Sunday 4 January 2015

2014 - The Year That Was

My summer holiday is over - another working year looms.

The days are hot and sticky, but luckily we live near the harbour, so every evening our house cools down with a lovely sea breeze.

Perfect reading weather.

I take my book to the pool where I do laps. As I dry off in the dappled light of the Mortan Bay fig, I read a chapter or two.

At home, when it's too hot and sticky to do anything outside, I park myself in front of a fan...and read another chapter or two.

In the evening, after some quality time with our holiday jigsaw puzzle, I lie in bed, enjoying the sea breeze & another chapter or two.

Today I also took the time to tally my 2014 reading habits.

In 2014 I wrote 216 posts, celebrated 5 years of blogging & reached the 500 post milestone.

125 of my 216 posts were book reviews. The rest were meme entries, readalongs, entries about blogging or other book related events. 7 posts were poems (yay me!)

105 of the book reviews were fiction; 20 were non-fiction.

76 were book reviews by female authors; 49 by men.

63 books were International authors; 62 were Australian.

A few of the stand-out book moments for me this year were 'discovering' Australian author Sonya Hartnett, reading The Railwayman's Wife by Ashley Hay & reading my first David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks.

Other book related highlights include meeting our former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard at a Random House function earlier in the year and meeting US blogger Melissa from Avid Reader's Musings when she visited Sydney.

I thoroughly enjoyed meeting everyone from Paris in July & I had a ball with my first ever Dewey's 24 hr Readathon in October. Angela Carter reading week with Delia & Caroline was also an amazing reading experience. And a special thank you to Ali at Heavenali for introducing me to Willa Cather.

2014 reinforced my love of reading events & the joy I get from being part of the blogging community.
Year long challenges don't always work so well (I lose momentum), but a serendipitous selection of readalongs throughout the year are perfect. They suit my free-range reading habits exactly.

I've already declared my 2015 intentions for my TBR pile with Adam, Karen's Back to the Classics & Behold the Stars' Reading England Challenge.

I can now also officially sign up for the the Australian Women Writers Reading Challenge (AWW). Judging from last years stats, I feel confident in aiming for the Franklin level - 10 books & 6 reviews by Australian women writers.

And just quietly, between you and me...this is my 600th blog post :-D

9 comments:

  1. I don't have the discipline for challenges, I've decided: they make me think of assignments, etc., and remove at least a little of the joy of reading for pleasure. I admire those who can stick to them! Congratulations on 600 posts - re blogging, I 'could do better' (assignment-speak!) definitely.

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    1. I felt a little like that with my 2014 challenges. That's why this year I'm only doing ones that cater to my strengths and interests :-)
      And 600...is purely a sign of a slightly obsessive personality :-)

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  2. 600 posts are truly impressive. Also staying with a blog for five plus years in an accomplishment.

    Happy reading in 2015!

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  3. Anonymous5/1/15

    Congrats on 600 posts! I'm also signed up for the TBR Pile and Back to the Classics challenges, so I'll see you around. :)

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  4. Congratulations, Brona, and thanks for the shout for the AWW challenge. I haven't yet read any Sonya Hartnett (apart from a lovely children's picture book), but she's on my list. I look forward to hearing about your reading discoveries in 2015.

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  5. Congratulations on 600 posts Brona. I remember your enthusiasm for The Railwayman's Life, I wish I'd found time to read it so far. I agree with you about reading challenges, I only do those that I would read anyway- my 1001 reading makes other goals pretty difficult. I do think the AWW Challenge is particularly important and always enjoy writing posts for that. I can't wait to see what our reading year involves- there's been some surprises already.

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  6. So fun to read your highlights, Brona! All the best in 2015!

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  7. 600-yeah! Go you! I'm almost at my 4 year blogging anniversary. So congratulations on 5 years.

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