LoraShouse ROOTs again in 2020

Aiming for a slightly reduced goal of 15 in 2020, as I plan to focus on those longer books on my booklist. Also, I would like to have some time to work on my writing this year. And of course, I will hopefully be reading on my Kindle books, audiobooks, and library books as well.

The definition of ROOT remains the same as for previous years - any hard copy (i.e. paperback or hardcover) book (a.k.a. antique reading device, or ARD) in my possession as of December 31, 2019. Since I did not acquire any new physical books in 2019, this makes it open season on every book I have for the first time since I started doing these challenges.

Here is a listing of my goals and available statistics for 2020:

Reading Stats – 2020

0 of 80 Total Books
0 of 15 ROOTS
0 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
0 Kindle books
0 New Books (by request or otherwise)
0 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
0 books reread
0 books from Kindle Unlimited
0 book did not finish

Maybe later I will bore you with a list of the books I want to read in 2020. Most of those will be Kindle and audiobooks and so aren't really relevant to ROOTs, but it is fun to mark them off anyway. There are way more books on the want to read list than on the total books goal of course, but I will at least try to read them all.

Welcome back and Happy ROOTing.

Good luck with your reading, and writing, in 2020!

Welcome back and have a great reading year!

Happy ROOTing!

>4 connie53: >5 Jackie_K: >6 rabbitprincess: >7 This-n-That: >8 MissWatson:

Thanks everybody for the kind welcomes and encouragement.

I have finally finished a ROOT. Fractal Cosmos by Jeff Berkowitz. This was not a really long read, being almost entirely pictures, but it is a large format book.

I was taking a break from my main first ROOT, A History of American Life. This is an abridged version of the original, which was published as 12 separate volumes. According to the editor, he reduced it by about half. There are about 1200 pages in the body of the work, not counting notes and index, leaving about 100 pages for each of the original volumes. Right now I have made it to page 320. It will be a while before I can mark this one off the list.

Earlier, I threatened to bore you with the list of the books I want to read this year. I organized it better than last years - sort of. I will post in 3 parts to reduce the size of the individual posts a little. So far, I have read 2 of the Kindle books, 2 audiobooks, and 1 other book. The other books are from all kinds of sources - ROOTs, ebooks on Scribd, library books, etc.

Kindle Books
 Changespell
1. The Orphan Queen
2. What Lies Beyond
3. Fire & Blood
4. Religion and the Decline of Magic
5. Fractured Era: Legacy Code Bundle
6. The Pursuit of the Unicorn
 Caelen’s Wife I
7. Caelen’s Wife II
8. Caelen’s Wife III
9. Requiem: Song of Dragons
10. The Island
11. Gods and Monsters
12. Seriously Mum, What’s an Alpaca?
13. Changespell Legacy
14. Red Rising
15. The Dragon Blood Collection: Books 1-3
16. The Mirror King
17. The Apples of Idunn
18. Doon
19. Shades of Doon
20. Destined for Doon
21. Forever Doon
22. Where She Belongs
23. Found
24. Winter
25. Fairest
26. Stars Above
27. Hushabye
28. The Home
29. Aunt Bessie Assumes
30. Aunt Bessie Believes
31. Aunt Bessie Considers
32. Aunt Bessie Decides
33. The Psychology of Sex Vol 1
34. The Psychology of Sex Vol 2
35. The Psychology of Sex Vol 3
36. The Psychology of Sex Vol 4
37. The Rose and the Shield
38. Nonzero
39. Wish You Well
40. Society for Paranormals: Cases 1-3
41. The Library: Where Life Checks Out
42. The Moth Saga (Books 1-3)
43. The Key
44. Footsteps in the Sky
45. Off the Page
46. Out on a Limb: A Smoky Mountain Mystery
47. Dangerous Talents
48. Up at Butternut Lake
49. Butternut Summer
50. Moonlight on Butternut Lake
51. Warriors #1: Into the Wild
52. Warriors #2: Fire and Ice
53. Empire of Storms
54. Tower of Dawn
55. The Stone of Darkness
56. Xander’s Folly
57. A Spell for Chamelion
58. The Blight of Muirwood
59. The Scourge of Muirwood
60. The King’s Traitor
61. Hobbit Rescue
62. The Goblin Reservation
63. Goblin Quest
64. Goblin Hero
65. Goblin War
66. Beauty and the Goblin King
67. Goblin
68. Goblin Apprentice
69. And the Trees Crept In
70. The Orc Warlord
71. Firstlife
72. Lifeblood
73. Everlife
74. The Crown’s Game
75. The Bear and the Nightingale
76. First Contact (In Her Name)
77. Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life
78. Date Night on Union Station
79. A Bad Spell in Yurt
80. The Housekeeper’s Tale
81. Lady Almina and the Real Downtown Abbey
82. The Real Diana
83. What the Lady Wants
84. Lady Catherine, the Earl, and the Real Downtown Abbey
85. The Kin of Atta Are Waiting For You
86. The Soultakers
87. Keepers
88. Paranormal Public Omnibus Books 1-3
89. Smoke & Summons
90. Myths & Mortals
91. Siege & Sacrifice
92. The Paper Magician
93. The Glass Magician
94. Magic Bitter Magic Sweet
95. Silent Kingdom
96. Shades of Blue
97. Primani
98. Call the Lightning
99. The Line
100. The Source
101. The Void
102. Jilo
103. Wisp of a Thing
104. Whill of Agora
105. The Firelord’s Crown
106. Firelord’s Curse
107. Iron, Fire, and Ice
108. Formula for Murder
109. Nursing a Grudge
110. A Mew to a Kill
111. Paws and Effect
112. A Rite of Swords
113. The Psychic Seasons series Books 1-3
114. The Fallen Princess
115. Goldenmark
116. To Wager Her Heart
117. The Essays of Montaigne Vol. 1
118. The Essays of Montaigne Vol. 2
119. The essays of Montaigne Vol.3
120. Russia: A History
121. Crafting Unforgettable Characters
122. Sinful Cinderella
123. On the Meldon Plain

Here are the Audible books I am working on. Currently listening to Dust and Shadow.

Audible:

1. Dust and Shadow
 The Silent Blade
2. The Spine of the World
 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
3. The Autistic Brain
4. How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying
5. Tell the Wolves I’m Home
6. Drums of Autumn
7. The Hangman’s Daughter
8. The Federalist Papers
9. Six of Crows
10. John Henry Days
11. Half the World
12. The Wishsong of Shannara
13. I’m From the Sun
14. The Art of War
15. Vengeful
16. The Fangs of Freelance
17. A Trail Through Time
18. Christmas Present
19. A Dragon of a Different Color
20. Last Dragon Standing
21. The Wayward Bus
22. Crooked Kingdom
23. A Day Late and a Dollar Short
24. Frostfire
25. The Rose and the Thorn
26. The Viscount and the Witch
27. Insurgent
28. The Time Traveler’s Wife

And this is the list of the 'other' books I want to read this year. There will probably be others from this category, but these are the ones I plan to read as of now.

Other books:
1. History of American Life
2. Conquest of Mexico and Peru
3. My American Journey
4. London
 Fractal Cosmos
5. The Conquerers
6. Last Days of Glory
7. Chronicles of the Barbarians
8. Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
9. The Spanish Inquisition
10. Dream Decoder
11. A Lifelong Passion
12. Neanderthal
13. Snow White’s Revenge

That are a lot of books, Lora! Good Luck!

That's an immense list. Good luck with it!

Wow, that's a pretty epic list!

Thanks guys.

I finished one more ROOT this month so far: Dune: The Butlerian Jihad. This is chronologically the first of the books in the new Dune series, although I suspect it's not the first one written there. Pretty strange to see a Harkonnen starting out as the good guy this time. Also, all those robots and computers! And the cymeks (the preserved human brains in canisters where they could be moved around to different robot bodies)!

Anyway. That was the last of the Dune books that was on my list, but there are several others. Now I need to read the rest of the books about the Jihad. Enquiring minds want to know...

Oh, almost forgot. Still making progress on A History of American Life. Up to about page 850 now, early in Book 9. I will finish this book sometime this year, I promise.

Also, since it likely won't be this month, here are the reading stats for the year so far:

Reading Stats – 2020

17 of 80 Total Books
2 of 15 ROOTS
3 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
11 Kindle books
5 New Books (by request or otherwise)
4 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
1 books reread
0 books from Kindle Unlimited
0 book did not finish

Had a surprisingly good reading month so far in March. I finally finished A History of American Life - pretty good considering the size of it. It really was more about what life was like during various periods of American History, and less about political stuff than most of the big history books I have read.

I also read Dream Decoder, a large format but not long book about common images and themes in dreams and what they supposedly mean, and A Treasury of North American Folk Tales, which was fantastic - everything from Native American creation stories to tall tales and liar's club type stories.

Next I think I am going to read Chronicles of the Barbarians. Likely will not finish that by the end of the month.

So, here are the latest reading stats:

32 of 80 Total Books
5 of 15 ROOTS
6 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
19 Kindle books
10 New Books (by request or otherwise)
7 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
2 books reread
3 books from Kindle Unlimited
0 book did not finish

I finished Chronicles of the Barbarians. An interesting book. The barbarians won, by the way. So nearly all of us are descended from barbarians of one sort or another. That explains a lot.

Next up will probably be Developing Positive Assertiveness and London. London is pretty long, I think. Developing Positive Assertiveness isn't.

I sort of miss the library. This would be a good time to read Typhoid Mary.

And here are the reading stats for the year so far:

Reading Stats – 2020

43 of 80 Total Books
6 of 15 ROOTS
8 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
26 Kindle books
13 New Books (by request or otherwise)
10 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
2 books reread
4 books from Kindle Unlimited
0 book did not finish

Finished Developing Positive Assertiveness. One more for this month - yay!

Moving on to London tomorrow. Onward and upward.

Here are the updated reading stats. Wasn't sure if I would finish anything else this month.

Reading Stats – 2020

45 of 80 Total Books
7 of 15 ROOTS
9 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
26 Kindle books
13 New Books (by request or otherwise)
11 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
2 books reread
4 books from Kindle Unlimited
0 book did not finish

Hi Lora, Nice stats. I try to get my stats too but somehow I get it wrong all the time. I hope you are doing fine and are still safe. Libraries are opening up here as of today.

Hi Connie!

Some of our libraries opened here a week or two ago, drive-by only. I haven't requested any library books yet, as I have been focusing on reading ROOTs and Kindle books. I think when I do go to get library books again, I will start with e-books or audiobooks, which I have been meaning to do for a while now.

Hope you, and everybody, are still safe as well.

Missed finishing London by that much for last month, but finished it on June 1. I just finished Neanderthal today. That was really interesting, fitting together all the different types of fossils of our pre-human ancestors as well as anybody can at this point.

Next up will be The Spanish Inquisition. Again, it is extremely unlikely that I will finish that one by the end of this month. i also have the Henry Kamen version of The Spanish Inquisition on my to-read list, but that one is on the library list, so probably won't get to it until I start going back to the library.

Anyway, here are the reading stats for this point in June:

64 of 80 Total Books
9 of 15 ROOTS
12 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
38 Kindle books
20 New Books (by request or otherwise)
13 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
2 books reread
4 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

So I did manage to finish Jean Plaidy's The Spanish Inquisition this month. It didn't take as long as I feared it might. Thank goodness it also wasn't quite as gruesome as I feared. I think for the next list book I will do Four Past Midnight. Hmm . . . It just occurred to me - that might be gruesome too.

And here are the reading stats for the year so far:

79 of 80 Total Books
10 of 15 ROOTS
13 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
49 Kindle books
26 New Books (by request or otherwise)
16 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
2 books reread
6 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

So, the latest is I have finished Four Past Midnight. Silly me thought this was one of my list books, but no such luck. It is, however a legitimate ROOT, so counts for this (ba-ha-ha!). I am now working on My American Journey, which is much better than I expected. I wish I had read this years ago.

Here are the latest reading stats:

87 of 80 Total Books
11 of 15 ROOTS
14 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
53 Kindle books
28 New Books (by request or otherwise)
19 Audible Audiobooks
0 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
2 books reread
6 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

I am working through the Audible Audiobooks at a good rate. And I expected the ROOTs to go a little slow, since I am mostly concentrating on longer books this year. Same for List Books. I am now within 350 pages of being finished with The Conquest of Mexico and The Conquest of Peru which I have on my Nook app, and which I have been working on for the past three years. New Kindle books are swarming by like the blocks of a disintegrating ice flow, but they are out-swarming the older Kindle books I want to read. When my current book list gets so near the end that the only things left on it are books that have become impossible to find, I will have to add the Kindle books to my ROOT goals and statistics.

Nice stats, Lora. I tried to keep them too, but you seem to do better with them.

Only finished 1 ROOT this month - Colin Powell's My American Journey. It was an excellent book. Made me wish I had read it years ago when I first got it.

I'm almost half through with A Lifelong Passion, which is the story of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his wife Alexandra. It is taken from their letters and diaries and those of their closest friends and family, along with a few government related papers. It began well, if a little slowly, but we are now up to 1906 and things are starting to fall apart. The sad thing is we know how this one ends, and it isn't good.

Not sure whether to continue with the long ROOTs for the next few. I still have a lot to go to make my goal for list books, and I will probably need more than the 15 ROOTs to make that happen. So far I have not attempted to get any library books. I am a little intimidated by the curbside pickup idea. And they have closed even that for voting and for fixing the library floor (I didn't know it's floor had a problem). I expect the next time I see the inside of the library will be sometime in October/ November for the election as that is where we have early voting. I really should pick up on some of their e-books or e-audiobooks though...

So, I finished A Lifelong Passion. It was sad at the end, just like I knew it would be. This book is tied so closely to so many other books I am reading or have recently read. I have noticed lately that more and more books are closely entwined with other books. I suppose this is especially true of history and biography - that when you have read enough you start to actually get a little bit of the picture of what happened in the world.

The next ROOT I am reading is Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru. This is a much shorter book, but interesting. This one also ties in with other recent reading. It references some of the places from The Conquest of Peru that I recently finished (finally!) on my Nook app. I may or may not finish this by the end of the month. Hopefully, I will get done with all 15 ROOTs by the end of the year.

Here are the reading stats for the year so far:

Reading Stats – 2020

110 of 80 Total Books
13 of 15 ROOTS
20 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
67 Kindle books
32 New Books (by request or otherwise)
25 Audible Audiobooks
1 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
0 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
2 books reread
6 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

Finally finished my 15 books for this year. During November, I finished up Between the Lines: The Mystery of the Giant Ground Drawings of Ancient Nasca, Peru and Look Homeward Angel. Between the Lines was sort of a niche book; interesting if you like understanding the origins of mysterious artifacts from the past, but probably kind of boring if you don't care about them. Look Homeward Angel is one of those books that some people actually consider the Great American Novel. I didn't like it at all. It was extremely depressing.

Anyway, if I get to read any more ROOTs this year, I think I am going to look for some of those books I have that are not List books but are just books sitting around the house. Hopefully I can find some that will be fun reads. I am ready for some more fun reads this year.

When I finish the fourth book of Studies in the Psychology of Sex (on my kindle) I will have read 25 List books this year. My original goal was 30, but I think 25 will be a nice stopping place considering everything. There are still a lot of large books to go on that list, so I think I will instead aim for another 25 books next year. Maybe sometime the library will open back up to help with that. In any case, maybe I will finally get around to picking up some books on Overdrive.

Meantime, I am reading away at my Kindle books, although it looks like I will have read less than half of the 125 Kindle books I put down for myself at the beginning of the year by the time next year comes. I am also listening avidly to my Audible books, and I only have 3 left to finish of the 30 I set out to listen to at the beginning of the year. Since two of them are very small and I am well into the other one (The Time Traveler's Wife), I think I have a good chance of finishing all of them and going on to at least one other audiobook.

And I actually finished all the books I had in my "other books" category. Most of these were List books and also ROOTs. A couple were List books that were on Scribd. And one was a book I was requested to review a couple of years ago that I mistakenly got the ebook version of rather than the Kindle version and had to read using Calibre. Unfortunately, once I finished it it appeared to be no longer available.

Here is the list of "other books" that I finished. I will show the other lists when I finish them or at the end of the year.

Other books:
 History of American Life
 Conquest of Mexico and Peru
 My American Journey
 London
 Fractal Cosmos
 The Conquerors
 Last Days of Glory
 Chronicles of the Barbarians
 Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
 The Spanish Inquisition
 Dream Decoder
 A Lifelong Passion
 Neanderthal
 Snow White’s Revenge

And here are the reading stats as of the end of November:

124 of 80 Total Books
15 of 15 ROOTS
24 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
74 Kindle books
33 New Books (by request or otherwise)
27 Audible Audiobooks
1 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
2 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
2 books reread
6 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

Congratulations for reaching your ROOT (and closing in on the other) goals!

Hurray for meeting your ROOT goal!

Congratulations!

Wow, Congrats with reaching your goal

>41 Jackie_K: >42 rabbitprincess: >43 MissWatson: >44 connie53:

Thank you everybody!

So I actually finished two extra books now that I have given up on more list books for the year.

Read The Cat Who Smelled a Rat, which turned out to actually be a reread. This was a little more mystery-like than some of The Cat Who ... books. There were at least two murders, and an arson. Qwilleran and the cats actually helped the police catch the culprits.

Also read The Castaways. It's about four families, all best friends with each other, living on Nantucket. Then one of the couples drowns on their way back from an anniversary picnic, and everybody else is left to mourn in their all different ways.

Happy Holidays from the Netherlands!

>47 connie53: What a pretty image!

I just finished reading Theirs was the Kingdom by R.F. Dederfield. This is the sequel to God is an Englishman. Part of a longish family type saga, delineating the story of a hauling company (they started out with horses and wagons; in this book one of the sons is working on inventing a truck; by the next book in the series I suspect they will be a trucking company), and the family that owns it.

I might finish one more book before New Year's - or maybe not. Probably better post statistics now in case I don't get back to it. Also I will post the list of Audible and assorted non-Kindle books I set out to read this year and actually finished. Sadly, many of the Kindle books I determined to read are getting carried over to next year.

Reading Stats – 2020

136 of 80 Total Books
18 of 15 ROOTS
24 of 30 List Books
0 Library books
79 Kindle books
34 New Books (by request or otherwise)
32 Audible Audiobooks
1 e-book on Nook app
0 Audiobooks on Scribd
2 e-books on Scribd
1 e-book on Calibre
3 books reread
7 books from Kindle Unlimited
1 book did not finish

Audible: (30 books, + 2 others finished)

 Dust and Shadow
 The Silent Blade
 The Spine of the World
 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
 The Autistic Brain
 How to Succeed in Business Without Really Crying
 Tell the Wolves I’m Home
 Drums of Autumn
 The Hangman’s Daughter
 The Federalist Papers
 Six of Crows
 John Henry Days
 Half the World
 The Wishsong of Shannara
 I’m From the Sun
 The Art of War
 Vengeful
 The Fangs of Freelance
 A Trail Through Time
 Christmas Present
 A Dragon of a Different Color
 Last Dragon Standing
 The Wayward Bus
 Crooked Kingdom
 A Day Late and a Dollar Short
 Frostfire
 The Rose and the Thorn
 The Viscount and the Witch
 Insurgent
 The Time Traveler’s Wife

Other books: (includes ROOTs plus e-books from non-Kindle sources)

 History of American Life
 Conquest of Mexico and Peru
 My American Journey
 London
 Fractal Cosmos
 The Conquerors
 Last Days of Glory
 Chronicles of the Barbarians
 Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
 The Spanish Inquisition
 Dream Decoder
 A Lifelong Passion
 Neanderthal
 Snow White’s Revenge

Finished one more ROOT today - The Cat Who Saw Stars by Lilian Jackson Braun. This is another one of the Cat Who ... mysteries. Apparently this was an earlier entry in the series than The Cat Who Smelled a Rat that I finished earlier in the month.

I expect that will be my last ROOT for 2020. I have set up next year's first ROOT to be my next hard copy read. That one will be Osler's Web. It is a long book, so I guess it will be well into next year when I come back again. Add 1 more book to the ROOT total in the Reading Stats message, and possibly I might finish 2 more of the Kindle books I am currently reading (Amazon/ Goodreads think I have already finished one of them although I still have some distance to go in the last Appendix), and everything will be up to date.

Hope everybody has a safe and Happy New Year, and that it's so much better than this year has been. We had a guy here who committed suicide on Christmas Day and incidentally blew up a quarter of downtown Nashville in the process. They are still putting the internet and phone service back together. Just so we wouldn't feel like the joy of 2020 had left us too soon.