I missed my wrap up post for September thanks to an unplanned break from blogging, so this month I’m combining both September and October into one big post.

Books read: 14
I’ve managed to read some really great books over the last couple of months. In particular, City of Circles, The Ninth Rain and American War all stand out as favourites.

• City of Circles, Jess Richards
• Three Days and a Life, Pierre Lemaitre
• The Last Tudor, Philippa Gregory
• The Ninth Rain, Jen Williams
• American War, Omar El Akkad
• Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Mercy, Jussi Adler-Olsen
• The Children Act, Ian McEwan
• The Break, Marian Keyes
• Elizabeth is Missing, Emma Healey
• The Thousandth Floor, Katherine McGee
• Artemis, Andy Weir
• Death is a Welcome Guest, Louise Welsh
• The Burning Page, Genevieve Cogman

Books acquired: 18
Over the past couple of months I’ve been on a tighter budget for book buying, so all of the books I’ve acquired have been ebooks on sale on Amazon (£2 or less), found in second hand shops or got through my Audible membership.

• Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld
• Dead Man’s Blues, Ray Celestin
• The Thousandth Floor, Katherine McGee
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
• Unwanted, Kristina Ohlsson
• Relics, Tim Lebbon
• Nod, Adrian Barnes
• Wintersong, S. Jae-Jones
• Right Behind You, Lisa Gardner
• The Burning Page, Genevieve Cogman
• Under a Pole Star, Stef Penney
• The Girls, Emma Cline
• Starborn, Lucy Hounsom
• The Kind Worth Killing, Peter Swanson
• The Children Act, Ian McEwan
• Mercy, Jussi Adler-Olsen
• The Break, Marian Keyes
• Le Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman

Blog posts published: 4
As mentioned, the last couple of months have been dismal for posting. I’ve had a month and a half off and so the only thing posted in September was my August wrap up. I was slightly better in October and hope to get properly back into blogging again in November.

• August wrap up
• American War, Omar El Akkad
• Three Days and a Life, Pierre Lemaitre
• Top 5: Books about time travel

TBR for November:
I’m trying not to be too prescriptive about what I’m reading at the moment, as the pressure to read and review ARCs was one of the reasons I stopped blogging for a month, but there are a couple of books that I’m really keen to get to in November.

• Le Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust, Philip Pullman
• Red Sister, Mark Lawrence
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing, Madeleine Thien
• Days Without End, Sebastian Barry

Challenge progress:

Goodreads Challenge: My Goodreads reading goal is to read 50 books this year, which I’ve met, so everything after this is a bonus. I’m currently at 68 books for the year. (68/50)

Beat the Backlist Challenge: The Beat the Backlist challenge is all about knocking off titles that have been on your TBR for a while. Books need to have been published prior to 2017, and I’m only including books that I actually bought before 2017 and that have been sitting around waiting for me to read them – so no new purchases or library reads. In September and October, one of my reads qualified, so my total is now six books towards a goal of twelve. I feel like I might fail on this challenge! (6/12)

How was your October? What was your favourite read? What do you have planned for November?