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Read Harder 2020

Progress tracking for Book Riot’s 2020 Read Harder Challenge.

MELONPAPER

profile image Melissa blogs about books, creative pursuits, gaming, mental health, and local wanderings.

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January 2021 TBR! I’ll have a separate post for January 2021 TBR! I’ll have a separate post for 2021 goals shortly - doing something a little different this year. 😊

• Fence Volume 1, C.S. Pacat and Johanna the Mad
• How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, Holly Black
• The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal, McElroys and Carey Pietsch
• Unravel the Dusk, Elizabeth Lim
• Iron Heart, Nina Varela
• The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (at least 100 pages, not the full book)
• I’ll Be the One, Lyla Lee

I also have a few Libby holds that may or may not come through in January, so the results might differ from the plan this month.

What are you planning to read this month?
Expectation: A quiet morning with coffee and my Ch Expectation: A quiet morning with coffee and my Christmas book haul!

Reality: coffee and book haul... plus one child building a hot wheels track on my lap, the other asking fifty questions a minute while playing Minecraft, a cat in the middle, not to mention the house is destroyed... 😂

Hope the last few days have been kind to everyone! Taking these weird few days between Christmas and New Year to rest and plan ahead for 2021. 🤩
[ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge: Read a banned bo [ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge: Read a banned book during banned books week ]

“ The hope of accuracy we bring to such tasks is crazy, heartbreaking. And no list could hold what I wanted, for what I wanted was every last thing, every layer of speech and thought, stroke of light on bark or walls, every smell, pothole, pain, crack, delusion, held still and held together - radiant, everlasting. “

Started and read the first quarter of this book during Canada’s Freedom to Read week at the end of February, and then a few library loans came in... and then COVID shutdown... but I did manage to finish it before the end of the year, so there’s that. 😂

Lives of Girls and Women is a beautifully written fictionalization of the author’s childhood and coming of age in 1940s rural Ontario. Explicit language and sex scenes are the most common reasons cited for removal of this book from libraries and schools.
Happy Friday! What are you currently reading? I ha Happy Friday! What are you currently reading? I have one book left for my Popsugar 2020 reading challenge... hoping to finish it this weekend.

Book: The Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro

Mini print/bookmark: @mamathzilla
[ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge : A Western ] Th [ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge : A Western ]

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe
Finished December 14th, 2020

“ I can count the people I’ve loved on one hand and he’s the only one that’s left. Now I’ve got to turn my thumb down and over. Make a fist. “

Full disclosure: I’ve been dreading this prompt all year. 😂 Westerns are one of my least favourite genres. That said, in the end I chose a book that satirizes and deconstructs a lot of common tropes, and while it wasn’t my favourite book of the year, it was a solid and engaging read!

The Last Crossing is the second book in Vanderhaeghe’s Frontier trilogy - loosely connected Westerns set around the Midwestern Canadian/American border (in this case Montana, Saskatchewan, and Alberta).

Books in the background are Hark, A Vagrant! by Kate Beaton and The World 100 Years Ago by Michael Wynn Jones.
[ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge : A book that won [ 2020 #popsugarreadingchallenge : A book that won an award in 2019 ]

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
Finished December 7th, 2020

“ On a cold spring night in 1952, a huge meteorite fell to earth and obliterated much of the east coast of the United States. The ensuing climate cataclysm will soon render the earth inhospitable for humanity, as the last such meteorite did for the dinosaurs. This looming threat calls for a radically accelerated effort to colonize space, and requires a much larger share of humanity to take part in the process. “

This alternate history novel won Hugo, Locus, and Nebula awards in 2019, and it’s easy to see why: it was meticulously researched and plotted, accounting not only for available technology if the push to put humans on the moon had occurred more than a decade earlier, but also for the impact of racial, religious, sexual, and other social issues of the era.
#jollybooksmas Day 12 • Candy Cane Lane: A red/w #jollybooksmas Day 12 • Candy Cane Lane: A red/white/green book stack 🍭

The real challenge was finding red books that weren’t also half black, which is apparently a popular colour combination for me (but ruined the look I was going for 😂).
Do you deal with stress by reorganizing things? My Do you deal with stress by reorganizing things? My brain was like “now would be a great time to drag this bookshelf downstairs!” ...in the middle of Christmas prep, online courses, and preparing our business for year-end. 🙃

(Fingers crossed that my 2.5 year old has grown out of throwing books on the floor... so far so good.)
#jollybooksmas day 8: Frosty the Snowman a white #jollybooksmas day 8: Frosty the Snowman  a white book stack ⛄️

Took a little break because last week was hectic, but I’m excited to get back to taking photos!
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CURRENTLY READING

Melissa's bookshelf: currently-reading

The Light Fantastic
The Light Fantastic
by Terry Pratchett
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting
Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting
by Laura Markham
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
by Carl Sagan

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