October 2019 What Are You Reading?

Oh my gosh, it’s the end of October already! I’ve been really busy with book editing all month, so I haven’t had much time to read.

Nonfiction books:

• None

Fiction books:

• The Electric State by Simon Stalenhag

I also read five Maclean’s Magazines (Sept 2018, Oct 2018, November 2018,  Jan 2019, Feb 2019, and March 2019 – I’m not sure what happened to the Dec 2018 issue). I was over a year behind and was hoping to get caught up by the federal election that happened this month. While that didn’t happen, I’m now only six months behind! So that’s definitely progress. 🙂

I didn’t have a favourite per se, but I quite enjoyed the articles in their February 2019 Maclean’s issue (that was the “What’s Wrong with the Right/Left?” issue). And while I didn’t finish reading it, I also quite liked the articles on the election in their November 2019 issue, which I was able to flip through at work.

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

September 2019 What Are You Reading?

I haven’t had much time for reading this month (and that’s most likely going to continue for the rest of the year now). But here’s what I did read:

Nonfiction books:

• The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner: A Powerful Plan to Finish Rich in Real Estate by David Bach
• New Minimalism: Decluttering and Design for Sustainable, Intentional Living by Cary Telander Fortin and Kyle Louise Quilici

Fiction books:

• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

I’m not sure which book was my favourite between The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner and Into the Drowning Deep (especially since it’s hard to compare fiction to nonfiction in many cases). The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner was an interesting financial book (and I like reading financial books). Into the Drowning Deep was interesting (and I totally bought the idea of mermaids from the Mariana Trench with the exception of how they lived in the deeps but were totally fine out of water for a bit), but I found the start a bit slow and the end a bit too abrupt.

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

August 2019 What Are You Reading?

This month I beat my Goodreads Reading Challenge! For 2019 I once again decided to read 25 books. In other years I’ve pledged to read more, but I found that got stressful, and I often found myself reading random shorter books to beat the challenge. Pledging to read only 25 books has really taken the pressure off!

So here’s what I read this month:

Nonfiction books:

• Happy Go Money: Spend Smart, Save Right and Enjoy Life by Melissa Leong
• “Writing” chapter in The Radio Drama Handbook by Richard J. Hand and Mary Traynor
• How to Make a Plant Love You: Cultivate Green Space in Your Home and Heart by Summer Rayne Oakes
• The Automatic Millionaire: A Powerful One-Step Plan to Live and Finish Rich by David Bach (Canadian Edition) – I actually snuck this one onto the list, finishing it at 1:30am last night!

Fiction books:

• Unquiet Land by Sharon Shinn

I also read 5 copies of The Walleye that I had sitting around. It was good to finally go through them. 🙂

My favourite book was Sharon Shinn‘s Unquiet Land. I really enjoyed her Elemental Blessings series and am rather sad that this was the last one. 😦 I’ll have to give one of her other series a try!

Oh, and in case you were wondering, book 25 was Unquiet Land. 😉

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

July 2019 What Are You Reading?

I was super excited: I finally got a hold of Sharon Shinn’s Jeweled Fire!  I tried ordering it as a paperback like three years ago online.  I had the first two books in the series as paperbacks, and was hoping to get all of them in the same format.  But a bit after I ordered it, Amazon changed the publication date to really, really far in the future.  They finally cancelled my order back in June, saying that it wasn’t being published in paperback. 😦

So I ended up looking to the library, who was able to get a copy in for me through interlibrary loan.  Of course, the book came way faster than I expected, so I had to rush through the second book, Royal Airs, first! (I read the first book, Troubled Waters, years ago now; I wanted to the other books together, so I held off on reading Royal Airs to the point where I forgot a lot of what happened in the first book).  It took me a bit to get my bearings in Royal Airs, but Shinn did a great job of bringing me back up to speed with the series.

Fiction books:

• Royal Airs by Sharon Shinn
• Jeweled Fire by Sharon Shinn

Nonfiction books:

• none.

My favourite of the two was Jeweled Fire.  If you haven’t read Sharon Shinn’s Elemental Blessings series, I do recommend you give it a go!  I absolutely love the world, and I thought the first book was absolutely fantastic back when I read it. 🙂

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

June 2019 What Are You Reading?

I actually finished reading Urban Cycling just a few hours after posting the last What Are You Reading post!  So it had to wait until this month’s list.

Nonfiction books:

• Urban Cycling: How to Get to Work, Save Money, and Use Your Bike for City Living by Madi Carlson
• House Detox by Sara Burford

Fiction books:

• Injustice vs Masters of the Universe by Tim Seeley
• Delilah Dirk and the King’s Shilling by Tony Cliff
• Cosmic Ghost Rider: Baby Thanos Must Die by Donny Cates
• Starcraft: Evolution by Timothy Zahn
• Heaven’s Devils by William C. Dietz

Wow, I actually read a fair bit of fiction this month (by which I mean graphic novels…looks like three graphic novels to two regular novels)!  My favourite was probably Starcraft: Evolution by Timothy Zahn.  I love the world of Starcraft, and Zahn did a fantastic job continuing the story after the events of Starcraft II.  I really hope that he writes more with those characters – I loved the dynamics of his research team!

Honorable mentions go to Injustice vs Masters of the Universe and Cosmic Ghost Rider. Injustice vs Masters of the Universe was also fantastic.  You can’t go wrong with Masters of the Universe, and I loved the idea of He-Man and Superman brawling!  And of course Skeletor was there to mess things up for everyone.  Cosmic Ghost Rider was absolute craziness in a really fun way too.  I’d definitely recommend both books if you’re interested in graphic novels.

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

May 2019 What Are You Reading?

Nonfiction books:

• The Soil Will Save Us:How Scientists, Farmers, and Foodies are Healing the Soil to Save the Planet by Kristin Ohlson
• You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero

Fiction books:

• Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
• Delilah Dirk and the Turkish General by Tony Cliff

Like I mentioned earlier this month, it felt really good some fiction again.  Over the last few months I’ve read quite a lot of nonfiction (and I didn’t really connect to the last fiction book that I read this year, the anthology Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy).

Wow, I don’t even know how to judge which book was my favourite.  I enjoyed all of them.  The Soil Will Save Us was quite interesting.  You Are a Badass at Making Money was a great book to read and self reflect through.  I’ve been looking forward to Spinning Silver for months, and while I still think Uprooted was better, it still didn’t disappoint me.  And Delilah Dirk was a fun romp that I wasn’t planning on reading but am really glad that I did.

So what have you read over the last month?  What was your favourite book?

April 2019 What Are You Reading?

So not much reading happened for me this month.

Nonfiction books:

• The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy by Lester R. Brown

Fiction books:

• none

I was reading The Great Transition for Sustainably North (in April I was celebrating the one year anniversary of the blog, and it came up when I went looking for a positive book on global warming).  Unfortunately it was a bit hard to get through, so I wouldn’t really say it was my favourite, even though it was the only thing I finished reading (I flipped through a couple of other nonfiction books this month, but didn’t actually read through them). Oh, I also read a couple of magazines (I took a few Canadian MoneySaver magazines out from the library and finished those, too – I’d probably say their February 2019 issue on Women in Finance was the best thing I read this month).

So what have you read over the last month?  Did you have a favourite book (or magazine)?