Reading More Books

I love to read! If you've known me for any length of time this is not a surprise. Reading is my chosen down-time activity. I tend to read more non-fiction books because I also enjoy learning new things and discovering new ways to grow in my personal and spiritual lives. I've implemented a new rule where if I am not hooked by the second chapter I put it down and move on to something else. Life is too short for okay or terrible books. This is probably why I read less fiction - those are harder to make the cut of worthwhile reading for me.

What our bookshelves currently look like.

Two years ago Jon Acuff encouraged his followers to participate in an Empty Shelf Challenge. He asked everyone to clear off a shelf on their bookcase, take a picture and then fill it with all of the books we read in 2014. I read a lot on my kindle so I created a pinterest page to compile everything I read. I ended up reading thirty books which isn't bad, especially when you have two young kids, neither of which were in school full-time.

This past year I decided to record my list of books again just to see how many I would read. I ended up finishing forty-seven books in 2015 (full disclosure: I read one book four times but I still think it counts because I read it start-to-finish each time). Random info: seventeen of the forty-seven were fiction.

I started a new list on my phone this year. In my mind my goal is fifty books. I know that's a lot but I really like to read. I've completed two books already but I had started them in December so it's kind of like cheating. I'm currently reading three different books - two on my kindle and one hardback (one fiction). My husband was teasing me because I informed him I had a "downstairs book". I prefer to read on my kindle in bed so I don't have to have the lamp on. I'm trying to keep hardbacks to daytime reading, hence my "downstairs book".

I thought as a new addition to my list I would like to write a short bit about what I got from the book in case someone was looking for recommendations. I read a lot of good ones last year but it's hard for me to remember all of the great things from them without a written record. I thought it might be helpful to make it a public record like with the Empty Shelf Challenge but I'm rarely on pinterest these days so I think this year I'll do a monthly post of everything I read in that month. I will end up with twelve posts of mini reviews.

In the meantime if you have any great books you'd like to share with me, I'm always open to suggestions! I'm willing to give nearly every genre a shot.