Even though I stop using the reading jar, I feel like I should make this post as some kind of closure XD

This year I only managed to finish 11 books from the jar. Unfortunately, there are only three books that I rated 3/over 3 stars... so I guess the hiatus is inevitable *sigh* (I have two books with half(!) stars there #oof)

Yes, absolutely! Definitely stop though when it's not giving you positive feelings anymore :)

As of now, no... since I'm in my semi-permanent physical book reading slump era(?). I am playing with the idea of something less rigid though. I have a jar with just alphabets on paper for watching horror movies so something similar might be okay? Pick a letter and find a title that starts with that letter.

Midnight in Austenland

Mr Darcy's Bite

Heroes and Villains

Innocence

The Unreal & The Real: Volume 2

This Side of Paradise
The Trouble with Mr. Darcy
The Mum Who'd Had Enough

Deadlocked

0.5 Stars
The Difference Engine

Heaven's Shadow

Well, it's as expected I guess XD. I noticed that my attention span has become shorter when I read physical books (compared to reading on phone). I kept wanting to look elsewhere (for some reason). I don't think it's a matter of getting distracted.. more like being fidgety...? 

There's also that probability of having a brain in prolonged Zombie mode - my fault *sigh* - making it hard to focus on reading. Another thing that kind of makes me think it's lack of sleep is how irritable I was these past few days. Oh well, I'll try to get some proper sleep today... 

Yeah... kind of tired going "urrggh" and "haaaa" about it so let's just... jump into it, without any plans. Yes, that kind of planning suits me better~ I guess this is what they call a readathon...? Although it's just me alone and it has nothing to do with raising money for charity...

My goal is to finish at least one book before next Monday!

I finally finished the last book from the jar yesterday so now I can make this post. Something like a conclusion post.

Through this jar, I've finished 53 books... and counting those with 3 stars and above, I guess I enjoyed most of them...??? I find it interesting that I don't have any 4.5 stars ones lol. Although... if you only want to count 4-5 stars, then that's very few, huh. I think that's one of risks with these jars. You might have fewer favourites depending on what you put in there. And my reading taste is weird so maybe I'm not the best example to refer to :P

Will I recommend this method to find the next book to read from your shelf?
Absolutely. Very helpful when you don't know which one to start from especially if you have many to choose from. 

Will I do it again?
Oh, yes. Starting Sunday next week. Coincidentally it's a new year so... I'm doing it again next year! It's going to be biweekly - a book every two weeks. If there's a fifth week, then it's going to be rest day/free week. So basically, two books per month.

The Chrysalids

Anggaran Jarak Kita: Tanyalah Betul-Betul!

Convenience Store Woman

I'd Die for You: And Other Lost Stories

Merry-Go-Round

Piranesi

The Nakano Thrift Shop

Easy Go

Green Island

Human Voices

Kane and Abel

Lust

Monday Starts on Saturday

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Austen Escape

The Color Purple

The Doomed City

The Midwich Cuckoos

The Piano Man Project

Trickery

3 Stars
Agent of Chaos
Death by Tiara

Drug of Choice

I, Robot

Man Who Fell To Earth

Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

Tender is the Night

The Diary of a Nobody

The Gambler

The Lathe of Heaven

The Professor

2.5 Stars
A Vision of Fire
Dubliners

Ethan Frome
Orlando

Kumari: Goddess of Secrets

Roadside Picnic

Scratch One

Selected Short Stories & The Rover

Silence

Sophie's World
The Early Stories of Truman Capote
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Ogre Downstairs

5 Sentimeter Per Saat

A Dream of Ice

At Freddie's 

Hocus Pocus

Miss Darcy Falls in Love 

Summer Crossing
The Double

The Sirens of Titan

The Food of the Gods

So... the theme for this post will be "late".

♪

Few days ago, I suddenly had the urge to listen to Kurosagi's movie soundtrack. Tried looking for it on Spotify and I found one. The soundtrack for the dorama. This year's dorama. 

That's how I knew there's a new version of Kurosagi [live action] this year. 

♫
Barely made any progress on my two remaining jar books. *siiiigggh*

Also, haven't done anything related to my "new" jar. No updates done whatsoever. 

♪♫
It's funny how having the piano tuner over few days ago had actually made me clean the area around the piano much faster than planned(?). It was really the case of "You can do it if you really try" or something similar :P.

Unfortunately, I feel exhausted just by thinking about it and now I don't want to deal with the pile of things I have in my room anymore...

♫♫
Oh yeah. "The Sirens of Titan" is the 100th book I finished reading this year. It happened on Dec 7th. That means I've completed my Goodreads reading challenge this year~! 

I don't really need to update that here lol but it fits the "late" theme so I'll just include it in this post.

♪♫♫

I finally get to borrow a book again from the library yesterday! This is the first time I placed a hold and waited for the book to be available. It took me a few weeks. Apparently the hold "elapsed" early this month. So I guess that meant I forgot to borrow it in time...? I continued reading the book today but I kind of forgot who is who anymore XD *oh well*

No reason really~ Just thought it's going to be an interesting last-minute challenge(?) or something. If I don't make it, I would still make a big reading progress on it (hopefully)... so it's actually a win-win situation!

It has been an annoying day so far but it got better when I saw this on Amazon. 

"To the Sky Kingdom"

I'm always on the look out for free kindle books (lol) so it was quite a surprise to see something I know about. I do have the physical version but having an e-book version will be nice too. I don't have to bring the book along if I ever want to read it when I go out of the house (but it would still be annoying to read on the phone *sigh*...). 

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Finished "Inkheart" today. The book holder does help a lot. I tried reading the book in bed - couldn't find a comfortable reading position to prop the book up. *sigh* I feel like taking a break from reading the trilogy lol. Or... I can make a reading schedule for a month or more so that I have fewer pages to read daily (I planned to finish "Inkheart" in 2 weeks so it was about 20 pages/day). 

After at least a month of thinking about it, I've decided to increase the books for my GR reading challenge this year, with a condition. I usually go for 50 books per year but this year, if I reach 45 books before June ends, I'm going to increase it to 100 books. Just wanted to make a note here because I kept forgetting what my condition is so this post will make it easier to refer back to XD

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Started watching "Hotaru no Hikari" yesterday. So happy that this is available on Netflix. I need to watch more Ayase Haruka... She was also in the live-action movie based on "Kodai-ke no Hitobito" manga (the manga I mentioned few posts ago about mind-reading characters).

Finally made a page for my reading jars. Listed all the books I picked out from the jars there with links to the posts and reading dates. Thought it's going to take long to make but not really.

I made it! I've updated this blog daily for the whole year! 372(!) posts in 365 days.

Since this is a personal blog, my posts were mostly diary/journal-like though. I had fun doing it. 

Let's see... what happened this year...

♛ I started reading books regularly again! 

I do have some minor slump-like moments at times but it happened... and it's happening! 

♛ I got vaccinated for COVID-19

I posted about having trust issues in August. I want to avoid crowded places as much as possible so I never applied (registered?) to get vaccinated via the MySejahtera app. Fortunately in September, my father found a clinic where I can get the vaccination with peace of mind. *sigh* I don't know what I'll do with the booster one later... probably will be assigned to a place near home. Will there be a crowd? Probably.

♛ I started learning new languages
...Still in very, very early stages though XD. I'm re-learning French from scratch. I'm also learning how to write and read Cyrillic. Oh.. and I'm learning a bit of German (this looks scary at first but I discovered how fun it can be). I don't have a strict plan regarding this, I'm just going to learn according to my mood and pace.

I guess this is referring to me, today. Lol... All I think of now is I just want to finish watching all three seasons of "Fruits Basket".

I'm thinking of doing it since I managed to do it for this year. There are so many other ways you can make a post... and I haven't fully explore that haha. But hmmm... let me think more about it.

This is one of the things that I've thought early on that I must include in my 2022 goals(?). I want to play the piano daily (at least an hour). I seriously need the practice. (Daily blogging on my music blog? I wish!) 

Weirdly though, since I started knitting, my hands feel somewhat more comfortable on the piano keys. It's like knitting helps the finger muscles develop or something.

Since it helps with playing the piano, I'm thinking of knitting something.. maybe a blanket for next year. I don't know yet, really. I can also focus on wearables like hats (or beanies?) and socks (do I dare?).. Or just learn how to crochet.

Mass Effect 2
Kept repeating it here but I should really, finally, go finish that insanity playthrough... 

It's just a continuation from this year, I guess. Will I finally learn Italian by the end of 2022? :P [Notice anything?]

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Less than an hour before 12am. I guess now is the right time to say goodbye to 2021 before I publish this post. 

Goodbye, 2021~

The Gambler. The book is not only about gamblers and gambling. I think it's also a book about addiction, which I find fascinating. There are some parts where I kind of identify with, as someone who was once in a Japanese idol fandom, and I had imaginary chills when I read those parts. It also demonstrates the problems with going into something with the "I can easily walk away if I want to" mentality which is an illusion because usually, you don't/can't. "The Gambler" also shows how addiction is opportunistic and it ruins lives.

I think it's a good 2nd book to read from Dostoevsky. I don't mind reading his other works... but maybe not the longer ones (yet) :P.

So, hopes for my next book? Hmmm... I don't know. Sci-Fi, maybe? Or one of those Austen-inspired books lol

*picks a book title from jar*

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I got "The Doomed City". By Arkady Strugatsky & Boris Strugatsky.

*checks GR*

Oooh. It's one of the books purchased when BBW was in KK (2019). And... I picked out what I hoped for (haha) because it's Sci-Fi! Another Russian work that was translated to English and it's a thick one this time. Which, again I say, is fine with me. If I can't finish it in a week, I'll just extend it every week until I do finish reading the book. 

Five books-from-the-jar later, all I can say now is I'm feeling good with this way of choosing [unread, new] book to read next. Despite not finishing two of those books (yet) because I got distracted, I dare say this method is working well so far. I am heading towards my ambitious aim. 

I might need some notebook or temporary note thingy because I'm bad at remembering Russian names. Unsurprising thing, because I don't read/see much Russian names. To be honest, this is kind of out of the range of thing I'm used to. 

It will be fine. 

Probably.

Haven't finished reading "I'd Die For You and Other Lost Stories". 

It's fine. Really.

Haven't finished reading "Dubliners" too.

Which is fine too.

I don't know what is it with short stories... I seem to take longer time to read them. Maybe because when I reach the next story, I have to like reset my mind again because it's a new story. 

Good news is, I finished the fourth book in the Kotenbu series (coincidentally, it's also a collection of short stories) last night. That makes it possible to choose a new book from the jar tomorrow. Really looking forward to that! 

And I totally abandoned sleep to finish "Phi Alpha Pi" that I borrowed from the national library. It's not even worth losing sleep for! I just ended up finishing it haaahh. Fortunately, I slept the whole morning off after that [to compensate(?)]. 

I'll try to finish those two books next week. I have a feeling that I'll procrastinate reading if I let it go on longer than a month...

Also, it's 200+ pages. 

Lucky, right?

I've also made a label dedicated to the jar in this blog (and a GR tag/shelf specifically this books). 

I said I'll try to finish them yesterday... and... I managed to pull it off. 

Honestly though, it could be done much earlier. There are days where I skipped reading because I don't feel like it. "Catch-22" isn't something you read in one sitting. Past-me, you weirdo. It's not really an easy read. (Maybe Past-me and I have different ideas about what an easy read is?) It can be very emotionally-draining. But then again, that might be because I finished it in like 2 days (although I started reading it in May 6th). I like the version I have - it has comfortable text size - but the text is arranged very densely so it definitely took longer to read a page. I didn't take 5-6 hours to read this (I was sooo naive). "Catch-22" was 9 hours for me. Almost the same with "Six Four". Reading it again, I realised the book is not for everyone. They don't treat the females very kindly (it's during a war) in the book.  

"The Last Lecture" can be read in one sitting but can also be emotionally-draining when you read it directly after "Catch-22". I realised I've already been doing some of the things he said. So I guess I do still remember the stuff I read from it before.

I didn't mention "Fire and Hemlock" in yesterday's post so... I think I've outgrown this...or maybe not really...? It has quite a slow beginning, just like I remember it. But the way I see it is different now. The funny thing is, I don't recall what it was about (and that's funny because the same thing happened to the female main character). After reading the end, I am still unsure if I understood what happened after all these years XD 

Okay, back to the 13 books list.

In completion order:
(with links to posts that mentioned them/for my reference)

Maybe a bit. I'm very much in zombie mode now so it'll take some time for me to catch up. I just got over my years of reading slump so this is pretty big for me.

Yes. Maybe with lesser amount of books and/or more time to finish. Will not do it immediately after this. I'm tired. Can't wait to get back to my lazy-but-still-reading pace :P

Reading these books gave me data. So here's some update to my [rough] reading rate: mass paperback (100 pages in one hour), trade paperback (100 pages in 1-2 hours)... that's all for now. 

Thursday 13 post!

These are books I want to read in the next 3 months. 

And to make it easier, if I couldn't finish in 3 months, I have until my birthday in September to finish them. (＇∀＇)

To be honest, I'm a bit scared that doing this list will backfire in the end. What if I'm back to a reading slump? What if I don't feel like reading the book?

Oh well, since I already got all thirteen in a list, I'll just have to try and report back in 3 months... which will be on 25th of May..?

◆ Not necessarily in any particular order

◆ 1-7 Reread list, 8-13 New list

The ones in the new list... "Powers" is a random addition. I actually purchased Sphere for free on Carousell but the seller thought the shipping fee was too expensive. So I suggested adding another book he's giving away for free... I don't even know how I was so bold at suggesting that... but this looks interesting so I can't wait to read it! Frankenstein was the one I mentioned before in this blog.