Reading Challenge Book 18: Enemy

Y'all:

So I found out that, as an Amazon Prime member, I can get a free book every month. How cool is that? Also, how much a fool am I for not knowing that? Anyway, the free book I selected was Enemy by K. Eason.

I know I'm still behind on my reading, but I got this bad Larry done and I have the next one planned. It is sitting my shelf, eager to be read. I might even start tonight!

Reading Challenge Book 17: Sleep Donation

Y'all:

Even though my reading schedule has slowed down considerably (this is book 17, but we're in week 20), I'm still reading far more than I have been in years past. Though I'm not willing to admit defeat yet, no matter what, I can chalk up this experiment as a win.

Reading Challenge Book 16: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Y'all:

I purchased this book on my Kindle back on August 25, 2013. I know this because Amazon tells me so when I visit it on their site. It was assigned to me during my capstone English course at University of Wyoming yet, like so many school assignments, I didn't give it the effort and attention it deserved. It was definitely a book I have been eager to revisit.

Reading Challenge Book 15: The Killing Season

Y'all:

It took me entirely too long to read this book, but I blame that (mostly) on work. The next closest branch of my school suffered a catastrophic staffing issue, so my branch has been called upon to fill in the gaps. Add to that the recent "breakthroughs" I've made in the tabletop RPG I'm designing, as well as a couple of recent game drops I've been looking forward to, and I've had to carve up my free time a little differently of late.

So now I'm off track. I'm technically 2 weeks behind, which means I'll have to find a couple of shorter titles that are 1) 100 pages or so (no less, but not much more) and 2) fast reads. I have lots of time to make up for lost time, but I don't want to sit on this. Life has a way of piling up nonsense after nonsense after nonsense, and I truly do want to finish 52 books this year.

Funnily enough, The Killing Season was supposed to be a fast read to help me catch up after the last book took a little longer than I had anticipated. Yeah, that didn't happen!

Reading Challenge Book 14: Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

Y'all:

Today a friend asked me why I chose to read this book, and it has to do with me serving in the Army. That doesn't make a lot of sense, I know, so I'll try to briefly explain why I picked this one up:

Two weeks or so ago I posted a funny thing about the military on my Facebook page. It seems some butthurt Soldiers have been complaining that they don't have combat patches, and that some Soldiers who had earned them had been asked to remove them. The humorous post was about the mother  of a patch-less Soldier (a guy fresh out of basic) complaining to someone over social media, who directed her to contact her son's battalion commander (for those of you who don't know, this is exactly what not to do). Anyway, long story short (too late!), someone commented that the mother sounded like a "tiger mother," to which I replied, "a whatnow?"

As I am currently living in Taiwan and dealing with this culture (my job exists only because tiger mothers exist), I decided to read this book. It would not only broaden my horizons, but it would also be a book by a female Chinese-American author. It's important for me to make sure I'm not just reading "old dead white guys." And hey, this was a New York Times Bestseller!