Book-A-Month

I may have mentioned earlier that I made a commitment to read at least one book that I already own each month. This doesn't count any new books I buy or ones people give me, but ones I've already had (I have over 100 to choose from). I read more than one book a month, but at least one of them has to be one from this library I already own. You may know my syndrome - the book buying syndrome. I buy books and have them to read, but then I get ones from the library or new books come out or a friend loans me a book. So, the ones I already have get put aside. And my mentality is always "I own that one; I can read it any time I want to." Well, if I don't get to reading some of them, they'll have to bury me with them so I can read them in the next life! That was the reason for the commitment. I've been keeping up so far, but I was able to read two in December, so I need to alter my list.

My original list was:

December - Bones to Ashes (Kathy Reichs)
January - The Great Santini (Pat Conroy)
February - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt)
March - Black Echo (Michael Connelly)
April - Faithless (Karen Slaughter)
May - Sacred (Dennis Lehane)

So, December and January I read my chosen books. I also read Black Echo in December. I'm going to get my fill of John Berendt as I'm presently reading his City of Falling Angels for my book group. I was thinking I might put the next Harry Bosch book in for March, but I would also like to get started on Alafair Burke. I have all four of her books and haven't had a chance to start them yet. Therefore, my revised and updated list now looks like this:

February - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (John Berendt)
March - Judgement Calls (Alafair Burke)
April - Faithless (Karen Slaughter)
May - Sacred (Dennis Lehane)
June - Atonement (Ian McEwan)
July - Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen)

We'll see how this goes. Of course, if I have time for more than one of my "owned" books, I'll definitely fit them in. But there are a number of books coming out this year that I'm interested in as well. The one I blogged about yesterday from the NYTimes website is one, Linda Fairstein's Killer Heat comes out in March, Robert Crais has a new Elvis Cole novel due out the beginning of June or July, Michael Koryta has Envy the Night coming out in August, and I'm interested in reading John Grisham's new novel The Appeal. I requested it from the library, but it'll be awhile before I get it. I'm about 1200 on the list!