Spring Reading Wrap Up

I know I'm really late but I'm finally posting my Spring Reading Thing 2009 wrap up post. I really have no excuse, so I'll just leave it as my bad.

I made my self a list that I thought would be quite easy to finish but alas, I still did not finish it. I was just shy of my goal. I'm not sure what happened but I hit a real reading funk sometime in the middle where I didn't pick up a book for about a week and that set me behind. And I had a couple of non-fictions in there. I always find those much harder and rarely do I ever finish a non-fiction unless it's an auto-biography or biography type book. I did finish one cover to cover, however, pat myself on the back. The other I'm about half way through. It's a Scottish history book and while very good I find I do have to concentrate much harder simply due to the style of writing so it's taking much longer than a fiction book.

So onto questions from Katrina for the wrap up:

Did you finish reading all the books on your spring reading list? If not, why not?

You can see my original list in my sidebar. "Never the Bride" was added after the reading thing started. As stated above the non-fiction bogged me down as did a reading funk in the middle. I didn't finish the fiction, but only by a small margin. I'm halfway through the second last one and the last one I sort of traded for "Never the Bride" which was a review book. So I just missed by half of a fiction and half of a non fiction.

What was your favorite book you read this spring? Why?

I can't believe I'm going to say this but I have to say I think it might have been one of the non-fiction ones: "Clutter-Free Christianity". It was so practical, easy to read and put into practice, lined up with the series my own pastor has been teaching on, and was just the back to basics teaching I needed at the time. Go figure. LOL.

I also really, really enjoyed "Never the Bride" and "My Heart Remembers".

Did you discover a new author or genre this spring? Did you love them? Not love them?

Robert Whitlow was new to me. I did enjoy the book and will probably try out another of his offerings when I am in the mood for a spiritual based mystery. I liked it because it dealt well the the spiritual end of things without it actually being a "horror" story and scaring the pants off of me. LOL. I don't do well with really scary stories. And this one fit the bill nicely.

Kim Vogel Sawyer was also new to me and I loved her story of the Irish orphan children that were put on trains and transported from the east to the west to unknown futures and how the siblings in the story always held out the hope that they would one day see each other again.

Arthur Herman was new to me and his is the history of Scotland book. Like I said, interesting, but by it's very nature and writing style, requires much more concentration so you don't get to the end of the page and then ask yourself what it is that you just read. Lots of detail. I probably wouldn't pass a test on it. :v)

What was your favorite thing about the challenge?

As usual, reading everyone else's list and getting many ideas for future reads.

So that's a wrap! Until next fall anyway. I've got some summer reads lined up that I'm looking forward to including "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. I've never read any of her books as of yet and I nabbed this one because the movie is coming out soon and I wanted to read the novel first. So what have you got lined up for a summer read?