After joining the Reader’s Coffeehouse Facebook page a few weeks ago, I have found myself interacting a lot with fellow readers about favorite books, anticipated new reads and reading goals. As I said a couple of weeks ago, the page was started by authors of women’s fiction and “this is a place for readers to hang out, interact with their favorite authors, and meet others who share their passion for reading.”

One of the latest posts was about a reading challenge 2018 check-in. Goodreads usually does a reading challenge every year. In my life, I never set a yearly reading challenge, mainly because I know I’ll never reach the goal. Several of the women who checked in on this particular post are pretty ambitious — like 175 or 100 or 150. Oh, how I wish I had the time to read that many during the year. Others said their goals are 40 or 50 books for the year. I would probably be closer to that number, had I decided to do a reading challenge.

The members of this Facebook page are diverse, voracious readers. It’s fun to see some of their reading choices. I tend to be attracted to book covers, it may not matter what the book is about. But probably once I read the book synopsis, I may change my mind. Some of the members have a book blog. Others do a lot of reviews on the books they read, while others go to websites like NetGalley to try and get an advanced reader’s copy of a book.

And then there are giveaways. I’d see posts from members saying that they got this book or that book from Goodreads giveaways (or giveaways from other sites). So here’s me, at 10 p.m., cruising through the giveaways that were “ending soon,” looking for books that sound interesting or may “trip my trigger.” I’m kind of selective when it comes to choosing books, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve entered nearly 75 giveaways (or more) and have actually won a couple (one Kindle book and one paperback). In the morning, I’m always hopeful that I’ll get a “you’re a Goodreads giveaway winner” email. But of course, there may only be five copies of the book being given away, and several thousand people have entered the drawing. When looking at the giveaways, I usually enter ones that have 5 or more copies being given away. I may or may not have become obsessed with giveaways.

Like I need more books in my apartment, but it’s the thrill of winning.

As for what I’ve been reading, my book club has been on a historical fiction kick. We’re reading “Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee for April. Here’s the description on Amazon: “In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son’s powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.” I had looked up the book a few months before we chose it for book club and was hooked by the description. It’s also nearly 500 pages, and of course, I’m reading a couple of other books at the same time. It’s a reading challenge all of its own.