Monday, January 3, 2011

One Year Later...

...and where am I?

When I started this journey of keeping count of and reviewing all the books I read in one year, I didn’t think beyond that. Counting and reviewing everything I read in one year. I was surprised to discover it became something more.

I’m not going to sit here now and tell you my life has been changed by this endeavor, because it hasn’t. Oh, my life has changed in this year. I was unemployed in January, began studying for my new career in February, went through my new career training in March, spent April looking for a job and started my new job in my new career in May. I spent the first month in my new job as an orientee and started “soloing” in June. July, August and September went by in a blur and in October I began planning for my November NaNoWriMo project. In November, I wrote my 50,000 word novel (50,632 words to be precise) all while working full time and continuing my reading (thank you, please, hold your applause). And finally, this December, I slowed down a bit. I didn’t stop reading, but I did take a little break from the writing, took a quick trip to Connecticut to visit family and got ready for the holidays.

So now here we are at the end of the year and what have I accomplished, at least where this blog is concerned? In 2010, I read 79 books—I was hoping to make 80, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.

Some statistics:

New-to-me authors: 22
Physical books: 35
Audio books: 40
e-Books: 4
New books (not re-reads): 48
Re-reads: 41

Number of Books Read By Author:
Jayne Castle – 11
Kay Hooper – 11
Nora Roberts – 11 (Only 11? Seemed like much more…)
Christine Feehan – 6
Jerry Jenkins – 3
Jayne Ann Krentz – 3
Maggie Shayne – 3
Camy Tang – 3
Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon – 2
Elizabeth Lowell – 2
Ridley Pearson – 2
Michael Robotham – 2
Phaedra Weldon – 2
Sandi Ault – 1
Richard Belzer with Michael Black – 1
Claudia Carroll – 1
Lee Child – 1
Joshua Corin – 1
Catherine Coulter – 1
Ted Dekker – 1
Darlene Gardner – 1
Kristin Hannah – 1
Robert Harris – 1
Megan Hart – 1
Tanya Huff – 1
Marshall Karp – 1
P.D. Martin – 1
Liz Maverick – 1
Amanda Quick – 1
Ray Rhamey – 1
Stuart Woods – 1

Although my reviews include four additional books, I actually read them in 2009 and transferred the reviews from my other blog, so I didn’t count them in any of these statistics, but here they are:

T.L. Hines – 1, Physical book
Laurie Channer – 1, e-Book
Rick Maydak – 1, Physical book
Shaun Jeffrey – 1, Physical book

And my final statistic, number of books started and never finished – 5.

So what do these statistics mean? I think they mean what most statistics mean…which is, not much, but I was bored and felt like counting 


What are my plans for 2011? Well, I’m not going to stop reading, and I enjoyed writing these reviews, so this blog will continue as Another Year in Reviews. I will do this with three goals in mind…resolutions, if you will:

1 – Read more books (I’m aiming for 100)
2 – Read more new books and fewer re-reads
3 – Read more new-to-me authors

I think #3 is what I enjoyed most about last year. Some new-to-me authors weren’t worth the time (those five unfinished books), but I read a number of new-to-me authors that I really liked—Marshall Karp, Joshua Corin, Lee Child, Maggie Shayne, Phaedra Weldon and Ridley Pearson top that list (in no particular order).

I’m still looking for recommendations, so if you have an author you particularly like and think I might as well, please let me know about them.

All right 2011, let’s see what you’ve got!

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