Reading Roundup: First Quarter 2019

I don’t have hard goals for the number of books I want to read each year, because it’s more important to enjoy what I read than to plow through books to reach a certain number.

But I do like to check occasionally to see how many I’ve read so far, and it’s fun to stack books in a pile and take pictures of them. (I recently started a books-focused Instagram account if you’re interested.)

The above snapshot shows 15 books I read between Jan. 1 and March 31, minus library books and the manuscripts I edited. Titles are listed below, some with links to reviews, others with reviews coming.

My favorites

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s Daisy Jones and the Six (I also listened to the audiobook, which has a full cast)

Anthony Horowitz’s The Sentence Is Death

The rest 

The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang

Save Me from Dangerous Men by S. A. Lelchuk

The Secretary by Renee Knight

Call Me Evie by J. P. Pomare

The Better Sister by Alafair Burke

Watcher in the Woods by Kelley Armstrong

More Than Words by Jill Santopolo

The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley

The Stranger Inside by Laura Benedict

The Lost Night by Andrea Bartz

The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary

If She Wakes by Michael Koryta

Everything Is Just Fine by Brett Paesel

Some stats about the 15

Debut novels: 6

Books read entirely for pleasure, not work: 6

Authors new to me: 6

Female authors: 12

Author of color: 1

International authors: 6 (British 4, Australian 1, Canadian 1)

Imprints: 12

Hmm. Apparently I like doing things in even numbers and multiples of 6. I won’t do a hard analysis—what am I, a scientist?—but it’s good to see the number of female authors is high, that I’m open to authors I’ve never heard of, and don’t limit myself to American writers. Not patting myself on the back, though. I want to read more by writers of color.

What does your reading roundup look like for 2019 so far ?