Diary of a Book Addict: March Madness

March 19, 2012

By the time the Juvenile & Young Adult Reading Challenge (see previous Addict blogs) ended on February 29, I managed to read 22 qualifying books, totaling 5,535 pages.

I ended the reading challenge with the second book in the Hunger Games Trilogy, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. I really like this series, but other books have sidetracked me from plowing straight through all the books, like when I normally read a series. The final book of the trilogy, Mockingjay, is now in my possession in the form of an eBook on my brand new NookColor eBook reader (an early birthday present from my wonderful husband), and I’m currently on chapter 11. By the time you read this, I will probably have finished it.

While I was busy reading juvenile and young adult titles, I suspended my holds on several adult fiction books. On March 1st, the suspension ended (this was my choosing) and several books came in for me at the same time, and March Madness began. On top of the new batch of books I got, I still have a few juvenile or young adult books yet to read at my house. I am itching to finally read Uprising by Margaret Peterson Haddix ever since one of my co-workers highly recommended it several years ago. Another book is No Passengers Beyond This Point by Gennifer Choldenko, who wrote Al Capone Does My Shirts and Al Capone Shines My Shoes--two of my favorite juvenile historical fiction novels. I also have an eBook by Melody Carlson titled I Heart Bloomberg that is set to expire in just a few days. I better squeeze that one in soon.

Tick tock, tick tock...it would seem logical that since I own the eBook copy of Mockingjay and therefore has no "due date," I should set that aside and read the books that will be due soon. But alas, I am not logical when it comes to reading. One of the adult fiction books that arrived for me was the newest installment of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series, Explosive Eighteen. Of course since it had the latest due date of my other holds, I read that one first and promptly returned it. It’s already in the hands of someone else who had it on hold.

One of the other books looming large in my stack is Plugged by Eoin Colfer. I am extra interested in reading this because I greatly enjoyed his Artemis Fowl series and several other juvenile books he wrote. As far as I know, this is his first book written for an adult audience. I also have another book by Janet Evanovich titled Love in a Nutshell, and Micro, Michael Crichton’s last book posthumously published three years after his 2008 death.

Now that I have a NookColor, I discovered a feature on it that allows me to add other Nook users as friends. I can lend eBooks to my NookFriends and can request to borrow eBooks from them as well. So, I have this book by Suzanne Collins that I mentioned earlier. If you own a Nook and are interested in reading it, send me a friend request! I’ll probably want to borrow a book that you own, just in case I run out of things to read…

Debbie A.
Blue Ridge Branch