Rushing Into the End of the Year

The last month of the year is upon me, so this is my last chance to read whatever I'm going to read this year.  So what did I read this week? Again I'm jumping on the meme that Sheila at Book Journey hosts where book bloggers report what they've read, what they're reading, and what they plan to read.  I also peek at my challenges to see how I'm doing.  Books and lists -- two of my favorite things!  This week I've finished:

• Fatal Judgment, Irene Hannon (NOOK)
• The Shadows (Books of Elsewhere), Jacqueline West (Cybils)
• The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton (book club book)
• The Tempering of Men, Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
• Border Crossing, Maria Colleen Cruz (Reading My Library)
• Effective Curriculum for Underserved Gifted Students, Tamra Stambaugh
• How I Met My Countess by Elizabeth Boyle 
• Pluto Confidential, Laurence A Marschall 
• Scrawl, Mark Shulman (Cybils)
• Skeleton Man, Joseph Bruchac

I like that mix -- everything from children's books I read for the school's book club to books by my favorite authors (Bear and Monette) and including nonfiction, very different flavors of fantasy, and romance.


I'm currently reading:

• Don't Be Such a Scientist, Randy Olson, about how most scientists fail to communicate (TBR)
• Math Bafflers, Marilynn Buxton. A book of logic puzzles from Librarything's Early Readers.
• Dark Whispers, Bruce Covelle.  Reading my library.
• Sheltering Hearts, Robyn Carr.  Free NOOK story from Barnes & Noble.
• Queens' Play, Dorothy Dunnett. (NOOK) I'm caught up in Lymond's story again.
• The Vampire Defanged, Susannah Clements.  Another literary look at vampires.
• Traveling Mercies, Anne LamoItt. I 'm out of her youth so no more drugs. Yay!
• The Terrorists of Irustan, Louise Marley.  They are getting caught. I'm glad I'm reading this glacially.
• The Secret Duke, Jo Beverly. They struggle on, knowing they'll never meet again. Ha!
• The End of Racism, Dinesh D'Souza.  A bad example he likes is a trend; one he doesn't like is an anomaly.

What will I read next? I'm trying to get those challenges done!  I'm going to concentrate on Cybils books, alternating a YA book with the remainder of the middle grade categories. Then my overflowing library stack needs attention. I have a West Point memoir from my TBR shelf waiting. And some stuff from Scholastic catalogs came in.

Challenges: 

A-Z: 47/52.  Need authors for Q, U, and X and titles for J. I'm reading a Q title. This seems doable

Cybils: 71/76. Finished Scrawl and Shadows.

Global Reading Challenge:19/21.  I need an Australian book and another South American, and I'm using memoirs Africa but honest in North America.  

Take a Chance: 10-ish/10. I read the picture book for ten, but it feels weak. That's how the dice fell, though.

20/11: 20/20. Done! 

Where Am I Reading?: 38/50.  I got Oklahoma.  I need Alaska and Arkansas.  Delaware, Hawaii, and Indiana.  Also Maryland, Minnesota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and West Virginia.  This one is looking dubious.  My only hope is a lot of overlap with Cybils and A-Z.