Several bloggers are now writing about their 2017 Reading Bingo results. I noticed that most of them did not actually read to the bingo card, but checked what they did read to see what fit. My goals are never as specific as what’s written on the card, but it did make me look more at my books from 2017 to see if there’s some variety. You can check out Reading Bingo 2017 posts by BookerTalk and A Life in Books. If I’ve forgotten your post, share it in the comments.
A Book with More than 500 Pages: American Gods by Neil Gaiman came in at 750 pages. There were no others quite so long! I worry that reading longer books will make my blog go silent for too long, but I could plan better in 2018.
A Forgotten Classic: I’m not complete sure what this means, but I think Kindred by Octavia Butler is a classic science fiction novel that most haven’t read.
A Book that Became a Movie: This year I re-read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which was made into a film by Alfred Hitchcock in 1940.
A Book Published this Year: The Misfit’s Manifesto by Lidia Yuknavitch was published October 24th, 2017. I bought the book at a reading Yuknavitch did at the University of Notre Dame. She’s lovely.
A Book with a Number in the Title: Super Mario Bros. 3 by Alyse Knorr is a person, historical, and cultural look at the phenomenally popular Nintendo Game.
A Book Written by Someone Under 30: I believe that the comic/writer Sarah C. Andersen, who wrote Big Mushy Happy Lump is 25.
A Book with Non-Human Characters: Everyone’s A Aliebn When Your A Aliebn Too by Jomny Sun is about an alien who visits Earth to learn about its inhabitants.
A Funny Book: Dust Tracks On A Road by Zora Neale Hurston recounts her outrageous yet simply life in the swamps of Florida.
One time, her “Aunt Cal’line” tripped a lady off the church steps to see if she was wearing underwear; the woman was not, so Aunt Cal’line spit on her naked bits and rubbed the spit in with her foot.
A Book by a Female Author: This one was easy for me, so I randomly picked Fat Girl Dances with Rocks by Susan Stinson.
A Book with a Mystery: Thanks to the new movie, my book club picked Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.
A Book with a One-Word Title: Tampa by Alyssa Nutting caused a lot of scandal when it was released thanks to the protagonist, an 8th grade teacher who preys on students.
A Book of Short Stories: I didn’t read…a single short story collection!!! This is really surprising because I come from an MFA program, and we’re known for pretty much only reading and writing short stories! *bummed*
Free Square: I stuck Jolie is Somewhere by Alana Cash in just for fun.
A Book Set on a Different Continent: The highly truthful young adult novel Everything Beautiful by Simmone Howell is set in Australia, and I’m from the United States.
A Book of Non-fiction: I read many of these this year, but I chose Assata to fill the square because it’s an older autobiography that looks at a member of the Black Panther Party. It’s not about struggling with addiction or sex — and there are a lot of those lately.
The First Book by a Favorite Author: I’m also not sure what this category means; the first they wrote or the first I enjoyed that made the person a favorite author? I chose The Unlikely Ones by Mary Brown because it’s both her first book and the first of hers I read. I’m currently reading a trilogy she wrote called Pigs Don’t Fly!
A Book I Heard about Online: Thanks to Fiction Fan, I discovered The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. I listened to the audiobook and loved it!
A Best-selling Book: My book club chose Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which I did not enjoy like others did. I felt it was pretty formulaic, and I hated that the fat narrator had to get ripped for no good reason.
A Book Based on a True Story: I’ll review it soon! I have a lot to say about Looking for Mr. Goodbar by Judith Rossner, inspired by an actual murder. The murder inspired the book Closing Time: The True Story of the “Goodbar” Murder by Lacey Fosburgh’s, which inspired Rossner, which inspired the 1977 film starring Richard Gere and Diane Keaton.
The 1973 death of Roseann Quinn — a 28-year-old New York City teacher who worked with deaf children; she was stabbed to death by John Wayne Wilson after a one-night stand gone awry — became emblematic of the dark side of the city’s 70s hookup scene.
A Book at the Bottom of My TBR Pile: Tracy DeBrincat sent me a copy of Hollywood Buckaroo to be reviewed in July of 2013. Though that’s not the true bottom of the pile, it seemed pretty low!
A Book Your Friend Loves: Well, this brought to mind Naomi, of course, who led the #ReadingValancy read-along in November! We read The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery. I go to Naomi for all things Montgomery.
A Book that Scares You: Josh Malerman’s horror novel entitled Bird Box is about something that kills you if you look at it. It’s so easy to open one’s eyelids, that I was scared!
A Book that is More than Ten Years Old: I wonder if this box is only hard to check for those who only keep up on the latest trendy books or ARCs. Ten years isn’t that long ago! I chose Sula by the power house Toni Morrison.
The Second Book in a Series: Those of you who follow Grab the Lapels regularly know my up and down experiences with Katie MacAlister’s The Dark Ones series — and why I keep reading them. This year I listened to book #2, Sex and the Single Vampire.
A Book with a Blue Cover: One of my favorite books of the year, Dietland by Sarai Walker, has a bold blue cover! I don’t read for covers, but I do appreciate a grenade cupcake and what that implies.
Grab the Lapels 
Delighted that you decided to join in, and what a diverse selection! Hope you had fun putting it all together. Thanks for the mention.
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Thanks! I didn’t realize how different my book choices are until I put together this post. And I can’t believe I didn’t read any short fiction!
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I think you may be a Reading Bingo convert…
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It’s wonderful that some of the books you read were written by women of color. The bingo card is great for encouraging readers to select a wide variety of books (I love that there are boxes for books by writers under 30 and female writers), but it would have been nice if more of the boxes had specifically directed readers to books by authors from marginalized backgrounds.
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I agree. Some of the categories are arbitrary, like a book with a blue cover. I used to enjoy diversity bingo, but I believe the person who put that together doesn’t blog anymore.
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You really do have a diverse groups of books and authors here. I’ve thought more than once about joining this challenge, myself, but haven’t (yet) done it. I may one of these years…
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I didn’t do it during the year; I put together the post after the fact to think about my reading in different ways. You could try it if you have time!
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Thanks for the info!
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Glad to see you joining in with the frivolity 🙂 I had a chuckle about your comment in response to the short story prompt. I bet this will not be the case next year ….Thanks for the mention by the way….
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You’re welcome! It was something fun to do during the break between semesters. My husband and I are sitting around, not doing much today.
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It does feel like a lazy day here too though I did go and buy a new coffee machine. Got as far as opening the package, took one look at the instructions and decided it was something I needed to leave for another day when I had more energy 🙂
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😂 I definitely know this feeling.
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Ooh, so nearly made it – I’m amazed you haven’t read any shorts this year! It’s a fun way to look back at the year, isn’t it? Even though some of the categories are a bit arbitrary! Thanks for the mention and glad The Lodger made your list. Here’s to another great year of reading in 2018! 😀
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You’re welcome! It WAS a fun way to look back. It got me thinking about the different books I own, and I came up with a big crazy plan I will reveal in the new year. It’s my most daring yet! *lighting and music for dramatic effect*
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I get a lot of my variety just by reading your blog! I hope in the next couple of years my “A book your friend loves” is Octavia Butler’s Kindred but I also hope I somehow run into Zora Neale Hurston.
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Zora MUST make it to Australia! She MUST! In fact, an old manuscript of hers will be published in May if 2018 😍 Maybe Australia will release it, too?
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I worry about reading long books too. I’m not used to books taking me so long to read and then like you mentioned, there ends up being a lull in reviews because of that extra time. Bird Box sounds like my kind of book. I’m going to add it to my long list for next October. Wishing you a wonderful New Year!
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Bird Box was a big hit when it came out, and it’s by an author known for being in small-press circles! I really need to save long books for summer or read a graphic novel during the same time. Perhaps long books would be a good reason to get into poetry? 😬
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And I’ve downloaded The Lodger because of you. Though I’ll probably only get to read it next year. Great list. I recommend Catherine Sneed’a short story collection if you wanna squeeze it in before the year ends.
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Thank you for the recommendation! Not sure I’ll have enough time, but I’ll check it out.
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If you are reading a long book and worry about your blog being silent, you could write your thoughts on a certain section of the book, a review as you go kind of thing.
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That’s a good idea! Someone did that with a big Russian clunker…Lou, maybe? Her thoughts were HILARIOUS.
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I am utterly shocked you didn’t read any short story collections…maybe there is some untapped potential in short stories for your ‘reading fat’ goals?
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I own a lot of short story collections, I’m just not reading them, for some reason.
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Not going to lie, I went through this list and raised my eyebrows a few times. Some of the books didn’t seem like your typical reads, but then I realized you are in a book club! I just couldn’t picture you reading American Gods, Ready Player One, or Murder on the Orient Express… AND I’m not surprised you didn’t enjoy them.
Random note: For some reason I didn’t realize L.M. Montgomery had books other than the Anne of GG books… Why this never crossed my mind, I do not know…
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LoL! No, none of the books you listed are ones I would choose. American Gods was one my husband chose for me to read to him, and Ready Player One and Murder on the Orient Express were book club picks. L.M. Montgomery actually has a TON of books. There are also books of her diaries — and apparently there are a ton of those, too.
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Holy crap! You did it!!! Now I really want to try it myself… I wonder if I managed to cross off all the squares… I have I feeling, I didn’t. Or it might be a stretch. XD This is a super fun post. I also appreciate that you link to Goodreads as well as your blog. Sometimes, I feel weird posting lists like this when I can’t link back to my own reviews. I read ~120 books this year (Goodreads and I disagree on how many books I read) and I probably only wrote reviews for 70 of them.
I’m a bit of a slacker sometimes, I guess.
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I don’t review books by men, so those are all on Goodreads. There are also some books that leave me so unresponsive that I don’t review them. I know Alicia at Kernel of Nonsense says it’s important to not review every book you read.
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Ohh. That’s quite a good use of that tool, actually. I also don’t review every book I read, but I try to get a few comments in there on Goodreads. I don’t have a good long-term memory for details. This helps me remember what I liked or disliked about the book, honestly. But full reviews? certainly not always. I’d have to make that my full-time job! XD
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This does look like a fun exercise! So many fun things to do and not enough time! I’m glad The Blue Castle got a mention. 😉
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I get several weeks off between semesters, so I had time 🙂
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What a fun challenge! I usually attempt the Pop Sugar Challenge, but never get very far! Did you enjoy American Gods? I’m currently borrowing that from my friend, but haven’t felt any desire to pick it up, and it’s so long! I love your line about worrying about your blog and reading longer books ! I’m kinda going through that right now as I’m reading 3 long, epic books right now…
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One of my other bloggers friends mentioned something about doing short posts of sections of a long book that you’ve read and giving readers an update on what you think about it so far. Then, when you’re done, you give a brief review of the entire thing and whether or not you would recommend it. I think that’s a smart idea. I didn’t like American Gods. Here are some brief thoughts on it: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1822541123?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
There are also updates on what I thought as I read.
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That’s a really good idea! And hmm… American Gods doesn’t sound all that exciting. It sounds quite painful actually. I think I just tried to add you as a friend on Goodreads if I did it correctly…. I’m not super active on there – I put my books on, but don’t always post reviews or updates.
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I copy and paste my reviews from GTL to there because some readers DO make it to my blog from Goodreads. For me, it’s mostly a cataloging site. Categories, what I own (and where), which libraries have which books, and the VERY small shelf of “want to buy.”
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