Jana Rambles 22.7 // Considering October 2022

This post started out as a traditional goals & TBR post. However, with the Five Fall Favorites party occurring at the very beginning of the month, I decided to put it off a bit and make it a little more laid back. There is a lot going on this month that I am excited to talk about!

Bookstagram

Perhaps the most unusual, although not unexpected, aspect of this month is my return to bookstagram. For those who may not be familiar with the term, “bookstagram” just means using Instagram to post pictures of books and talk about everything related to them. For the most part IG just isn’t my preferred platform, although I enjoy scrolling through others bookish posts from time to time. I made a handful of posts during the Five Fall Favorites party, and I had more fun with it than I anticipated! So now I’m jumping into two more IG-specific challenges. Victoria Lynn is hosting an Anne of Green Gables photo challenge throughout the month of October with aesthetic prompts for each weekday. I don’t expect to have something for every day (so far I’ve only done one), but on the days that I do have time (and inspiration), I hope to join in.

The other challenge is actually not part of the bookstagram niche. Amanda Tero, who is an author and musician, is hosting a fall themed sight reading challenge. There are seven challenge words, and the goal is to sight read something that somehow relates to the each one before the end of October. I really don’t know how I am going to fit the music I have on hand to the challenge words, but I look forward to giving it a shot now that I (theoretically) have a little more free time to practice the piano.

TBR & Review Progress

Participating in the Five Fall Favorites seems to have been a good jumpstart to get me writing at a designated time again, so I intend to use that momentum to get back into the habit of consistently writing book reviews. Depending on how the rest of this year goes, I plan to take on more review requests from authors at the beginning of 2023 after taking a big step back during grad school. Until then, I want to work on cutting down on my turnaround time for writing reviews of the books I buy or check out from the library. I don’t have a specific or numerical goal for this as it’s more about rebuilding and strengthening good habits that I simply haven’t exercised since focusing on grad school.

I’m still working on my Fall TBR List, which you can read about in this post or see in the sidebar on this page. So far I have finished three of the titles and started or at least checked out from the library three others. Those numbers may not be big, but I’m happy with them.

Personal Events

Like I said in the beginning, there is a lot going on this month! Several family and friends will celebrate birthdays, plus I have a day set aside to decorate pumpkins with my nephews, Trunk’r’Treat with my church, game nights, and a handful of other events.

Posts To Look Forward To

Some things you can look forward to on Reviews From the Stacks during the rest of October include celebrating upcoming book releases (After Our Castle by Kellyn Roth, Delete That by John Crist, and Marmee by Sarah Miller), a few Tackling the TBR posts discussing books on my TBR list, Thursday Encouragements, and participating in WWW Wednesday and First Link Friday linkups. Also, last month I mentioned working on a post discussing Meg March, and it is still in progress. It’s become a bit more dynamic than I originally thought, so I don’t want to rush getting it up. I’ll share it when it is ready, and at the moment I’m not sure when that will be. There will likely be a handful of literary rambling posts coming soon as well.