[latepaul]

Even though I failed miserably last year, I'm trying again, and with a similar format.

Main goal:

• 25 books

Sub-goals:

• reduce TBR by 12 (1 Jan 2015 TBR is 422)
• finish 3 of the books that I've started and got part way into without finishing.
• try to choose books I'll enjoy and increase my average score above 2013's 7.0/10 (I didn't really track 2014 in the end)
• read 2-3 short stories a month

Current Status:

Spoiler:

Books Read: 11
Abandoned: 0
Average Score: 7.4
TBR: 454
New Books Acquired: 43
Money Spent on Books: £104.07
Cost of Books Read: £24.67
Cost of TBR: £789.21

Favourite Book So Far: City of Stairs (8/10)
Worst Book So Far: Revival (6/10)

Favourite Story So Far: Fox 8
Worst Story So Far: Fox 8

List of Read Books:

Spoiler:

1. 2-jan All You Need is Kill - 7/10 Read because I watched the Tom Cruise movie (Edge of Tomorrow). Both are good, and different to each other. Book is short, fast and punchy.
2. 4-jan Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett - 8/10 A re-read for a book club. Better than I remember when I first read it 22-23 years ago.
3. 12-jan Revival, Stephen King - 6/10 I thought this would be about a tent revival mission style evangelist, but that's a smaller part of the book than the cover/blurb led me to think.
4. 1-feb Who is Tom Ditto? - 7/10 Contemporary novel about a strange club.
5. 15-feb Steelheart - 8/10 Story of corrupt super-heroes and the group that takes down the one of the title.
6. 20-mar Funny Girl - 8/10 Story of the rise of a British Lucille Ball style TV star. Enjoyable.
7. 22-mar We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves - 7/10 Family drama that ponders on the nature of relationships. Intriguing and interesting. Not quite the book I anticipated but can't say why for spoiler reasons.
8. 26-mar Station Eleven 8/10 Post apocalyptic (plague) story about a travelling theatre/orchestra group. Well written, engaging, thoughtful.
9. 4-may The Sword of Rhiannon (aka The Sea-Kings of Mars) 7/10Pulp SciFi from the 50s by the write of The Empire Strikes Back. Harks back to the era of John Carter et al. Pulpy but fun.
10. 27-may Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 8/10Enjoyable Austen-esque fantasy story of magic being restored in the early 19th century.
11. 7-jun City of Stairs 8/10Fantasy murder mystery cum political thriller set in an occupied land where the old gods were killed, or were they? Fun central character, interesting observations on religion.

List of Short Stories:

Spoiler:

Story 1 - Fox 8 - can't remember much about it now, story from an urban fox's pov