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Two more for my 50 oldest TBR books:

The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I basically knew the plot of this book before I started reading it, having heard of it so many times during my life. I'm glad I finally sat down to read the thing.

By today's terms, the book is slowly paced. But I think it deserves a high rating. The author skillfully painted a picture of the characters, and then there was the way the plot fell together so interestingly. What I mostly got from the book is that shame can eat you alive if you try to hide what it is that you are ashamed of. But if you come right out with it - own up to it and live your life in light of it - there is plenty of room for redemption and a meaningful life.

5 stars

Sold on a Monday, by Kristina McMorris

Excellent book. Many people assume it is going to be the story of a child who is "sold" during the Depression based on the title and the cover. It is more about the impact on people who unwittingly get involved and how they are impacted - but yes, the story does circle back to the kids in the end.

Great storytelling. I was drawn in right away and remained interested throughout.

4 stars

April progress

50 oldest To Read list:
Did Not Finish: 0
Finished: 8

Read Around the USA: 0 books read
Read Around the World: 0 books read


In order to finish my challenges for this year I will need to:
Read or delete 22 books from my To Read list
Read 4 books for the Around the USA challenge
Read 8 books for the Around the World challenge

I'm pretty sure I will repeat my TBR challenge next year. It is working to get a lot of my old To Reads off the list so I can focus more energy on what I really want to read!

Karol wrote: "April progress

50 oldest To Read list:
Did Not Finish: 0
Finished: 8

Read Around the USA: 0 books read
Read Around the World: 0 books read


In order to finish my challenges for this year I wil..."

Great update, Karol. You read 6 more than me!! LOL.

I just cannot settle down to read, lately. I have the Scarlet letter and am not sure about reading it; but I love a good classic.

Alondra wrote: "I just cannot settle down to read, lately. I have the Scarlet letter and am not sure about reading it; but I love a good classic. ."

It was a bit of a slog in places, truly. But I found it worth the effort overall.

Special Heart: A Journey of Faith, Hope, Courage and Love, by Bret Baier

I picked this book up on Kindle a few years ago. Because Bret Baier is in the news industry, some of the things he mentions in the book are a bit dated, but they did provide an interesting context.

The book is about the challenges his newborn son faced as an infant and for several years, having to have multiple serious heart surgeries to correct how arteries were connected to his heart. The story, with its ups and downs, was told very well.

3 stars

I've been focusing on some non-fiction from my 50 oldest To Read books. Most of these were on my Kindle (so, likely they were either free or very cheap).

I removed two as Did Not Finish:
- The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them, by Vince Everett Ellison
- Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, by Alan M. Dershowitz. On this one, I read the first couple of chapters and then quickly skimmed through the rest . . . can't really say I read enough of it to call it a finish. Basically, the book deals with how Dershowitz was accused by a woman he had never met of raping her and the press gave the accusation credence just because he had gone to dinner with Jeffrey Epstein - but he had not known of or seen Epstein's dark side at all.


And then I have a finish: Let God Be God: Life-Changing Truths from the Book of Job, by Ray C. Stedman, which I have to give 5/5 stars

It is an outstanding exposition on the book of Job, and the topic of suffering - in particular, where is God in our human suffering? I learned so much from this book and I found it very helpful.

Cupcakes and Conspiracies, by Katherine Hayton

Very enjoyable first book in a cozy mystery series. It takes place in New Zealand, which is kind of interesting. Until I realized that, however, there were a few phrases that didn't make sense - like "I'll shout you dinner" meaning (in America) "my treat" or "I'm buying".

Anyway, I liked this book quite a lot. It was a good quick read with likeable characters and an interesting mystery. I'd like a bit more about the characters, so it's a little shy of a 4-star rating for me.

Strawberries and Suffering, by Katherine Hayton

This book was a bit of a let down for me, after what I felt was a very promising first book in the series. Mostly, I didn't find a lot of things believable.
- The lack of common sense displayed by the main character and the trouble it led to in the first two chapters
- How the bride acted towards the main character
- How the groom acted towards the bride
- The actual solving of the case

2 stars


I did buy a 6-book electronic boxed set of this series so will continue on, in hopes that I like the next ones a bit more.

I finished one more from my older 50 To Read books:

When Character Was King: A Story of Ronald Reagan, by Peggy Noonan

I have owned this book for many years, and finally got around to reading it. The author did a wonderful job writing about her own memories of President Reagan as well as including stories from others inside his political and personal circle. I especially found his daughter Patty Davis's comments interesting.

I finished another from my oldest 50 To Read books:

Blueberries and Bereavement, by Katherine Hayton

I'm finding this 3rd book in the series just OK - a 2-star read for me.

I've read at this point 5 books from one of this author's series, and 3 books from a second series and I'm not finding any so far that are stand-outs for me. I find myself desperately wanting to move on . . . so I am removing the last three from the To Read list as Not Finished: Pumpkin Spice and Poisoning, Raspberries and Retaliation, and Cinnamon and Sinfulness.

Finished a book for my Read Around the USA Challenge:

(Georgia) - My Unscripted Life, by Lauren Morrill

Enjoyable YA story - interesting characters, great dialogs, and some out-loud laughs.

4 stars

May Progress Update:

3/10 read year-to-date for my Read Around the USA Challenge (one of these was read in May)

6/10 read year-to-date for my Read Around the World Challenge (nothing in May)

41/50 read or removed year-to-date from my 50 oldest To Read books.
This is the challenge where I've been focusing my efforts. I am loving this challenge! I read six books from the list in May, and then removed another five - so in one month I reduced my To Reads by 11 books. I'm starting to feel FREE! ... LOL

You're doing so well with your Read or Removed Challenge, with only 9 books left to go.

Lea wrote: "You're doing so well with your Read or Removed Challenge, with only 9 books left to go."

Yep! After years of "accumulating" books in the To Read list, it feels great to take the time and weed some out. I might do a part 2 of this challenge if I get through the first 50 by the end of June or July.

Finished another book from my oldest To Reads. BONUS: also counts as a book for my read around the USA challenge.

The House on Tradd Street, by Karen White

Enjoyed this book that is outside my typical genre, in that it involves the paranormal. (Which is to say, fantasy).

I found the story and its characters engaging, be they full-bodied or translucent. It's hard to beat the setting of Charleston, South Carolina. There were a few snippets of history in the book that I enjoyed.

Overall, a very good book and a fun read. 4 stars.

Finished a book today for my Around the World challenge: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

I was surprised that this book is a bit of a classic - I had not heard of it until recently. I liked it and feel that it was worthwhile to read. However, I found it a bit stark. I might have liked more context, or for the author to have provided a bit more nuanced understanding of some of the characters.

Removed two more from my oldest To Read books. I own both of these and it's kind of hard to take them off my list because I really MIGHT want to read them someday. However, every time I look at the list I sort of wince when I see them because I don't feel like reading them right now.

Maybe they will reappear in the next year or two if I get on a serious nonfiction bent again. (It's happened before!)

Lincoln's Virtues: An Ethical Biography, by William Lee Miller, and God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life, by Paul Kengor

Leaving Blythe River, by Catherine Ryan Hyde

I loved this coming of age story set in the wilderness around Casper, WY. It was a most enjoyable read. 4.5 stars

Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Description:
Seventeen-year-old Ethan Underwood is totally unprepared to search for his father in the Blythe River National Wilderness. Not only is he small, scrawny, and skittish but he’s barely speaking to the man after a traumatic betrayal. Yet when his father vanishes from their remote cabin and rangers abandon the rescue mission, suddenly it’s up to Ethan to keep looking. Angry or not, he’s his father’s only hope.

With the help of three locals—a fearless seventy-year-old widow, a pack guide, and a former actor with limited outdoor skills—he heads into the wild. The days that follow transform Ethan’s world. Hail, punishing sun, swollen rapids, and exhausting pain leave him wondering if he’s been fooled yet again: Is his father out here at all? As the situation grows increasingly dire, Ethan realizes this quest has become about more than finding his dad.

Down to just 5 books in the 50 oldest books of my To Read list!

Karol wrote: "Finished a book today for my Around the World challenge: Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

I was surprised that this book is a bit of a classic - I had not heard of it..."

I tried to read it in university but never finished it. I should try again.

Bill wrote: "Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

I tried to read it in university but never finished it. I should try again. ..."

It is intriguing, but I think a person would have to be in the right kind of mood to read it. Definitely sheds light on tribal life before colonialism and the sad loss of a culture.

Finished The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter, by Janne S. Drangsholt

Finished from my oldest 50 TBRs - just a few more to go and I will have that challenge completed!

A Shot in the Bark: A Dog Park Mystery, by C.A. Newsome

Interesting mystery that focuses on a community group of dog lovers who get to know each other via the local dog park. Early in the mystery I narrowed the "who-dun-it" to two people and still ended up surprised. For the most part, I did like the characters and I thought the mystery was engaging.

I plan to read the next one or two in the series - often, the 2nd book in a series is better than the first, as the author sets up a lot in the first book. Looking at the ratings for C.A. Newsome's other books, this would appear to be the case for this series. So although I've knocked another one off my list of oldest TBRs, I've added 2 more onto it!

Three more books to go and I will have this challenge complete. I'll get back to it after I divert for three books for another challenge (reading around the USA) that I picked up at the library this week.

This challenge is complete!

My last three books were all Did Not Finish.
The Mutual Admiration Society - for a younger audience and I just did not connect
Rimrider - same as above
Your Perfect Year - I actually think this story is pretty good - but I decided to drop it for now as one of the sub-themes is a parent with dementia. I'm dealing with this in real life; perhaps I will return to this book when I don't need an emotional escape from that.

This turned out to be a great challenge for me! I like that I decluttered my To-Read list from several that had been there for a long time.

And also, the books I completed were all pretty good and I was glad to finally get around to reading them. So . . . I might just have a similar challenge next year.

Congratulations, Karol! I think this is a great idea, and might try it one day as well! :-)

Lea wrote: "Congratulations, Karol! I think this is a great idea, and might try it one day as well! :-)"

It really helped lighten up my reading outlook. Now, the longest a book has been on my To Read list is 2 years . . . instead of having quite a few that had been there a lot longer than that.

Karol wrote: "It really helped lighten up my reading outlook. Now, the longest a book has been on my To Read list is 2 years . . . instead of having quite a few that had been there a lot longer than that."

My TBR on GR only consists of gifts people gave me, and I have books that have been on there for 14 years. (hangs head in shame) Having an updated TBR sounds very freeing!

Karol wrote: "This challenge is complete!

My last three books were all Did Not Finish.
The Mutual Admiration Society - for a younger audience and I just did not connect
[book:Rimrider|31305186..."

Wow! Congratulations, Karol!! Woot!! 🥳🥳

Congrats, Karol! A big dent in your TBR and it's only August (well, September, but I'm just seeing this.)

Patricia wrote: "Congrats, Karol! A big dent in your TBR and it's only August (well, September, but I'm just seeing this.)"

Thanks, Patricia! Definitely worked out to be a great challenge for me.