March Reading & Bingo Progress

I have to say that I'm a bit surprised I read fewer books this month than the short month of February.  But a couple of these were kind of hard to get through.  It may not look like as much, but I am still averaging around 74 pages per day, which is 13 pages per day higher than I averaged last year.  And this doesn't take into account the 500+ page book I'm 200 pages into.  But we'll talk about that one tomorrow.  For now, here are my stats:

March
Total books - 8
Total pages - 2324
Total inches - 9.75

Year to date
Total books - 22
Total pages - 6650
Total inches - 26.75

Here's what I read:

• The Smartest Kids in the World by Amanda Ripley - nonfiction - analyzes the countries that score the highest on the PISA standardized test, and compares their techniques to America's.
• The Way I See It by Temple Grandin - nonfiction - I'm very into reading about autism these days, and I learned a lot from this one.  
• Small Move, Big Change by Caroline Arnold - nonfiction - She explains the idea of making tiny, permanent changes "microresolutions" that move you toward the person you want to be. 
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - fiction - I've been working on my library bingo card and needed a "funny" book.  I'm not into comedy and a friend said she laughed through this one.  I did at some points, but mostly I cried.  The quirks of Aspergers (now just part of the autism spectrum) aren't so funny when you see your own child in them.  But still, it was a good book.  Much better than I expected from the title.
• Reading Lolita in Tehran by Asar Nafisi - nonfiction - I really wanted to like this one.  But I didn't.  I didn't think the writing was very good.  I learned a ton about Iran though so it was worth the effort.
• The Secret of the Old Clock by Caroline Keene - fiction - Okay, now don't judge me for reading a Nancy Drew mystery.  One of the squares on the bingo card requires us to reread a childhood favorite. I was surprised though at how poorly this book was written.  One day the phone is out, but the next day she makes a call... and so on.  But I didn't catch any of that when I was a kid.
• Riding the Bus With My Sister by Rachel Simon - nonfiction - about the author's sister who is mentally handicapped and what it was like to be her sister.  This was another book I wanted to like more than I really did.
• Open Season by C.J.Box - fiction - my favorite of the month.  This is a mystery by a Wyoming writer about a fictional Wyoming town that sounds a lot like where I live.  Loved the story and am looking forward to more of his.  I had a "mystery book" square to fill in on my bingo card and also a "second book in a series" - which meant I needed to read the first, so this was it.  I don't normally read mysteries, so this was a nice diversion.

 As for the Book Bingo, I have a fairly good start on it.  If you can see the pink check marks and dates listed on the notes for the books I've read - there are eight of them completed so far.

 If you saw my first post about this, you know that each square has a different category and I've used post-it notes to plan out what I'm going to read for each square.  I chose to use post-its so I could move them around as most books would fit into more than one category.  For each line I complete, I get a ticket in a drawing for a bigger prize.  Nobody seems to be saying what that will be.

 The first part of the challenge was to get four boks read - the spaces to punch at the top of the card.  After completing that, I was awarded a Toblerone candy bar.  When I finished the second set of four (eight total books) I was awarded a nice water bottle.  That's how far I've made it for the first month.  We have until the end of May - so three total months to complete the challenge.

Now I'm focused on the rest of the Bingo squares. :)  This is so fun. I hope they do these challenges again.  They usually only do kids' reading programs.  It's nice for the adults to have a chance at it too.