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Now that 2011 is gone and we’re trucking along into 2012, I can finally share with you the nonfiction short list for the Indie Lit Awards. This year, Biography/Memoir got split off from the Nonfiction category, which means our nonfiction list is chock full of intensely long and serious nonfiction reads. Seriously. Every book on this list is more than 400 pages long. So much reading!

December The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (03 Dec 11) (nonfiction) Here Is a Human Being by Misha Angrist (11 Dec 11) (narrative nonfiction) What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes (14 Dec 11) (nonfiction) Moby-Duck by Donovan Hohn (18 Dec 11) (narrative nonfiction) The Western Lit Survival Kit by Sandra Newman (22 Dec [...]

A couple months ago I started putting together monthly book lists to keep track of the books I wanted to try at read that month. It seems a little obsessive, but having the list is nice because it reminds me of any review commitments or just books I’m excited about for some reason.

My list for May was pretty ambitious, and, unfortunately, I didn’t have a great reading month. I blame distraction getting ready for BEA (irony?) as well as the end of the TV season. I love, love, love to watch TV sometimes. But anyway, here’s what I finished in May, with books from my original list in bold.

Do you ever have weeks where it feels like everything that could possibly happen all happens at the same time and it seems like you can’t even find time to think? That was the last couple of weeks for me.

This general sense of life busyness started 11 days ago. In that time I’ve worked full time, plus… played two soccer games, gone to one birthday party, driven to and from Minnesota twice (for a total of about 18 hours in the car), gone to dinner, took a sick day, volunteered, went to an author event, went to my book club, visited all of my grandparents, visited a friend’s family in the hospital, and attended a funeral. I also wrote two freelance stories and a guest post and read two books.

I’m back in Minnesota this weekend, so I’m probably not going to get any reading done today. And since it’s the beginning of May, it seemed like a good day to take a look at my reading from the past month and what I want to try and read in May. Plus, the first third of the year is over which makes it an apt time for a few bookish stats from the year so far.

This morning I made a quiche, and it was excellent. You can read a little bit about it and see a fuzzy picture at my Day Zero project blog.

Now, for reading: At the beginning of March I proposed a “perfect” reading month — the books I would read that would make me feel satisfied with how I spent my time with books. So how did I do in fulfilling that goal? Pretty good! Here’s my reading list for March, with books from my original “perfect month” list in bold (links go to my reviews).

Note: This list does not include books read in 2014. Updating the page has become cumbersome to the point that I’m not sure I will be doing it anymore. Thanks for understanding! | A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | [...]