November 2014 Monthly Round-Up

This month was all about Nonfiction November. I absolutely loved this event and it gave my reading a much needed shake-up. Check out my Nonfiction November Summary and New Additions to my TBR List for a good overview of the month and also my All-Time Favorite Nonfiction Books List.

Coming up in December…

  • Check out my Best Books for Holiday Gifts List for great gift ideas for your bookworm friends and family!
  • I’ll be sharing all kinds of fun end of the year “Best of” type stuff during A Month of Favorites, hosted by Girlxoxo, Traveling with T, and Estella’s Revenge! Check out my introductory post.
  • A blog makeover! I’m so excited to graduate from the default WordPress theme (aka the “I don’t know what I’m doing” theme) to something more exciting (I’m working with Stephanie at New Chapter Designs to make this happen). 

On to the round-up…

Favorite Book of the Month

My Salinger Year, Joanna Rakoff, memoirs, J.D. SalingerNonfiction – Memoir
Released June, 2014
274 Pages
Click here for my review

Affiliate Link: Buy from Amazon

 

 

 

 

Other November Reviews

Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy: Four Women Undercover in the Civil War by Karen Abbott
Striking Gridiron by Greg Nichols

The First Family Detail by Ronald Kessler
The Martian by Andy Weir
Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim

Upcoming Reviews
An Untamed State by Roxane Gay
Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
The Boston Girl by Anita Diamont (Mini Review)
The Missing Place
 by Sophie Littlefield 

Top 5 Books on my “To Be Read” List
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Cry Father by Benjamin Winter
Mermaids in Paradise by Lydia Millet
The Distance by Helen Giltrow
The Means by Douglas Brunt

Books I Tried, But Put Down in November
Be Safe I Love You by Cara Hoffman
Spoiled Brats
by Simon Rich
The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Us by David Nicholls
*Not to say I’ll never pick these books up again, but they just didn’t the first time around…

Upcoming Releases I’m Excited About
Kennedy Wives by Anita Hunt and David Batcher (December 12, 2014)
The Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison (December 30, 2014)
West of Sunset by Stewart O’Nan (January 13, 2015)

Top Ten Tuesday Posts in November
Top Ten Books I Want to Re-Read
Top Ten Books on my Winter TBR List 

November Weekend Cooking Posts
Tyler Florence’s Pomegranate Arugula Salad
Tyler Florence’s Skillet Rosemary Chicken

Favorite Posts from Fellow Book Bloggers

  • I want to steal Cleo at Cleopatra Loves BooksReading Bingo for 2014 post for my blog! What a cool way to sum up your year. I might give it a whirl in early 2015 🙂
  • I loved Becca at I’m Lost in Books‘ honesty in her review of What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding.
  • Charleen at Cheap Thrillspost on Book Math made me want to dork out with my spreadsheet next year to see if my pages read per day matches my books read per year! Sadly, it’s too much work to figure it out for this year.
  • Shannon at River City Reading‘s Book Club Picks of 2014 is a great resource for your book clubs! I also keep a running list of great book club selections.
  • The annual Best Books of 2014 Lists have started to come out…I can’t wait to see how the bloggers stack up to the traditional media! So far, I’ve seen Amazon (Best Book: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng), Bookpage (Best Book: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel), Bookriot, Goodreads (Best Fiction: Landline by Rainbow Rowell), and Publisher’s Weekly.


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10 Comments

  1. I am curious about All The Light We Can Not See. I loved The Invention of Wings. Your blog is full of great things to read! Good Luck with your new design with New Chapter Designs. I will look forward to seeing your changes. I really enjoyed changing my themes and I’m happy with the one I finally purchased.

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  2. You had a great month!

    I’m looking forward to Stewart O’Nan’s new book, too. The Invention of Wings was very good on audio, but I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it as much in print.

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  3. I’m looking forward to your thoughts on An Untamed State and Station Eleven. I’m halfway through Station Eleven right now and can’t put it down.

    I hope you enjoy All the Light We Cannot See! It’s one of my favorites this year.

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  4. Cleo wrote:

    What a wonderful round-up of November! Thank you so much for mentioning my post I do hope you give the bingo a whirl soon – I had great fun doing this one.

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
    • admin wrote:

      I will definitely do it now that I have your blessing! Didn’t want to blatantly copycat you, but I do love the idea!

      Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  5. Thanks for sharing my post! It looks like you had such a great month and I can’t wait to see your new blog design!

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  6. Bellezza wrote:

    Don’t the end of the year book lists create a terrible yearning?! I’ve already downloaded samples of Station Eleven, The Book of Strange Things, Everything I Never Told You and a few others I can’t remember now.

    Posted 12.3.14 Reply
    • admin wrote:

      Yes – and they always give me a little anxiety about all the great books I didn’t get to this year!!

      Posted 12.3.14 Reply
  7. susan wrote:

    You got me worried about the DNF books by Cara Hoffman and David Nicholls. Were they both terrible? I sort of had them on my list but if not decent then I shouldn’t waste my time. thanks.
    http://www.thecuecard.com

    Posted 12.4.14 Reply
    • admin wrote:

      I really didn’t give them much of a shot…I was in a mood for something to grab me immediately and neither one did. I only read samples of each of them. The small bits I read weren’t terrible, but I was looking for things that could make my Best of 2014 list and these were just OK. I may pick Us back up again at some point.

      Posted 12.4.14 Reply

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