Ursula K. Le Guin

I did it! I really did it! I finished all the books that I’d started back in 2014. I’m still not used to seeing only two to three books in my currently reading section on Goodreads. It’s so weird. I can’t even remember the last time I’d read no more than three books. It must have been at least over 18 months ago. Shocking since I used to read one book after the other when I was younger …

Even though my reading month of August ended a little early since I went on a short holiday on the 26th until the 3rd of September, I was able to improve my stats ginormeously. I increased the number of pages read and finished a smashing number of nine books. This makes August my third best reading month so far this year. Most surprisingly, I was able to fulfil my goal of reducing my TBR pile by two books this month. This is only the second time this year that I get a lottery ticket in the TBR reduction extreme challenge. I still can’t believe it for I went book shopping in both Munich and Berlin! …

Amazingly, July was another fairly strong month although it was exam time. Well, actually, I’m not surprised at all. I have the stupid tendency to desire to read when I don’t have the time. And I also tend to give into it and read instead of study. But somehow, my exams always turn out nicely. So I guess it’s not that bad of a habit. Could be much worse …

May started out great: I read four books in the first week! That blew me away since I hadn’t read much in April. Suddenly, everything seemed possible – even finishing off my whole utopian tbr-list. And then … then I spend two long weekends at home and everything went downhill. It’s the strangest of things, but when I’m surrounded by almost all of my beautiful ~1,300 books, I just don’t get to read at all. There’s a fast Internet connection and four horses that keep me busy. At least I somehow managed to read the book(s) for my fantasy literature seminar but instead of getting back to my list, I spontaneously decided to re-read A Game of Thrones, because we were also discussing it in class and I thought that my memory could use some refreshing. In an act of extreme desperation, I tried to read The Nightmare Affair on the very last day of the month, but I was too slow to finish it in time …

Dear God, why is it July again?! A moment ago, it was still January. How fast time always flies … But that it has to be July of all things. July means endless work for me because it’s the month of exams. This year, I have three (if I’m lucky only two) written and one oral exam – if everything works out fine. At university, there’s some chaos regarding that exam and furthermore I keep struggling with a few bureaucratic problems. One is spared nothing! Therefore, July is technically equivalent to reading recession. At least that’s what it’s supposed to be but usually, I get a craze for reading when I don’t have the time. How it will turn out this time remains to be seen …

Since Pyras and Dracas have spent three months on my tbr-list and I failed to read them, I had a book-buying ban in May. This is my worst imaginable punishment because I’m totally addicted to buying books. Still, somehow I sort of managed to stay true. Three of the following books I had pre-ordered, the other one, my only slip, I got at a flea market …

Let’s call May an epic fail! It started out so great that I thought for a moment that I would get through my utopian reading list, but then I got distracted by four good reasons to spend my time not reading. Very well, so here we are again with basically most of the May list. I’m going to leave the last two slots empty because I cannot decide which ones to choose …