Yes, I’m late again. In my defence I’ve been working like a crazy person. So, let’s get on with this.

Last month I teased about one of my new favourite horror/humour authors who I discovered last year. Grady Hendrix writes really well from a female perspective. I’ve also decided to continue with Audible Premium. Now that I’m gainfully employed it is a treat (along with Spotify) that will expand my mind rather than my waist!

With the 19 books I read during March, I crossed off number one. It’s a true crime jobby called “For the thrill of it” and if you ask me, it was unnecessarily long. But I pushed through. It’s an interesting case, but so meandering. Ok. What else? I could’ve added more to my tally because Audible has lots of short true crime listens and I decided that it’s less than two hours I’m not going to add it anymore.

1. A book with more than 500 pages (audiobook of more than 8 hours)
2. A classic romance
3. A book that was made into a movie/TV series (sometimes books are created from the movie/series; we’ll allow that too)
4. A book published this year
5. A book with a number in the title
6. A book you can finish in a day
7. A book set in a location you’ve always wanted to visit
8. A book that was first published in the year you were born
9. A book with bad reviews (I usually say life is too short to waste on bad books, but if you select one specifically for this challenge you should finish it and tell me why you think it got bad reviews, do you agree, etc.)
10. A book from your childhood
11. A series – two or more books. Starting a series that you can’t read more of one book of because only one’s been published doesn’t count.
12. A mystery
13. A thriller
14. A non-fiction
15. A book with a colour in the title
16. A book that made you cry
17. A book you chose based on its cover
18. A book a friend recommended
19. A book your mom/dad loves
20. A memoir
21. A book from a genre you usually avoid.

Two books that stood out, not only because they weren’t true crime, as The Queen’s Gambit and Beautiful Boy.

I couldn’t get through much of the Netflix show, The Queen’s Gambit. As a lover of chess and fashion, I really wanted to like it, but I don’t think I got through the third episode before giving up. But the book! It was wonderful! First published in 1983, I wonder if anybody knows that it was a book first. And it was a five-star read for me.

Beautiful Boy came to my attention as a movie, based on true events. It stars Steve Carell and that intrigued me. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I would really like to, after reading the book. It also got five stars.

And Love your life by Sophie Kinsella is an actual paperback book that I was given to review. You can read that over here.

I’m at 62% of my Goodreads challenge of reading 120 books. But I’m going to go back and remove the really short books. If you want to see what I’m reading and follow my annual reading challenge on Goodreads I’m always excited to find new reader friends.