LauraNav - ROOT ROOT, here we go!

Goal is 30, and 50% of my 2014 acquisitions.

2013 I read 31 and 54% of 2013 acquisitions.
But that does leave 16 purchased in 2013 and not read that are automatically on the ROOT TBR for 2014.

Good luck to you, Laura!

Welcome! Enjoy the reading! And you keep track of percentages? Wow, that's what I call well organised.

>3 MissWatson: lol I do percentage of my books & pages through the year, I keep a text list on another site where I have a simple HTML-made "tickers" of the percentage of my goal of them. Right now I'm at 66% of books and 76.8% of pages :P If I paid attention to when the stuff I read was from, I'd totally track those percentages, too. Hahaha

Welcome Laura! So far I've avoided percentages, but I have tons of spreadsheets to keep track of everything else :)

Welcome aboard! Enjoy the challenge! :)

Thanks for all the welcome!

I did try pages one year and it was pretty cool to watch that number. But lately I am sticking just to # read each month and whether they were library, borrowed, or mine (and if current year or older).
I let Excel do all the math!

I never thought about setting a goal for the new acquisitions....hmmm. I'll have to think about this. Sounds dangerous.

Please don't forget to copy your ticker to he ticker thread.

Thanks Chelli!
I'm #16 in the ticker thread.

In the past week I've bought 4 more books, but all should be read in 2014. They are for the book club I'm in. Luckily, our book club is also reading 4 books that I already own. We're learning to be very careful about books none of us have read, just had recommended by someone else. Those have turned out to be a tad questionable.

Hi Laura. Good luck with your challenge.

Making progress!

ROOT reads:
1. Kisses From Katie by Katie Davis - bought for Book Club so counting as a 2014 purchase
2. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley - bought during an intellectual splurge (or indigestion) over a year ago. Actually quite readable and I'm glad I did it. I may check out some SparkNotes type things to see if I actually understood much of it. But a few chapters were quite funny. I loved chapter XIV and recommend it even if not reading the rest of the book.
3. Death Comes for the Archbishop - Willa Cather - downloaded a free ebook this week for the American Author Challenge. I really enjoyed this book!

2 more planned for January.

Wow great start! That is quite an accomplishment in such a short time.

Wow great start! That is quite an accomplishment in such a short time

Congratulations on some excellent reading!

Finished another ROOT, this one 2 years old. Ma href="http://www.librarything.com/work/51283">In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden. It is about nuns in a monastery in England in the 1960's and it is very well written.

Wow, you are racing along!

No real chunksters yet, except maybe Brede. And it was such a great read and interesting story, it was easy to keep going. Not so fun staying away from it for 2 days because there just wasn't time to read!

Finished In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden - a SantaThing gift from 2011. Very glad I finally got around to it. I enjoyed the book very much and now want to read more by this author.

Then Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear, the next book in the Maisie Dobbs series.
The Professional by Robert Parker - this Spenser novel has been on my shelf for a bit, I have to work hard not to binge on Spenser novels. Definitely enjoyed it.

Then I read Fatal Remedies by Donna Leon. I've never gotten into the Brunetti books, just didn't need one more series I guess. But this was a quarter at the library used table a year or two ago. An enjoyable read that I'll pass on to my mother.

Another done bites the dust.
#8 The Second Time Around - Mary Higgins Clark. I picked it up at the library used table, very good story. But not a keeper. I'll pass it to mom, and then it goes to the World Hunger Sale in August.

You are flying, Laura!!

Reading them...and then able to let them go afterwards. Way to go!

>21 Merryann:- That's what I admire too. My read books just get another place on the shelves. I am not very good in letting go.

I have some books, typically series, that I do collect so when the mood strikes me, I can read through them all without hoping I can find the next one when I'm ready for it.
And I have a few classics I can't seem to bring myself to get rid of. A house should have a copy of some of these books on their shelves.
For example, I have The Good Earth on my shelf. I hated that book with a passion when we read it in high school and nothing could entice me to waste time on it again. But I can't seem to get myself to get rid of it either.

But I find some of the books I've picked up at the library used-book table are things I think I might want to read and buying for a quarter is a cheap way to keep it in mind. Those are easy to give away after I've (finally) read them.

As I run out of room, I find myself able to be a bit more brutal about what should go to make space for the things I want to keep.

And then some are sentimental. I've changed and probably won't go back for a re-read, but I loved it 10 or 15 years ago and just don't want to give it away (yet).

LT is like therapy, I can tell you all this because I know you understand. :-)

I had a relative ask me years ago why I owned so many books. (and that was when I owned half of what I do now). He doesn't spend money unless absolutely necessary (and, rightfully, has more than I do :-) so he thinks the library is all you need. Well, really, he thinks the newspaper is all you need.
The only answer I could give him that seemed to make any sense to him was that I collect a series so when I start reading I don't have to wait another year or two for the next one to come out. I'm still not sure he was really convinced.

Ohh, I totally understand.
My hubbie said that since I own a reader, I could get rid of all the books I own!

I just gave him THE look!

I have to have my books around me. I want to dust them, rearrange them, hold them, smell them.

Okay.........i'm off to a quit place and inhale!

Books are wealth of the mind.

Letting go of them spreads the wealth.

Keeping them enriches one's soul.

So either way, it's good. That's the nice thing about being a book lover. :)

> 23, "LT is like therapy, I can tell you all this because I know you understand."

Yes, this is a wonderful place. I need to be a bit more determined in my own parting with books, and being here among people who understand that it's not always easy helps.

My daughter has a thing for smelling old books. Ok, reading them too, but especially smelling them. She will be sure to join our ranks--where else but somewhere like LT will she find others who have that visceral love of books as wondrous physical things?

I love smelling books!! Old and new!

Yes, yes, and yes.

Books are good - electronic and paper, all good. And one does not necessarily replace the other. :-)
It is a bit difficult to smell e-books. But I'm sure someone is working on that.

I am laughing out loud, because just yesterday I put a new book in my library with the following description in the comments: "This ex-library book has the plastic cover still. Lovely line drawings. Book smells like a library."

This, after I spent several minutes listening to the crinkle of the clear plastic cover, enjoying the pictures, and inhaling big smells of that wonderful 1970s library smell.

Of course you did. How wonderful!

Two more read. Stone Cold by CJ Box which was a LT ER book. I do enjoy that series!
And Unbroken for book club. What a great book!
I like how Laura Hillenbrand writes.
Otherwise, February was a month full of library books.

That puts me at 10 total ROOT, 5 from 2014 and 5 purchased prior to 2014.

And I have been a good girl, I've only acquired 7 books in 2014, so the 5 is way over my 50% mark!

Of the 14 purchased in 2013 but not read in 2013, I haven't read any. (sigh)
There's still 10 months to go :-)

You only bougth 14 books in 2013? Yes, you have been a good girl!

Finished Blood Work by Anthony Carter only a year after I bought it. Not actually new concepts, although I like the way he pulled in so many hymns as he progressed through chapters on the way the blood of Christ saves us.

Well, work and vacation have kept me away.
I have done a little more reading, with 5 more ROOT books read!

Well done!

Well, I haven't been doing any updates here on LT, but I have been reading.
Total of 29 ROOT for the year.
12 from prior to 2014
17 from 2014 purchases/acquisitions.
52% of my reading has been books I own.
Not too bad. I'm working on one more from my shelves (a few years old) but it's 500 pages so not sure I'll finish it this month.

Way to go!

Finished two more, takes me past my goal for ROOT

31 read, which is 64% of my 2014 purchases and 51% of my total read for they year!

Hey, that is great! Congratulations!

Congrats, Laura!

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Yay, congratulations!