January In Review

I apologize for the mass reviews today, but I was trying to start February with a clean slate. As a result, I sort of forgot to put the fantasy reviews on Twisted Kingdom. I just got on a roll and it was not until afterwards that I noticed what I did. I'll link them from there and hopefully remember to post in the right place next month!

I am trying to be more organized with my books, so I am doing this month in review posts. I just want to see what my reading styles are like from month to month.

The most interesting thing is that I read 16 books this month, and 15 of them were by female authors. That was unintentional, but a very interesting number.

I finished the From the Stacks Challenge. I learned that I am no good with making lists, so I just read books that met the criteria. The five books are listed below, and if you click on them you can see reviews:
1. The Many Lives and Secret Sorrows of Josephine B. by Sandra Gulland
2. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
3. One Good Knight by Mercedes Lackey
4. The Silver Rose by Susan Carroll
5. Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe by Sandra Gulland

I read my first "Chunkster" for the year, which, actually, was shorter than a couple of the books I read this month, but I am counting it as my chunkster anyways.
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters. (470 pages)

I completed the first book for the O'Canada Challenge. Originally I was going to read The Time in Between by David Bergen, but I found it boring, so I just counted Sandra Gulland's The Last Great Dance on Earth. She lives part-time in Canada, and that trilogy has been waiting a while to be read, so it works for me.

For the fantasy challenge, I counted New Moon by Stephanie Meyer.
For the Back to History challenge it was The Silver Rose by Susan Carroll.

Lastly, I read the first TBR Challenge book, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank.

The only challenge I am crashing and burning at is the Classics Challenge. It is mostly related to reading Renaissance Plays for school and not wanting to read anything else of the "classic" genre afterwards. If February goes the same, I think I will save that challenge for later in the year.

Other than that, I read seven authors that were new to me this month (not counting book two and three of the Josephine B. Trilogy). Twelve of the books I read I bought prior to 2007. A lot of them came out in 2006, though, I would like to try and go even further back in the coming months. Get the piles cleaned out that much more.

The rest of the books I read this month were:
1. The Rest Falls Away by Colleen Gleason
2. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
3. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
4. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
5. Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
6. Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood by Ann Brashares
7. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen