What I Read This Month - June & July 2023

My favorite form of self care as a teacher and as a mom is reading. I love reading for fun but I also love reading to learn new things. Apparently I forgot to share my June & July book lists to here they are, as well as my five-star reads from each month, in no particular order:

Top June Books:

1. How Do I Un-Remember This?
2. Stories From The Tenants Downstairs
3. Fourth Wing

Top July Books:

1. Yellowface
2. The Better Half
3. Banyon Moon

In July, I also surpassed my Goodreads 2023 Reading Challenge goal of 52 books, which I am pretty proud of. I've done this challenge every year since 2015 and I hope to match (or surpass) last year's total of 100 books, but we will see. 

As I was walking around doing errands yesterday (and probably listening to the Bad on Paper Podcast (which I highly recommend if you are a reader) I was thinking about what is it that I like about reading so much and here are a few of the things that I came up with:

• I love all the lives & places that I get to explore and be a part of in books
• My over-stimulated mom brain loves the sense of peace and quite I get when I read
• I love having a small goal to read one chapter (or even one percent) and meeting that small goal every day
• It's relaxing & fun to me
• It gives my introvert-self something to naturally talk about since I am always reading something new

So far I have finished two books this month and neither have wow-ed me, but I am really liking my current read and am pretty sure that it will be my first five-star book of August. Happy reading!

What I Read This Month - May 2023

This blog originally started off as a way to reflect on my math teaching, but has evolved (at least for now) to include my thoughts on being a mom of two and my love of reading - all things I consider a big part of my personality.

As long as I can remember, I have enjoyed reading for fun and going to the library. Understandably there have been periods of my life where I have done more or less reading, and since 2015 I have participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge. The first few years, as a young-ish adult, working full time, I read about 20ish books a year, and have slowly increased that number to 40ish books in 2018 and 2020 and then 80ish books in 2021 and 100 books last year. I set my initial goal for this year to read 52 books and will likely reach that goal sometime this summer, and set a second goal of 101 books (because except for 2019, when I had my daughter, I have always read more books than the previous year). 

For me, reading is my self-care. I don't really watch much TV and I love when I come into contact with another book lover. I currently read on my Kindle Oasis and follow several book clubs: The Gloss Book Club, Reese's Book Club, Read with Jenna, Spivey's Book Club, Bad on Paper Podcast, Target Book Club, GMA Book Club, Read with MC, Oprah's Book Club, Literary League, BookClubish, Mindy's Book Studio, as well as some local book clubs.

I wasn't sure how having baby #2 would impact my reading time, but I am happy to report that one month in, I am going strong (thank you parental leave). My five star favorites this month (in no particular order) were:

1. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
2. Adelaide
3. We Are Not Like Them
4. The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise 
5. The Echo of Old Books

Here is the complete list of my 2023 reads so far.