June 2023 TBR
I have been doing the math. Which is terrifying since I'm bad at math. If I read 4 50-by-50 books this month, and 3 every month after, I will finish by my 50th birthday. This is highly doable. I ordered the books on my 50-by-50 list by page count. Each month I will read the longest book on the list and then at least 2 of the shortest books. I think I can read 3 short books this month because all three of them are under 300 pages. After that they get progressively longer and October could be tough; each book has over 400 pages. However, the longest book on the list by October only has one more page than one of the two shortest books.
The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Famiily by Mary S. Lovell - This is currently the longest book on my 50-by-50 challenge. According to Goodreads, it clocks in at 611 pages. I haven't checked to see how much of that is index and biography, but hopefully it's a chunk. I'm psyched to learn about these fascinating ladies.
Fire in Paradise: An American Tragedy by Alastair Gee and Dani Anguiano - I'm not sure why there are so many books written about this particular fire. There are plenty of wild fires and forest fires that wipe out towns, but this is the only one I've seen that got multiple books written about it. Maybe the book will tell me why this one is special. This is on my 50-by-50 challenge, but I don't own it, so I requested it from the library.
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. I have a friend who has been pestering me to read this for years. So here it is. Also, it is the shortest book on my 50-by-50 list.
Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education In Protest and Power by Jennifer Worley - This is the other book on my 50-by-50 list that I don't own. Interestingly enough, my library doesn't own in either. I had to request it to be sent from another state. It's on its way and I hope it gets here in time to read in June. This is about a strip club in San Francisco that is owned and operated by the strippers and how it got that way.
Alone Out Here by Riley Redgate - This is a Sequoyah book, and I've had it on my TBR before and then someone requested it and I had to turn it in. I've got it back and I'm in a sci-fi mood, so now seems like the time to put it on the monthly TBR. This is about a group of teens whose parents are astrophysicists who are preparing a spaceship to take people to outer space when the end of the earth happens, which they expect soonish. Except it happens while the kids are touring the spaceship and they get launched into space with no training and no adults.
The First Thing About You by Chaz Hayden - This is another Sequoyah book. It's about a kid who moves across the country and is determined not to be known as the "kid in the wheelchair". He gets a nurse who is helping him navigate high school and crushes, but she may have problems of her own that keep her from being true.
Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson - I have a huge girl crush on Pamela Anderson so of course I'm going to read her memoir. I don't even really like celebrity memoirs, but I'm going to read this one. My hold on the library copy is coming up soon, so I put it on the June TBR hopefully.
This is seven books, which is more than I put on the May TBR. I DNFed one of the books on that list, but I have read 9 books so far, and plan to finish 2 more before the month is out. I feel fairly confident I can read 7 books. Most of these are short. After The Sisters, the two YA books are the longest books on the list. And those tend to have larger print and read really quick, so I'm feeling good about this list.