Books Read in August

August was a great reading month, including two 400+ page books for my Big Book Summer Challenge!

Here's what I read:

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a classic (Congo)
• Dreamology by Lucy Keating, teen/YA audiobook (MA)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, fiction (NZ, Belgium, HI, UK, Korea)

• Unbecoming by Jenny Downham, teen/YA audiobook (UK)
• The Marvels by Brian Selznick, middle-grade fiction (UK)

So, a total of 5 books, but two of them were over 500 pages! It was an all-fiction month for me, with 2 adult novels, 2 teen/YA novels, and 1 middle-grade/teen novel - a nice variety, with 2 of them on audio. My favorite? Easy - Cloud Atlas, one of the most unique novels I have ever read and in my Top 10 Books of all-time! You have to check out this original, creative novel for yourself!

Progress on 2016 Reading Challenges:
This is my favorite part of my monthly summary - updating my Reading Challenges! I read 3 more TBR books in August for my Read Your Own Damn Books Challenge - that's a total of 13 so far this year. For the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge, August was Genre Jumble month - I was supposed to read a genre I don't normally read. It's a bit of a stretch, but I did finally read a classic - only the 2nd one I've read in the past year or so. I added no new nonfiction books to my 2016 Nonfiction Reading Challenge, and finally another classic for the 2016 Classics Challenge - I'm up to 2 now! For my Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge, I read books set in Congo, New Zealand, UK, Belgium, and Korea (4 of those were all in the same book!).  I am also tracking the states my books are set in, even though there is no Where Are You Reading challenge this year, and I added 1 new state - Hawaii -  this month.

Finally, I filled 18 spaces on my monthly Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break - my best month yet! (you can join the fun any month without officially joining a challenge). Here's my Bingo card for August:

My books filled these spaces:

Heart of Darkness - shelf-love (TBR) book, adventure
Dreamology - pets, romance, best friends, family, free, set on a school campus
Cloud Atlas - park, helpers profession, dystopia, historical, artist/writer, from the boy's POV, murder, band/musician
Unbecoming - diversity
The Marvels - running
(after reading Cloud Atlas, there were no spaces left for my last two books to fill! You MUST read this remarkable book)
Free space

Believe it or not, this is one of THREE book bingo games I played this summer - kind of confusing!

What was your favorite book read in August?