A Year of Reading 2014

The questions for this survey came from The Perpetual Page Turner’s blog.

I love doing end of year recaps.  I did this same survey for the first time last year.  I also did a post of the best books I read in 2014 and the best books I read in 2013.  You can also check out my recap posts for 2012 and 2011 too. :)

Reading Stats

Books read: 50  (same from 2013)

Pages read: 15242 (-2952 from 2013)

Average pages per book: 305 (-50 from 2013)

Books Re-Read in 2014: None! This might be the first year that I didn’t reread any books.

DNF Books for 2014: 4 (This is also the first year that I decided to quit a book if I wasn’t liking it)

Reviews written: 47

Books read written by women: 34

Books read written by men: 16

Most Read Genre: Besides Young Adult, it was fantasy according to this lovely chart :)

Genre	Amount
Adult Fiction	5
Audiobook	9
Biography	0
Childrens	4
Classic	8
Contemporary	4
Dystopian	6
Epic Poetry	0
Fairy Tale	3
Fantasy	10
Fiction	0
Graphic Novel	0
Historical Fiction	3
Horror	0
Humor	3
Memoir	5
Middle Grade	2
Mystery	1
Mythology	1
Non-fiction	8
Novelization	0
Novella	1
Paranormal Romance	4
Post Apocalyptic	0
Retelling	5
Romance	9
Science Fiction	5
Self Help	2
Short Stories	0
Star Wars	0
Steampunk	0
Supernatural	1
World War II	0
Young Adult	21

Total Money Spent on Books: $165.79

Shortest Book Read: The Too-Clever Fox by Leigh Bardugo (32 pages)

Longest Book Read: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (1276 pages)

Book Awards

 

It was hard to pick, but as I went over all the books that I gave 5 stars this year, A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness is the one that was the most unique, the one that I still think about, and the one that moved me the most.

 

Favorite Quotes

 

Book Blogging

1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2014?

My friend Karena joined the blogosphere mostly because I designed her blog for her ;) She has more of a writer blog than book blog but she does talk about books so you should go check out her blog, Discovery Writer.

I also love Apocalypse Booked who loves science fiction, especially Star Wars, like I do.  I love her reading lists. What a cool idea!

I’m always excited to find other Utah bloggers and I was lucky to find Bookmark Dragon this year!

2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2014?

Let’s be honest. Hate reviews are SO much fun to write.  They are even more fun to write about classics and my review for Journey to the Center of the Earth was the most fun I had writing a review in a long time :) It was quite cathartic to get all those annoyances off my chest.

” Journey to the Center of the Earth was incredibly slow.  It took 100 pages for them to get to the volcano, walk around, and run out of water.” – See the rest of my review here.

3. Best discussion/non-review post you had on your blog?

I loved hearing people’s thoughts on how they deal with racism in classic novels.

4. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?

The best even I went to this year was by far the Laini Taylor book signing! Her speech was so inspiring and she was delightful to meet.

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2014?

Trying NaNoWriMo was the best! Maybe I failed, but I was still proud of what I learned about myself and that I gave writing a shot.  I think writing doesn’t work in my life right now, but I’m going to try it again in a few years.

7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?

If I’m going by by page views my most popular post was The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. It got a top ten google ranking for some reason and it got twice the hits that even my home page did.

8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?

I learned so much about Vikings from the book Divide and Conquer and it was a blast to write the Google Diary post for it but it didn’t get any comments.  It’s awesome! Really! Go look! :)

9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?

Audiobooks! I had never listened to audiobooks before and I honestly didn’t think I would like them.  I set a challenge to listen to at least 2 in a year to try them out and I ended up listening to 11 of them. They are the best thing to listen to while doing other things I hate like cleaning my house or exercising.

Reading Challenges

A lot of these challenges are a fail but part of that is because I’m 7 reviews behind.  Oh well.  I’m still very proud of finishing the audiobook challenge and how close I got on a lot of the other challenges.  I think I won’t sign up for so many this year :)  The Classics Club is an ongoing challenge and I’m glad to say I read 5 books towards that challenge this year.