[issybird]

Hitting the two month mark and it's been a mixed bag, but that's what makes it a challenge and not a walk in the park.

First of all, I didn't anticipate a problem in reading 100 books. Instead, I'm struggling to keep on track. By this time last year, I had read 31 books; this year, I've only just clocked 15. Lots of reasons for that, iincluding real life time constraints, but I think the most salient is that last year it snowed all the time and all I could do was hunker down and read. I missed at least one day of work a week in January and February, when I curled up and read worked at home.

I'm also doing much better in cutting out the junk and junk is quick. Not that everything is a literary gem, but the overall quality is better. I've also cut way back on Overdrive, which is a good thing. Otoh, I have a stack of books from the real library and it just keeps growing.

In terms of my two quantifiable goals, I've read six of 25 of books from many lands, but that's deceptive, in that several of the early ones are gimmes. USA, check. England, check. This is a goal that will get harder as the year progresses, but so far, so good. One aspect that's frustrating is that I've read a few books that touched on more than one country and I don't feel as if they count. And, as a cautionary note, I'd like this mix to include more literary books from the countries themselves. So far, I've mostly read travel and history books to satisfy this goal.

I haven't read any of my pTBR books. I'm not panicking yet, but I have to dip into that soon. This may prove to be the hardest of my challenges, in that the recent whim is always going to be more appealing than the whim of years ago.