Tackle Your TBR Challenge

Tackle Your TBR Challenge ended yesterday and boy was I successful, though one indicator would beg to differ. But I get a head of myself. Here is how the two weeks went: nine books completed in either print or audio format. Three additional books started but not completed yet. For more analysis, check below the chart.

Title (Author) Audio(A) Print(P)	Comp. Date	Print Pages/ Audio Time	Total Pages	Total Time
1. News of the World (Jiles) A	9/11	6 hrs. 1 min.		6 hrs. 1 min
2. The Pearl Thief (Wein) P	9/11	325 p.	325 p.
3. Biography of the Beatles (Spitz) A	9/12	10 hrs. 10 min.		16 hrs. 11 min
4. Crossing Ebenezzer Creek (Bolden) P	DNF	100 p.	425 p.
5. Ordering of Love: New and Collected Poems (L'Engle) P	9/16	385 p.	810 p.
6. The Fashion Committee (Juby) P	9/18	307 p.	1117 p.
7. H is for Hawk (MacDonald) A	9/19	11 hrs. 6 min.		27 hrs. 17 min.
8. Landscape with Invisible Hand (Anderson) A	9/21	3 hrs. 14 min.		30 hrs. 31 min.
9. The End of Your Life Book Club (Schwalbe) A	9/23	9 hrs. 40 min.		40 hrs. 11 min.
10. Wonderful Tonight (Boyd) P	9/23	307 p.	1424 p.
11. Cries of the Spirit (Editor- Sewell) P	DNF	30 p.	1454 p.
12. The Once and Future King (White) P	DNF	23 p.	1477 p.
FINAL			1477 p.	40 hrs. 11 min.

Leading up to my success was the fact that I was already reading/listening to the first five books on the list when the challenge started on September 11th. I counted them because I finished them in the challenges time frame.

There is no way in a million years that I should have been able to listen to 40 hours of audiobooks in two weeks except for one small (HUGE) detail---on September 13th my first grandchild was born. He and his parents live about 45 minutes from here and I drove back and forth to their house every day but one. I listen to audiobooks while I drive. So that car time should account for around 20 hours of the 40. Next, and this sounds like I am cheating on my calculations, when I listen to an e-audiobook (as compared to one in CD format) I usually bump up the listening speed to 1.25. That means that the 40 hours that I listed was actually closer to 32 or 33 hours (I can't figure out the math exactly.) Suffice it to say the 40 hours isn't quite as impressive as it sounds.

When I started the challenge I said I had 52 books on my "To Read" category on Goodreads. Now I am down to 49. What? That doesn't sound like the numbers match, right?  My problem is that I couldn't help but ADD books to my Goodreads account these past two weeks. I went through and added the book club selections as far into the future as I know and I added a few titles that other bloggers mentioned this week.  I also didn't mention that I have several TBR piles and only certain books are listed on the Goodreads account. First, I have my Classics Club list which started out as 50 classic books I want to be sure to read in my lifetime. I keep adding to it but right now I have 44 unread books on it. The Once and Future King falls into that category. I also have the Pulitzer Challenge with 15 past winners identified as books I want to read. None of the books I read for this challenge came from this list. And finally, I have the books which I have laying around the house in piles, many aren't on any of the three other lists, but I clearly want to read them since I bought them. Confusing, huh?

My favorite books read during this challenge? News of the World, The Pearl Thief, and The End of Your Life Book Club. All were very different and so well written. My least favorite was Crossing Ebenezer Creek. I actually didn't finish the book and I sent it back to the library that way. It was written in such a confusing manner I couldn't figure out if the story was in present time, a past recollection, or a future time. Egad. Editors think about that when you publish books and help the readers by changing fonts or something.

I want to thank Tressa at Wishful Endings for hosting this challenge.