New Year's Blogging Resolutions

Inspired by Grace at Books Without Any Pictures I've decided to also make a list of resolutions. Let's just hope that I keep those this year.

1. I will work on a book review while I'm reading it and not leave it to the end.  Although I am happy with my latter reviews format, every time I know there are things that I wanted to discuss that I forgot because I didn't write it down. I am armed with a notebook and my laptop so note away!
2. I will have at least a post a month that is not a review. I know that it doesn't seem like a lot, but when I first tried this I was always lacking inspiration. So once a month give me the time to work on it.
3. I will keep my review tab updated. I keep forgetting to add the new finished books and to link to each review!. Again, once a month I will update it completely.
4. I will read more non-fiction. Self explanatory
5. I will read more of my already owned books and do my best not to buy new ones for a while.

What about you guys? Any resolutions? Goals?

Have a great 2014!!!

2013...a year in books

 

 

So another year has come and go. I have to tell you...it was a good year for me and this blog.

If you are new visiting here you might not know this, but this year my brother did a whole new banner for the blog, a banner that I really like and that even changes with the seasons!. Also during this year I got a bit more followers, thank you, it makes me very happy that you like my site and my reviews :) 

 

This year also marked a personal record for me, I read 67 books this year! I am very happy because as you can see, every year I've managed to read a bit more. Now, something that I have to mention is that I didn't read that much pages than last year, but that is due to another change that took place and that is Audible. It was during spring that I first listen to an audio book on a transatlantic flight and I was hooked. I always thought they were not for me, and there you have it! 

So let's brake down this year in numbers, shall we? Out of the 67 books I read 60% were in paper format (either hardcover or paperback). 90% of the books were fiction! This is something that doesn't surprise me, but I would like to increase the amount of books of non-fiction that I read, and that is one of my goals for 2014. 

 

71% of the books I read were written by female authors; 91% of them were written in English and finally 54% of them came from the library. While I feel very proud of using my library I have a lot of books in my shelves that have been there for a while. Here we have my second goal for 2014: I want to reduce the amount of books that I haven't read that I already own. So I will...try not to buy books for a while...except when I will use a gift card I got for Christmas ;).

During 2013 I participated in 2 challenges: "Where in the world are you reading" hosted by Book Journey. I had a lot of fun with this challenge and it made set another goal for next year: I want to increase the diversity (geographically shall we say?) of my reading. I mean look at that map! There is no books in the southern hemisphere!

The second challenge was the "Sequel" challenge. It was originally hosted by Aunti Spinelli Reads, but she moved over Novel Heartbeat. This was also fun and next year she is organizing a Sequel/Prequel challenge with points...ladies and gentleman I love points, so you guessed it I will be joining this challenge to. There will be a separate post for joining the challenges and hopefully I will post them tomorrow.

I am planning to do the 2 Read-a-Thons this year and both Once upon a Time and the R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril both hosted by Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings.

Well, this is it I think. I wish to everyone a wonderful new year!

TSS: New year, New books, New look

 

Hello everybody!. I hope you all had a very nice holiday season, full of happiness, good food, merry moments with your family and, off course new books.

Me? I can't complaint. I got a lot of books that I had on my wishlist and then some. The boyfriend and I celebrated our birthday this week-end and so I got even more books! Here they are:

 

For Christmas my boyfriend got me The Sister Brothers, UnOrthodox and Bossypants, and his cousin got us Paul à la pêche. Also, from LibraryThing I got The Webs of Varok. And finally for my birthday he got me The Nightmare and my father-in-law got me The Last Unicorn and Haroun and the Sea of Stories. The last one made me a bit teary since is a book I read when I was a kid and I only remembered the story, not the title, and he got it for me!.

Anyway, remember when a few months ago I mentioned I wanted to change my blog's look? Well, I'm sure you have noticed by now my new banner. I had already changed the background and did all the legal stuff last year. Well, since my brother was with me for the holidays I hired them to do the banner. What do you think? I am very happy with it :).

Have a lovely week, I think I will be posting a new review this week!

TSS: Happy New Year

Hello everybody! Let me wish you a Happy New Year, full of books and happiness!. I'm writing this in advance while being forced to stay in because of the snow storm. We have been lucky, we still have power and other than the fact that we cannot see our car since is completely covered by snow, we are perfectly fine.

I used this day to catch up with the two reviews I had to post: Body Double and Rachel's Secret. Both were very nice books to read and since I'm sort off in vacation were fast reads too. Right now I just started The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. I've heard wonders about the book and since I'm doing the sequel challenge I figure I could tackle the first installment of this series and do the follow up during 2013.

This year I had a goal of 40 books and I'm very pleased with myself, since I accomplished it. Now the hard part is deciding what should be my goal for next year. You see, I am tempted to say 50, but I also know I have a big year ahead with my PhD and I hate not reaching my goals. So maybe I will go halfway and stick to a healthy 45. What do you think?.

What are your 2013 goals? book or non-book related. Do you guys work with a book goal?

You will also note that I now have all the legal props that apparently one should have when having a blog. I decided to do it since I've been spending a fair amount of time in the site now and I'm planning on changing my reviews a little bit. Just trying to make them more fun and hopefully more interesting ;).

Have a wonderful week and an amazing new year! Hope to see you visiting during 2013.