Drama over at Goodreads and the Government shutdown threw me off my reading “grove”. Though I read countless “pages” of news articles and comments in various topic threads, none of it counted as “books”. I completed only three novels in the month of October.  My attempt to get back into Read-a-thons also totally failed.

I did not post any reviews here, but I’ve been working on the Booklikes blog I’ve set up in response to the drama on Goodread.  I’m sticking around at GR for the groups.  I’ve deleted my “To Read” list, but I’m maintaining the “Read” shelf for the reading challenges.  In January, I plan to unsubscribe from some of the groups, particularly those I’m least active in.  If they have a Booklikes sister group, I’ll check them out there.  The groups I have already decided to stay with as long as the exist: Serious Overload of Series (SOS), Romance Readers Reading Challenges (RRRC), and the Seasonal Reading Challenge (SRC).

Despite the drama, I did reach a milestone during the month of October.  As of 31 October, my total pages read is 20,381.  I’m not sure I’ll reach 25,000 by the end of the year.  One milestone I know I’ll reach is “number of books read”.  Since GR makes it difficult to count re-reads, my “total books read” is different than the GR Reading Challenge (also contributing to the difference — individual short stories from anthologies).  According to the GR counter, as of 8 November, I need 3 more books to reach my goal of 70 books.  However, by my personal count, I needed to read 1 book during November to reach that goal — and I’ve already done that.

Challenge-wise, the books I read in October did not put a big dent in any of them.  One book didn’t even count toward anything other than GR-based challenges.  And I’m still not caught up with the Philippa Carr challenge.  Fortunately, that’s a personal one, and I can adjust as needed…meaning it’s going to extend into 2015 if I don’t double-up soon.

• The Prophet (Stevens, Amanda) (5 Oct 13) – 4 stars – none
• Darkness Rises (Duvall, Dianne) (10 Oct 13) – 5 stars – Baker’s Dozen
• Eye of Heaven (Liu, Marjorie M.) {3/2011} (27 Oct 13) – 4 stars – Mt. TBR

Reviews added this month.

• NONE

Challenges Completed this month:
NONE

Incomplete (Ended in October)
NONE

2013 Challenges:
A Baker’s Dozen (personal) – 27/39
Cruising’ thru the Cozies – 9/12
E-book Challenge – 18/25
Mt TBR – 27/48
Quick Fix – 29/30
Sequel Reading – 11/12
Seriously Series – 9/12
Vintage Mystery – 4/8

2013-2014 Challenges:
Daughters of England (personal) – 5/19

~~ & ~~
♥ Georgette Heyer (Month): 0
Georgette Heyer (Year): 2
Grand Total since 2008: 7
~~ & ~~
♥ In Death (Month): 0
In Death (Year): 0
Grand Total since 2010: 3

Totals (Monthly/Yearly)

Total Read (Month): 3
Total Heard (Month): 0
Grand Total (Year): 69
~~ & ~~
Total Audio Hours(Month): 0
Total Audio Hours (Year): 0
~~ & ~~
Total Pages Read (Month): 1,136
Grand Total (Year): 20,381