May - This Month in Reading

At the end of April, I wrote that I wanted to read 12 books, mainly focusing on my reading challenges. I actually read 9 "regular" books, 2 children's books, and a short story, of which 7 of the books and 1 of the children's books were for challenges, so I'm satisfied with that. I also read the first book for the Language Freak Summer Challenge and I reviewed a film on this blog for the first time as part of the Back to the Classics Challenge, which was a blog first. So it was a varied and fun month in reading!

Since we're going into summer now (as I've written before, in my mind summer starts on June 1 and ends on August 31), I'd like to take stock of my challenges here:

TBR Pile Challenge: 9/12 books + 1/2 alternates read. I will be reading a lot for my other challenges in June, but I'll try to finish this challenge in July.

Harlem Renaissance Reading Challenge: 0/1 book read. I had to hit the library for this challenge, so I put it off for the first part of 2014 so I could work on my other challenges. However, I'm ready with amazing library books to read for this challenge in June.

Color-Coded Reading Challenge: 3/9 books read. I had to hit the library/NetGalley for some of the books for this challenge, but they are standing by for June reading.

Books on France Reading Challenge: 3/3 books read. Hooray! Even though I have technically completed this challenge, I will be adding more books this summer thanks to the Language Freak Summer Challenge.

Back to the Classics Challenge: 4/6 Required Category books read + 4/4 Optional Category books read + 1/1 optional film review. Another challenge that is temporarily on hold for June but will be resumed in July. I'm glad I found this challenge this year, I've really enjoyed it.

Planet Earth Challenge: I think I have only added a single book this year so far, but since this is my personal, ongoing challenge I'm fine with that. I have another book that I can add this month, and I'll continue to work on this.

Mount TBR Reading Challenge: 18/60 books read. Wow, that's it for my TBR books?? Yikes! After June I need to get busy climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. I did calculate that each book read is 98.25 meters / 322.35 feet, so I've made it about 1768.50 meters / 5802.3 feet up the mountain so far. Not bad, but obviously I need to keep at the TBR pile after I take care of some other challenge reading this month that doesn't count for this challenge. I'm sure I'll summit by the end of 2014.

Language Freak Summer Challenge: Technically I have fulfilled this challenge, as I read 1 book, and I only committed to reading 1 book. However, that book was a very small children's book so I'm thinking of it more as a nice warmup to reading other, "regular" books. I have other foreign-language books on hand that I plan to read this summer so I will be reading at least 2 other books for this challenge.

Hmm, that's a lot of challenges I signed up for - but most of them involve my on-hand TBR mountain, so it's working out OK in terms of getting those books read.

For June, I will be reading from the library and NetGalley a bit for some challenge reading, but once that's taken care of it's straight back to the TBR shelves. My goal in June is to finish the Harlem Renaissance and Color-Coded Reading Challenges and read 2 books for the Language Freak Summer Challenge. I think this is super-doable and I'm looking forward to some reading from new-to-me library and NetGalley books. Anything that makes the dreaded summer months pass by more quickly is a good thing! :)