 0ld papers in my stash and to add some washing and create a few pages of things I wanted to track in 2024

First up is my reading goal of 70 books read this year. I increased my goal based on what I actually read in 2023 and I feel pretty confident that I will be able to read that many. I’m thinking the first page might be used for books covers of what I read.

Then I added a page to just write out the books that I read. I would love to print out the covers but at least if I write them down I have them listed and I can always go back and print off the covers at another time.

I also added a “books acquired” page to my journal. This page is going to be books I buy or pick up from the Little Free Library. It will be fun to see how many new books join my collection in 2024 and where they come from.

Then I added a page for all the books I borrow from the library in 2024. I know this can also be tracked digitally but I like written records and I am curious to see how many books I borrow this year.

Next up is a list of all the books from the Agatha Christie Mystery Challenge from the 52 Book Club. Along with their 2024 Reading Challenge. I thought this would be a good way to help choose what book to read next if I’m not sure or another challenge I might like to take part in. It’s a bit redundant but I also included a list of all the Miss Marple books. I have never read any of those stories so it seemed like a fun list to keep.

And that is all I added. I like the idea of having lots of open space for things to come and I’m considering a monthly round up of what I read that month but I want to keep it easy and fun so I can keep up with it.

How about you have you ever kept a reading journal? Are you doing one this year? I would love to hear about it!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante