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I knew in the moment that my September reading was pretty rough, but I didn’t realize quite how rough until I saw it on paper all in one place. I think I wiled away far too much time with books I didn’t end up finishing. And, my favorite book of the month was a backlist title!
I read 5 books this month…which is SO low for me! I was listening to more podcasts than audiobooks and DNF’ing 4 books in one month may be a new record for me. Can we just pretend September never happened?!
Winners
- FAVORITE BOOK OF THE MONTH: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
- A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl by Jean Thompson
- Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering
Losers
- I’d Rather Be Reading by Anne Bogel (Audiobook)
- November Road by Lou Berney
DNF’s
- Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller
- Ordinary People by Diana Evans
- The Real Lolita by Sarah Weinman
- The Golden State by Lydia Kiesling
Best-Selling Book (via my affiliate links)
Forever is the Worst Long Time by Camille Pagan (my quick thoughts) – a backlist title!
Announcements
- Personalized Book Recommendations and the Superstars Facebook Group are available to anyone who supports Sarah’s Book Shelves on Patreon!
September Quality and Recommendation Sources
Reading Quality
September 2018 (Yikes!)
- % Successful Books Attempted (includes DNF’s) = 33% (above my 43% success rate from 2017)
- % Successful Books Finished (does not include DNFs) = 60%
2018 Year-to-Date (through September)
- % Successful Books Attempted (includes DNF’s) = 58% (above my 43% success rate from 2017)
- % Successful Books Finished (does not include DNFs) = 84%
Successful Recommendation Sources
- Annie Jones from From the Front Porch podcast (Loving Frank, A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl)
- Rendall Harris, Friend (Loving Frank)
- Katie Dickinson, Sister-in-Law (Tell Me Lies)
- Unsolicited from Publisher (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl)
- Tayari Jones, Author (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl)
- Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, Author (A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl)
If you’re interested in tracking these types of stats, my “Rock Your Reading” Tracker does all the heavy lifting for you! Enter your book details and it automatically compiles everything into Summary Charts in real time! Go here for more details.
October Releases I’m Excited About
The Fifth Risk
The Witch Elm
A Well-Behaved Woman
A Cloud in the Shape of a Girl
Most Popular Posts
Posts Actually Published in September
16 Character-Driven Novels I Couldn’t Put Down
September 2018 Books to Read (and Skip)
Book of the Month September 2018: What Book Should You Choose?
Overall Posts
Am I the Only One Who Didn’t Love Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine?
Behind Her Eyes and THAT Ending: Spoiler Discussion (#WTFthatending)
Book Club Recommendations
Favorite Posts by Fellow Bloggers
- I have a lot of trouble with classics (namely, I don’t read many of them these days), so I appreciated the Pingel Sisters list of 43 Short Classics You Actually Have Time to Read…maybe I’ll actually read some of these since they’re so short!
- I wrote a mini-review of Foe by Iain Reid a few weeks ago, but Catherine at Gilmore Guide to Books far more eloquently went into more detail in her review…and I totally agree with everything she said!
- I get lots of requests from my Personalized Recommendation Subscribers for “hidden gems.” Susie at Novel Visits shared hers from the past 5 years.
- Book Riot‘s The Books We’re Drowning In: A Bookseller’s Lament made me laugh out loud!
- Allison at Mind Joggle‘s list of 12 Fiction Books About Aging and End of Life shares books about a topic I don’t feel like comes up a lot in fiction, but that I’ve been seeing more and more of lately.
- We’re well into big, buzzy book season and the Most Anticipated Books of Fall posts are still rolling in (here’s mine!). Check these out: It’s Book Talk, The Gilmore Guide to Books, and The Amazon Book Review.
How was your reading month?
Thanks for the shout out! Sorry Sept wasn’t better for you. I’m bummed to see November Road on the losers list, we need to chat about it, I really loved the story and flawed characters. Hope Oct brings you more winners!
I hate to be critical of anyone’s work, but I’m so sick of hearing about I’d Rather Be Reading. Literally everywhere I look online (and especially Anne’s blog), that book is all I ever see. Enough already! So, when I saw it on your list of losers, I quietly giggled at my desk. I feel SO bad admitting that, but my God, the hype is just too much. What didn’t you like about it?
I laughed too Vanessa! Things over at Anne’s have been different lately.
Agreed. There’s a different tone overall and it’s become a lot more … commercial?
Haha! She’s definitely promoting the living daylights out of it…and getting tons of other bloggers to as well.
I had a terrible reading month, too. I spent a week struggling through a book that I ended up DNFing. I hope your October reads are all successful!
I love DNFing! As you know…not worth pushing through a book that’s not working for you!
Thank you for the link!
Too bad it wasn’t a successful reading month–mine wasn’t great, either. I’ll be interested to see reviews of both Loving Frank and I’d Rather Be Reading (if you’re going to post them).
Hope it picks back up this weekend!
You’re welcome!
I’m not planning to review I’d Rather Be Reading, but here’s the basic gist: I listened to it on audio and felt like it was a stretch to make this stuff into a book. It read more like a bunch of blog posts. And much of it felt very familiar. However, I heard the hard copy looks like a gift-y type book…more something you flip through here and there in passing rather than read through like a regular book. I do think it works as that type of book. More something to sit on a coffee table (or the back of a toilet).
I like Tana French’s In the Woods, so I’m excited for her new book. Thanks for the mention!
I’d love to go and read Into the Woods!
I hope the rest of your year goes better than September – and at least you found some books you loved 🙂
Loving Frank is one of my favorite books ever! I’m glad that you were able to read at least one great book this month! Hope your next month’s reading is better for you!
I have no idea how I’ve missed it for this long!
Sarah, I’m sorry September was such a dismal reading month for you. I guess I’m going to have to look further into Loving Frank. I had DNF The Women by T.C. Boyle a few years ago and that’s also a book about Wright and the women in his life. One of those women is the one in Loving Frank, so because of the earlier book, I’ve had an aversion to Loving Frank.
Here’s to a much better October and thanks for the shout out!
I think you’d love Loving Frank 🙂 So much more there than just an affair.
Sorry September was such a rough month for you! You’re not alone though, I only managed to finished THREE books this month, which is probably the lowest ever for me. You have me so interested in Tell Me Lies though. Here’s hoping October is much better!
Do you mind sharing what didn’t work for you in I’d Rather be Reading ?
Not at all! I think part of my issue was that I listened to it on audio. I kept thinking…these just sound like blog posts and I think it’s a stretch to make them a book. From what I understand, the hard copy book looks like a gift-y type book and I can see it working as such (something to flip through as amusement, not really something to sit down and read). But, when I think about true essays about books and reading that I love, I think of Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence. Does that make sense?
That makes perfect sense! Thank-you!
I’m sorry your Sept. reading wasn’t great but you had a lot going on in your non reading life too it seems.
My Sept turned out pretty great after a slow start. I finished 9 books last month. I had three A’s or 5 star books, 5 B’s or 4 stars, sadly one D, maybe I should give the D book a C since the author really made me hate the story, it was well written but I hated it!
Anyway, here’s hoping October is a great reading month with lots of A’s for all of us! Thank you for your honest reviews.
I LOVED Loving Frank! So glad you liked it.
I feel like I lost my reading mojo sometime at the beginning of summer, and haven’t quite recovered. My problem is picking up a book because I hear good things, and then the book doesn’t work for me, but I have FOMO and feel like I need to finish it because “it might get better.” For example, Crazy Rich Asians, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Crossing to Safety, The Queen of Hearts, The Wangs vs. the World.
Oh no! Let me break you of that FOMO…of all the books I finished despite considering DNFing them, I can think of 2 that actually did get better.
I really wanted to love Crossing to Safety, mostly because it’s been compared to Marilynne Robinson’s writing. I did not love it and I don’t know if finishing that book was the best use of my reading time. You’re note alone! I get FOMO too.
I didn’t love Crossing to Safety either…it was a book club pick for my old book club a couple years ago and I remember feeling like I was slogging through.