Back in October 2022, I reached 200 book reviews. My goal is to be all caught up at some point on reviews, no backlog, but I don’t know if that is really doable. When I’m in the groove for writing them, it’s great. But I get bored writing them all in a batch, I stop, and then it’s hard to get back into it. Which just allows the backlog to grow again.

Since #200, I have reorganized my ebook collection, filling in a lot of gaps so I could have complete “sets” of some stories, and started using Amazon First Reads as well as library networks affiliated with the Ottawa Public Library.

Over the last 50, some truly memorable books are hidden in the numbers…#208, the Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon, a fascinating story of an autistic man who has the chance to “cure” his autism. #245, The Running Grave, by Robert Galbraith, dealing with a cult. Lots of older mysteries with Lawrence Sanders. Some sci-fi by Andy Weir and William Gibson. And I’ve even reviewed some historical mysteries.

My ebook collection shows 46 books in my “Reviewing – New” collection, which are basically books that I’ve added to the collection and read over the last year or so. I also have a “Reviewing – Old” collection with some 187 other ones in there. Which means I guess I’ve cleared 25 or so from the backlog and written 25 other new ones.

As I approached #250, I was trying to decide what it would be. Perhaps The Martian by Andy Weir? Perhaps a classic mystery? Another one by a favourite author?

In the end, I did none of those. I chose a book that I read about six weeks ago where I felt like I was reading a brand new author of amazing skill (she’s not new, just new to me). And for the first half+ of the book, I felt like I was falling in love with reading again. The last quarter wasn’t awesome, a structural problem that would have been difficult to avoid, but still great nevertheless.

Onward to #300!