The Journey of a Thousand Miles (September)

…begins with a single step. This year this pedometer geek agreed to work toward walking a thousand miles. A friend in Great Britain was in a challenge to do the same and indicated she’d challenged others. Obviously, I took up the challenge and throughout the month, I have walked over 80 miles, leaving about 186 miles to go before the end of the year.

More than that, this pedometer geek tries to put 10,000 steps on the pedometer daily. In that, September’s results were not stellar; however, they were better than August’s numbers. The total number of steps registered on the pedometer was 213,415 averaging 7,113 steps per day. Aerobic steps had a bit of an increase over the previous month with 72,504 steps accumulated on all but three days. Only on five days was the goal met.

In October, though, there is an added incentive to hit the goal. Like last year at this time, the Million Mile Month organization has a marathon challenge of either 26.2 miles, 50 miles, or 100 miles with donations going to Hurricane Harvey relief. Last year, this pedometer geek exceeded the 50 mile goal set. This year, the 100 mile challenge was chosen as the goal, which means more steps, which equates to more miles. Although the challenge has started, the MMM would like more people participating so consider checking out http://www.millionmilemonth.org and choose one of the goals.

Another passion is to read more, and during the month, nine books and one short story were read, and two books were consumed in an audio version. Of these books, six of the authors were new to me. Various genres were read including romance, both contemporary and historical, suspense, fantasy, and mainstream novels. Four of the novels were read in an e-book format. One novel was from the 1001-BYMRBYD list, and another was a sequel. For several of the authors, this was their debut novel. All in all, it was a diverse month of reading.

Added to the adventure of reading, two Bookcrossing.com challenges have been undertaken. The first is the SIY (set-it-yourself) challenge, which is a quarterly event in which the participants choose an individualized reading goal; the other challenge is the pages-read challenge, which is a yearlong event. The individual chooses the number of pages to be read among books, magazines, or other print media.

As for this pedometer geek, the results were mixed for the two challenges. The SIY challenge was to complete fifteen (named) books, but only eight of the fifteen were completed by the end of September. Despite this (and last quarter’s failure), another SIY challenge has been undertaken, but with only twelve books to read this quarter (although I have plans to read to also re-read Atlas Shrugged, which is celebrating its 60th year of publication, but I digress).

In the pages-read yearlong challenge, the results were a bit better. Looking toward accomplishing the goal of 40,000 pages for the year, 2,622 pages were read during the month (the audio books were not counted toward the goal), bringing the year-to-date total to 33,735 pages read. With less than 7,000 pages to go, the odds are good that this challenge will be met.

In September, the following books were read/completed:

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal *

Damage Control by Lisa Renee Jones

The Fifth Doll by Charlie N. Holmberg

The Bookshop on the Corner by Jenny Colgan *

The Bird’s Nest by Shirley Jackson

Fly Away by Kristin Hannah

The Second First Time by Elisa Lorello

Last Night with the Duke by Amelia Grey *

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

You Send Me by Toni Blake

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connolly **

Die Again by Tess Gerritsen **

As indicated earlier in the post, all of the above books are fiction, but only some of them will be briefly discussed. Three of the books, Jenny Colgan’s mainstream novel, Elisa Lorello’s contemporary romance, and Amelia Grey’s historical romance, were reviewed on my other website, http://www.pedometergeek.wordpress.com.

Several of the novels were sequels to previous books read by this pedometer geek. Damage Control by Lisa Renee Jones is the second in a contemporary romance series, and Fly Away by Kristin Hannah is the sequel to Firefly Lane, a mainstream novel.

Ryan Stradal’s debut novel was a mainstream novel, which is about food and the effects of food on a young woman with a fantastic palate. The last section brings the story full circle, a true story arc.

Charlie N. Holmberg’s latest novel, The Fifth Doll, is a fantasy that centers on mysterious nesting dolls and their magical hold over a tiny village. 

Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest is a psychological suspense novel about a young woman, Elizabeth, with multiple personalities. Jackson always brings horror to a new level, and she does so with this one as well.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is a novel of a long-term relationship and the relationship through the foods (and recipes) that mark it. This novel is one of the 1001-BYMRBYD books.

A contemporary romance doesn’t have to be long to be complete ( that is, achieve a happily-ever-after) as it was in Toni Blake’s You Send Me, a short story.

Two audio-books, The Lincoln Lawyer and Die Again were both suspense novels. Gerritsen’s novel continues with the team of Rizzoli and Isles solving suspicious deaths, while Connolly’s novel introduces a brash defense lawyer, Mickey Haller, who operates his practice out of a Lincoln Towne car. The former was an abridged edition while the latter one was unabridged edition. The difference: all the facts are there, but much of the filler is gone from the abridged editions.

That’s it for September’s reads if a bit tardy to post; now onto October with miles to go and books to enjoy.

Asterisked books are part of SIY challenge; double asterisked books are audio-books.