New Year's Day has come and gone, and for many, so have the resolutions.  However, I am still working on my resolutions, and while not doing quite so well on my resolution to get in my 10,000 steps a day, I am getting more books read.

Now that I have a new pedometer to replace the one that I lost in the Nairobi airport in January, this pedometer geek managed to record over 157,000 steps in February of which over 37,000 steps were considered aerobic.  Not too impressive, actually, as I only averaged a little more than 5,000 steps a day.  Hopefully, March will be better in this regard.

As for books, though, I managed to read eleven books of very diverse categories and genres.  From YA to suspense thriller, from science fiction to nonfiction humor, from romance to classics, I completed a diverse list of books that also included a few new authors (to me). 

Because of the number of books I read, my pages read challenge at www.bookcrossing.com is doing well with a month-to-date total of 3354 pages read, and a year-to-date total of 6874 pages read.  My SIY (set-it-yourself) challenge, however, is taking a hit.  I have only managed to complete six of the twenty that I have chosen to read this quarter.  Once again, I have been a bit too aggressive in my SIY challenge, and will probably fail at it.  While I have read more than the alloted number of books in my challenge, I have not managed to read those particular titles.

As such, the books I completed this month are as follows:

  The Red Pyramid   by Rick Riordan

  Hells' Corner   by David Baldacci   *

  The Best of Me   by Nicholas Sparks   *

  On the Steamy Side   by Louisa Edwards

  House of Sand and Fog   by Andre Dubus III   *

  Reluctant Witness   by Kathleen Long

  Shadows in Flight   by Orson Scott Card

  Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (and Other Concerns)   by Mindy Kaling   *

  The Midnight Club   by James Patterson   *

  Kentucky Heat    by Fern Michaels

  Lolita   by Vladimir Nabokov   *

As I mentioned earlier, a very diverse set of books with perhaps as my favorite, Hell's Corner by David Baldacci.  The authors that I had never before read were Kathleen Long, Andre Dubus III, Vladimir Nabokov, and Mindy Kaling.  Kaling's book was nonfiction; it was her humorous look at her career and life. Kathleen Long's novel was a light romantic suspense, and the other two authors' novels are both considered classics (or in the case of House of Sand and Fog, a potential classic-in-the-making). 

As for one of my digressions, I have discovered a new word in one of my current novels: The Bell by Iris Murdoch.  It is animadverted, which is to have commented unfavorably or critically (usually followed by on or upon).  While I could figure it out from the context, I still looked it up in the dictionary.  

On another totally, different digression, my husband and I are kicking around possible titles for his latest novel.  He had it named, and now he is re-thinking it. How do others finally decide on their titles?  Does it grow organically from the text?  Or does the title reflect what the author believes the novel to be? 

* books in my SIY challenge