2013 Year in Review

It seems like it wasn't too long ago that it was the beginning of the year and I was thinking "oh it's so long until the literary awards season, and so long until I get to make those fun end of the year posts."  Honestly, around last February this time of year seemed so far away.  And yet now, as with almost every year,  I look back and wonder how it all flew by.  So, let's take a quick look back at my year in reading and the things I have learned.

Trends
Once again, it's been an eclectic year.  Biography, literary fiction, chick-lit, cookbooks, CanLit, current events, mystery, even an etiquette book, I once again enjoyed reading many different books.  I think this is the trick to me reading a lot, and with only one DNF this year, I seem to have made a good choice in books.  Were there any trends?  Other than taking loads of chick lit with me on my holidays, I don't think there is anything you can narrow down.

Most Popular Posts
Here a few of my most-read reviews this year:

An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth - Chris Hadfield
A House in the Sky - Amanda Lindhout
Emancipation Day - Wayne Grady
Parenting Without Borders - Christine Gross-Loh
Just What Kind of Mother Are You? - Paula Daly
Ghana Must Go - Taiye Selasi
Ascent of Women - Sally Armstrong
The Poisoned Pawn - Peggy Blair
The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - Ian Hamilton
Eighty Days - Matthew Goodman
The Heavy - Dara-Lynn Weiss

(Find out tomorrow if any of these are my best books of the year)

Challenges
If there is one thing I learned this year it's that I'm not good at completing challenges.  As in, terrible at completing challenges.  Will this stop me from entering them?  Of course not.

Every year I challenge myself to read 100 books.  Since I've started blogging, I haven't achieved this but this year I'm proud to announce that, thanks to a week long vacation at a resort with terrible Wi-fi leading to a reading binge at the end of the year, I made it to 100!!!

My other challenges:

Canadian Book Challenge - 13/13 (this one runs from July to July)
Back to Classics - 4/6
Around the World in 12 Books - 4/12
Ik Lees Nederlands - 3/5

I'm kind of disappointed with myself that I didn't finish the Ik Lees Nederlands (I Read Dutch) challenge.  However, along the way I did discover some great new (to me) Dutch authors and quite a few Dutch books I want to read, so I'm happy I signed up for it.

Readalongs
The only thing I do worse than Challenges is readalongs.  This year I joined signed up for Jane Eyre, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Little Women.  I read 1/4 of Jane Eyre, 2 chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo, and I didn't even start Little Women.  Will this stop me from signing up for them?  Yes.

Tomorrow I'll be sharing my best books of 2013.

Comments

  1. Congratulations on reading 100 books this year. I did it for the first time too, though next year I think I'm going to scale it back to 75. I don't like the feeling of being rushed.

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