First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to those who partake, and to those who don’t, welcome back! It’s been awhile (again) and a lot has happened since my last apology for abandoning my blog to the internet wolves, so to speak, but the joys of the holidays means there’s actually time to sit down and do things for fun. Hooray!
Anyway, as 2013 draws to a close, it’s time to do the annual round of looking back and seeing how things went. For the first time in a long time, I will have read less than 50 books this year. That’s a big change- for a long time I was averaging around 200 per year. I certainly miss having more free time!
Just like I did last year, I went back to see if I had written any goals for myself, since offhand I’m not able to remember what they might have been. I found my first post of 2013 and read my own words, saying I was going to focus on reading for fun and writing here when the mood struck me. Frankly, the mood didn’t strike a lot this year.
I think that’s because, for a long time, I was devoting a significant amount of time and energy to blogging and the blogging world, and recently I’ve found my interest to be shifting to other things. Running (I’m training for my second half marathon- eek!), crafting, and working on certification to become a BCBA have all claimed significant portions of my time, and I’m happy for that. It’s good to have diverse interests.
Being able to leave WBiT? alone for so long and then come back to it has proven an important point for me. Reading has been something I’ve loved for as long as I can remember, and it’s one of the best hobbies out there because there’s nothing to practice and no skill to maintain, once you’re proficient. I could walk away from books and stories and come back and it’s like I never left. That’s what happened this past year- every book I’ve read has been 100% for pleasure. For my record keeping, I only track new-to-me books for the purposes of my yearly total, but I’ve reread so many books, some multiple times. It was so awesome to go back and visit my favorite stories without any pressure to do otherwise.
The books I’ve read have followed two trends this year- they’ve either been dark horses, books I grabbed at the library because the cover was interesting or the blurb was intriguing, or they’ve been books by my go-to authors. It’s safe to say I have definite favorite authors now, whereas before I think I would have waffled on that a little bit.
Over the next few days, I’ll be posting the reviews of my favorite books I’ve read this year, the ones that stand out in my memory even if they were read months ago. I’m looking forward to doing more of the same in 2014. The point of this endeavor was and is to talk about books. I’m game to get back at it.