In the Final Stretch

I changed my Goodreads goal from 96 to 48.  As usual, I had fallen way behind and really want to complete my goal this year for once, so I changed it to something more reasonable with three months to go.  I started the year planning on reading at least eight books per month (12 x 8 = 96), which is ambitious for me, but I was determined...didn't last long.  Now I'm going with four books per month.

I had also planned on alternating months between library books and my own books, but nope, didn't happen.  I'm a library addict.  Nothing wrong with that, I love libraries, but I need to work on reading the books I own too, including Kindle books.  

I also planned on doing the Random Travel Challenge with the Goodreads Group "Around the World in 80 Books," but failed there too.  I asked for 12 countries (one for each month.)  Here's what I was randomly given...

-AFRICA: Cameroon, Gabon, Madagascar, Tunisia

-ASIA: Cambodia, China

-AMERICAS: Peru, Trinidad & Tobago

-AUSTRALIA/OCEANIA: Samoa

-EUROPE: Austria, Germany, Portugal

The only one I got around to reading was Cambodia with the book Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick & Arn Chorn-Pond.  It's written in his voice and is his story about surviving the Khmer Rouge.  It was in the YA section at the library and I had no idea it had anything to do with Cambodia from the title - I was just drawn to the spine and sure enough... It was pretty good, and the third memoir I've read on the Khmer Rouge regime.  The other two were ones I had read several years ago: First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung and When Broken Glass Floats by  Chanrithy Him (both also really good.)

This was just a quick update on how my reading year has gone, and now that I only need to finish 14 books vs 62 books :\ within the next three months, I feel like I will definitely accomplish my Goodreads challenge this year. :)