Happy Almost-Truly-but-in-practicality-it’s already-Summer!! I just this morning finished listening to Neil Gaiman read me his novel, Ocean at the End of the Lane. It’s not my usual kind of book, but I enjoyed it and I like that his voice sometimes sounded like Alan Rickman. (<– This is why I don’t write book reviews!)

Since we are nearly halfway through the year, I thought I’d do an update post to let you know how the reading list is going. In case you missed it, you can find the original list from January here. You can also find this list, add the books to your own shelves, and see my ratings at my shelf on Goodreads.

As of today! Read, re-read or listened to on audible from original list:

1. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
2. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Shopaholic, #1) by Sophie Kinsella
3. The Five Destinies of Carlos Moreno by George Weinstein
4. The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
5. Divergent (Divergent, #1) by Veronica Roth
6. Confessions of a Scary Mommy: An Honest and Irreverent Look at Motherhood: The Good, The Bad, and the Scary by Jill Smokler
7. Voyager (Outlander, #3) by Diana Gabaldon
8. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
9. Rise of the Machines–Human Authors in a Digital World by Kristen Lamb

Still to read from original list:

1. 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers by Peter Selgin
2. Someone Else’s Love Story by Joshilyn Jackson
3. Beautiful Disaster (Beautiful, #1) by Jamie McGuire
4. Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
5. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
6. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
7. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
8. Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
9. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
10. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
11. On Writing by Stephen King
12. Pieces of the Heart by Karen White
13. Poetic Medicine: The Healing Art of Poem-Making by John Fox
14. Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Dan Kindlon
15. Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
16. St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell
17. Strange Brew by Mary Kay Andrews
18. The Creative License: Giving Yourself Permission to Be The Artist You Truly Are by Danny Gregory
19. The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide To Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman
20. The Reading Group: A Novel  by Elizabeth Noble
21. The Sound and The Fury by William Faulkner
22. The Violets of March by Sarah Jio
23. The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
24. Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
25. Writing from Life by Susan Wittig Albert
26. Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
27. Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

Read, despite that it did not appear on original list:

1. Drums of Autumn (Outlander #4) by Diana Gabaldon
2. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green [absolutely beautiful book]

Added to list:

1. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
2. and others…

So. I have some catching up, and maybe even some list-adjusting, to do. To some extent, I blame Diana Gabaldon, since the Outlander series gets me so absorbed it’s hard to stop listening, and those books are 30+ hours each. In general, I have at least three or four books going at a time: a paperback or two, something on the Kindle, and an audiobook for the car. I tend to jump in and out of the non-fiction/writing craft books, and then come back to them, so several of those have been started but not finished. There are many busy days in which the audiobook is the only reading I get (thank goodness for Audible!).

I’m tinkering with both women’s fiction and a mystery/thriller series right now, the latter of which is pushing me out of my usual genres. I may have to make room on the list for more detective-type novels as the year progresses.  How’s your reading year going? Any favorites or life-changers since January? What are you taking to the beach this summer?

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I’m M.J. (Manda) Pullen, an author and mom in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I blog about writing, publishing, motherhood, health, psychology and whatever else strikes me in the moment.

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My current roster of books includes The Marriage Pact series, a trilogy of Contemporary Romance/Women’s Fiction novels. You can find them for all eBook formats and in paperback here.

MJ Pullen

M.J. Pullen is a distracted writer and the mom of two boys in Roswell, Georgia, where she is absolutely late for something important right now. Her books include quirky romantic comedies and playful women's fiction. She blogs erratically with writing advice, random observations, and reflections on raising very loud kids and dogs. Join her Distracted Readers newsletter list for updates, free content, giveaways and more.