It's Monday! What Are You Reading? (October 4, 2021)

 It's Monday, What Are You Reading? is now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we gather to share what we have read this past week and what we plan to read this week.  It is a great way to network with other bloggers, see some wonderful blogs, and put new titles on your reading list.

I will be combining my YA and adult reading and purchases on this one weekly roundup.

Other Than Reading...

This was a nice week. I got my new glasses on Friday and was pleased that they needed no adjustment to be comfortable. I went to a new place in my neighborhood to get them and will certainly use them again. The glasses came quickly. This is also the first time I remember that I didn't have to go back three or four times in order to have them adjusted for comfort.

I was so busy watching my Atlanta Braves clinch their division that I forgot to watch The Voice this week. Luckily, I have Charter On Demand for my cable television and was able to watch the episodes I missed later in the week. 

Since they have clinched their division, I don't have another Braves baseball game until next Friday when they will play the Milwaukee Brewers. Luckily the games will be on Network television. Otherwise MLB.TV blocks games with Milwaukee since, apparently, they block teams that are close to where I live even if I have no option to watch them with my regular Cable TV package. 

This week I added lots and lots of new review books to my stack. A number of my requests were approved at NetGalley. While I was there, I browsed my auto-approvals and added quite a few. I also made some requests from publishers who haven't auto-approved me and am waiting to hear from them. I compiled my monthly State of the Stack post which is one of the ways I keep track of review books I've read, receive, or have in queue. Of course, I also keep a Google spreadsheet, have a collection of review books at Amazon, add new review books to my Google Calendar, and add them to a Review-Pending collection on LibraryThing since I am, apparently, anal or very, very organized when it comes to review copies. 

I also added a dozen other books to TBR mountain including the Elemental Masters books I didn't already own in Kindle and audiobooks, a couple of Kindle Daily Deals, and a couple of deals from BookBub. On the plus side, I've already read or reread three of the Elemental Masters books I bought this week. 

After my current Elemental Masters book, I will be taking a break from that series to read other books that are on my November calendar including the rest of the review books that are being released in November and a few of the hundreds of books I already have on TBR mountain. I already have nineteen posts scheduled for November. (I have everything but the It's Monday posts scheduled already for October.)

September Report

I added 56 books to TBR mountain this month. This includes 21 new audiobooks and 16 new books for my Review stack. Thirty-seven are still unread. 

My To Read collection at LibraryThing currently numbers 2359 which may or may not be exact. This month I was looking for a book I thought I owned and found that it was listed on LibraryThing as a Kindle book but I couldn't find it. It wasn't part of my Amazon Kindle collection or saved in my Ebooks file on my computer. I'm guessing the book I was looking for was downloaded to one of my old Kindles from an author's or publisher's website but never got moved to newer models. There could be a few others that are the same sort of thing.  

I read 33 books in September including 14 audiobooks and 4 review books. I also read 6 books that have been on TBR mountain for more than a year. Included in the 33 were 9 rereads. Some of the rereads were read as newly purchased audiobooks. I read the whole Donovan & Sharpe mystery series this month. The first two were rereads which I had read as Review copies but now bought the Kindle copies. Books three and four were hardcovers from TBR mountain. The rest were new Kindle copies. 

I also began reading/rereading the Elemental Masters series by Mercedes Lackey. I had hardcovers from my Keeper collection for the first five books in the series, but I did buy audiobooks for four of those. Books six and seven were hardcovers on my TBR Mountain which was the impetus for reading/rereading that series. I also got the audiobooks for them. I added the Kindle and audiobooks for books 8 through 14 and am still in the process of reading them. 

I also got rid of several brown paper grocery bags of books that I no longer wanted either because I had read them and didn't think I'd ever want to read them again or because they had lingered on the TBR pile long enough that I had no interest in reading them any longer and wondered why I had purchased them in the first place. Looking at my TBR shelves, I see several other books that fit into the latter category that should be bagged and passed on. Looks like a winter project!

Read Last Week

If you can't wait until the review shows up on my blog, reviews are posted to LibraryThing and Goodreads as soon as I write them (usually right after I finish reading a book.)

• The Return of the Pharaoh by Nicholas Meyer (Review; November 9) -- Interesting Sherlock Holmes mystery told by Dr. John Watson. This one has archaeologists and hidden Egyptian tombs. My review will be posted on November 3.
• Down a Dark River by Karen Odden (Review; November 9) -- Excellent historical mystery with wonderful characters and lots of historical detail that plays into the plot. My review will be posted on November 4.

• Phoenix and Ashes by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- Excellent retelling of Cinderella set in the Elemental Masters universe during World War I. My review will be posted on November 18.
• The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- Excellent retelling the the Snow Queen set in the Elemental Masters universe. My review will be posted on November 23.
• A Study in Sable by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- The Elemental Masters series adds Sherlock Holmes to its repertoire but stars Dr. John Watson and his wife Mary who are Earth Masters and Nan Killian and Sarah Lyon-White who have other psychic talents. My review was posted when I first read this one in 2019. Here it is.

• A Scandal in Battersea by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- Elemental Masters book 12 also stars Sherlock Holmes, the Watsons, and Nan and Sarah. My review will be posted on November 30.
• The Bartered Brides by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- Elemental Masters book 13 also stars the Watsons and Nan and Sarah as they battle both Moriarty's gang and an Elemental Master who has gone to the dark side. My review will be posted on December 2.

Currently

• The Case of the Spellbound Child by Mercedes Lackey (Mine; Audiobook) -- Elemental Masters book 14.
• Vanishing Edge by Claire Kells (Review; November 9)

Next Week

• Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey (Mine since January 2021)
• One for the Money by D. B. Borton (Mine Since January)
• Unconquerable Sun by Kate Elliott (Audibook; mine since March 2021)

• A Murder Like No Author by Amy Lillard (Review; November 30)
• You'll Be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus (Review; November 30)

• A Swift and Savage Tide by Chloe Neill (Review; November 30)
• An Unexpected Distraction by Catherine Bybee (Review; November 30)

Reviews Posted

• The Curse of the Pharaohs by Elizabeth Peters
• White Lies by Jayne Ann Krentz
• Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr

• Autumn Bones by Jacqueline Carey
• A Dragon of a Different Color by Rachel Aaron
• Heron's Cove by Carla Neggers

Want to See What I Added to My Stack Last Week?

Review:

• Jane Austen's Lost Letter by Jane K. Cleland (December 14)
• How to Love Your Neighbor by Sophie Sullivan (January 18)
• An Impossible Imposter by Deanna Raybourn (February 15)

• The Night Shift by Alex Finlay (March 1)
• The Fear by Natasha Preston (March 1)
• A Night to Die For by Lisa Schroeder (March 1)

• Dig Two Graves by Gretchen McNeil (March 29)
• The Art of the Decoy by Trish Esden (April 5)
• Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl by Julie Kagawa (April 5)

• And By Fire by Evie Hawtrey (May 19)
• A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons by Kate Khavari (June 7)

Bought:

• Ambush or Adore by Gail Carriger (Kindle)
• Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich (Kindle Daily Deal)
• Skeletons in the Closet by Jennifer L. Hart (BookBub; free)

• The Lonely Dead by April Henry (Kindle Daily Deal and audiobook)
• Reserved for the Cat by Mercedes Lackey (Kindle and Audiobook)
• The Case of the Spellbound Child by Mercedes Lackey (Kindle and audiobook)

• Steadfast by Mercedes Lackey (Print, Kindle & audiobook)
• Blood Red by Mercedes Lackey (Print, Kindle & audiobook)
• From a High Tower by Mercedes Lackey (Print, Kindle & audiobook)

• A Scandal in Battersea by Mercedes Lackey (Kindle & audiobook)
• A Study in Sable by Mercedes Lackey (Audiobook)
• The Bartered Brides by Mercedes Lackey (Kindle & Audiobook)

What was your week like?