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. AnonymousDecember 30, 2013 at 6:58 AM

    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.

    ReplyDelete

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