Mount TBR Reading Challenge: Mountaineering Checkpoint No. 1

Hard to believe April is a whole week old now, but my calendar tells me that's true. Which means it's time for Check-in #1 in this year's Mount TBR Reading Challenge. I usually forget to do these check-ins, but for some reason this year my brain seems to be a little better oiled or something.

Let's see.... I signed up for the Pike's Peak level (Level 1), twelve books from my TBR pile/s; and so far, I've finished four books that qualify:

1. Five Children and It. E. Nesbit (pub. 1902; read in March) 
2. Just Kids. Patti Smith (pub. 2010; read in February) 
3. A Murder Is Announced (Miss Marple #5). Agatha Christie (pub. June 1950; read in January) 
4. Vintage Murder (Roderick Alleyn #5). Ngaio Marsh (pub. 1937; read in January) 

All of which have been on my shelves for quite a while; in fact, I think I've had my copy of Five Children and It since sometime back in the 1970s.

Bev had a few questions for us to think about answering. One about a favorite cover — and I have to admit, none of the covers on my books this time were really anything to cheer about. I guess if I had to choose one, it would be the cover of the paperback edition of the Patti Smith memoir Just Kids:

That's Patti with Robert Mapplethorpe back in about 1970. They made a very striking pair, didn't they?

And as for favorite characters.... Well, I think I'd (always) have to choose Miss Marple. She's always been one of my favorite fictional inventions, and she's at her Miss-Marple-est in A Murder Is Announced. But Inspector Roderick Alleyn, from the Ngaio Marsh mystery series, would run her a close second.

So, at this point I think I'm on track. If I continue with at least three or four books per quarter, I should do a little better than twelve books by the end of 2018. That's what I'm hoping, anyway. I know that would only make a very tiny dent in my ridiculously enormous TBR piles/lists. But for now, I'm still climbing the mountain. No falls, no set-backs, and no reason to be seeking shelter in a cave along the way. Yet.