16,985 Pages

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to read more books and pages than last year....and I have already achieved that with still one month left in the year. So far in 2013, I have read 50 books and 16,985 pages (these stats do not include books that I have reread this year). In 2012, I read only 41 books and 13,111 pages; I am actually still impressed with my 2012 reading stats because I was still in graduate school. You may be thinking, "Shaida, did you calculate the pages in each book read by hand?" And to that I respond, NO! One of the benefits of having a goodreads.com account is that it keeps track of those stats for you, so there's no need to break out the calculator. Additionally, once you join goodreads it will keep track of all your activity; therefore, my data goes back to year 2011 where I read 53 books and 16,265 pages. I tend to read more fiction than nonfiction novels but overall I think my books selection is diverse. Let me know if you have any recommendations, even though I have 1333 books that I want to-read already according to my goodreads account!

Here are some of the books I tackled in 2013:

• The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida
• A Commonplace Book of Pie by Kate Lebo
• Killing Jesus by Bill O'Reilly
• The Dinner by Herman Koch
• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
• The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones
• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
• Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
• Faster I Walk, the Smaller I Am (Norwegian Literature Series) by Kjersti A. Skomsvold
• After Midnight by Irmgard Keun
• The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
• Man Up! Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence by Ross Mathews
• Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir by Ellen Forney
• Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep by David K. Randall
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore A Novel by Robin Sloan
• A Thousand Mornings Poems by Mary Oliver
• Proof of Heaven A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben Alexander
• The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
• Gulp: Adventures of the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach
• Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire
• Frost Burn by Patricia Briggs
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri 
• The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers
• Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
• The Perfect Hope by Nora Roberts
• Notorious Nineteen by Janet Evanovich
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
• How to Tell If Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by Matthew Inman
• These Girls by Sarah Pekkanen
• Inside by Alix Ohlin
• This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
• Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly
• The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales by Hans Christian
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson
• The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
• A Game of Thrones by George R. Martin
• A Dog's Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron
• Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
• The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer
• Life of Pie by Yann Martel

Beach 2 & Funky Funky Trees

A name can say a lot about a person and a place. In the Olympic National Forest there are beaches that are called Beach 1-4; yes, that is seriously their name. I feel like they were named in honored of Dr. Seuss because that is the only explanation why they have such "literal" names. On the way down to the beach you will pass the COOLEST trees. The trees have these round growths (they look like tree tumors) protruding all over them. My friend indicated that the forest would the most amazing set for a movie or haunted trail.

Into the dark dark forest.......

The tide rolling in

I have never seen trees like this; looks like they belong in the Shire in LOTR

I really wanted to poke one of these to see what came out......