2014 In Review — Reading

This week I am discussing my year in review. I’ve talked about my blogging and I’ve talked about my challenge participation. Now I want to review my reading. This will be pretty short. My goal was to read at least one book per week, or 52 books. I surpassed that by quite a bit. I finished 64 books as of today (I am in the middle of two others, but probably won’t finish them before the New Year rolls in). I actually was better about reviewing than I thought I was. I reviewed all but 7 books. This means I reviewed about 90% of the books I read, and if I were setting a goal for next year, 90% would be a good target. I also started 3 other books, but did not finish them and did not review them.

I am not opposed to review a book I DNF, if it is for a reason that I think others should be aware of, such as language or content issues, so poorly written or edited that it is difficult to follow, etc. But that is not the case with any of these books. They simply did not hold my interest at the time I picked them up and I had other books I wanted to get to. It’s possible they would hook me if I picked them up again, and I didn’t read enough to give a good review, so they are just marked as DNF.

Here is a list of the books I read in 2014. Reviewed titles are linked to my reviews.

Reviewed

1. Playing St. Barbara
2. The Shogun's Daughter
3. The Kitchen House
4. Becalmed
5. Band of Sisters
6. Reached
7. A Life Apart
8. A Snug Life Somewhere
9. Steeped In Evil
10. The Moon Sisters
11. The Last Runaway
12. Baseball Animals
13. Mrs. Lincoln's Rival
14. The Time Traveler's Boyfriend
15. The Light Between Oceans
16. The Weight of Blood
17. Second Star
18. The Unfinished Child
19. Up At Butternut Lake
20. The Daring Ladies of Lowell
21. The Astronaut Wives Club
22. For Such A Time
23. The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion
24. A Beauty So Rare
25. The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
26. Little Island
27. The Vacationers
28. Mambo In Chinatown
29. The Hurricane Sisters
30. The From-Aways
31. Elizabeth Is Missing
32. Losing Touch
33. Necessary Lies
34. Sisterland
35. A Triple Knot
36. All I Know and Love
37. The Explanation For Everything
38. Big Little Lies
39. This Is The Water
40. Cancel The Wedding
41. The Chaperone
42. The Virtues of Oxygen
43. Five Days Left
44. The Agincourt Bride
45. A Matter of Mercy
46. American Blonde
47. I Shall Be Near To You
48. The Lost Tribe of Coney Island
49. Certainty
50. Leaving Time
51. The Moonlight Palace
52. The Silent Wife
53. Lost and Found
54. The Ripper's Wife
55. The Underground Girls of Kabul
56. The Look of Love
57. Dorothy Must Die

Not Reviewed

1. Station Eleven
2. Elsewhere
3. Accidents of Marriage
4. The Perfect Mother
5. The Girl Who Came Home
6. Hold Still
7. The Cost of Love and Sanity

DNF

1. Swan House
2. Never Coming Back
3. A Long Time Gone

2014 In Review — Challenges

Today I want to talk about challenges. To be very honest, this is an area in which I have a FAILING score!

You can see my ‘scorecard’ here.

I only entered a few challenges because based on past experience, I KNEW I would have a problem keeping up. But more scorecard is deceiving. Even when it LOOKS like I completed the challenge….I didn’t! For example, I went well beyond reading the 15 books I committed to for the Historical Fiction Challenge, BUT a big part of the challenge is posting reviews AND linking them on the Historical Tapestry website. I DID link about twelve of them, but then just gave up.

Let’s take a closer lookllll

2014 Historical Fiction Challenge

I committed to the Medieval level, or to reading a minimum of 15 books. I actually read and posted reviews for 24 books, and read a few more that I did not review. But as I mentioned above, I only linked 12 of my reviews to the Historical Tapestry website, so I have to count this as a fail. I didn’t not complete the challenge, though I came close. I will probably sign up for this one again, because I DO read a lot of historical fiction. It should not be this hard to remember to go link my reviews!

My grade — D+

2014 TBR Pile Challenge

This one was a miserable failure. I committed to reading 12 books that were on my TBR at the beginning of the year. I only succeeded in reading 4. On the plus side, I did actually review all 4 books! And I started another book, The Swan House by Elizabeth Musser, but it did not hold my interest. So I did kind of knock a book off my TBR! I think one of the problems with this challenge was that I had to choose which books I wanted to read way back in January. That just didn’t work for me. I may try to do a modified version of this one next year that I set up just for myself. I really would like to knock another 12 books from my shelf this year, so I may set that as a goal, but do some ‘free range’ reading to accomplish this; pick from my shelf whatever suits me at the time.

My Grade — F

2014 Mount TBR Challenge

This one seemed like a simple idea; to read 12 books that were on my TBR. However, it wasn’t as simple as it sounded. They had to physically be on my shelf before January of last year. That meant NO library books! I’m not sure if I will do this one. I actually won a lot of books in the last three months that I want to be sure to get to, so I may just accomplish this one this year. I plan to cut back on my book tour commitments so that I WILL have more time for ‘free range’ reading.

My Grade — FFF!!!

2013 Goodreads Choice Awards

This was a challenge I made for myself, in an attempt to diversify my reading. It didn’t work. My plan was to look through the nominees from the 2013 GoodRead Choice voting, and choose to read 10 books from various categories. Like I said, it didn’t work. I didn’t even try tracking categories, so I can’t even say if I came close. Will I try this next year? Maybe, but only if I think of a better way to do it.

My Grade — FFF!!!

2014 GoodRead Reading Challenge

I love this one because it is so easy! All I have to do is tell GoodReads how many books I want to read and then mark them as read as I complete them. No review necessary, and I really don’t even need to star-rate them! I DO like to add reviews and if all went perfectly I would add each book to my ‘score card’. But even without reviews, I did complete the challenge. I challenge myself to read one book per week, or 52 books. As of today I have finished 64, and may get another one or two done before the year ends! So yes, I will definitely do the 2015 GoodReads Reading Challenge next year…..if I can find it! That seems to be the real challenge for me each year; finding the link to sign up! Anyone know where it is??

My Grade — A+

2014 Book Club Reads

My book club meets monthly, with a new book each month except December, when we have our Christmas brunch. (Am I the only one who went looking for a book titled ‘Christmas Brunch’ when I saw it on the schedule???) Most years I miss reading one or two books because I give up on them (particularly if they are a memoir!) or I know I won’t be there. But this year, even though I was not able to attend all the meetings, I did actually read all the books! And I posted reviews for all but two! Of course, this is an informal challenge that I participate in by default as a member of a book club, so I will be doing this one again in 2015. We already have our first five books selected and I have them on reserve!

My Grade — A

That’s my 2014 Challenge wrap-up. I’ll be back later with updates on how I plan to challenge myself in 2015! How did you do this year? And really….does anyone know where that link is to the 2015 GoodReads Reading Challenge?!

2014 In Review — Blogging

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season! For me, December is a month to step back a bit from blogging, so I haven’t had a lot to say, and no time to post when I DO have something to say. But it’s time to get back to my books!

2014 is almost at a close, so I want to do a wrap up post or two before I head into next year with new goals. First a look at where I’ve been….

In 2014 I had both reading goals and blogging goals. Today I will talk about my blog. I liked the look of the old blog, but I was ready for a change. With spring coming, I decided to go with a spring look and put together some new graphics using ‘He Has Risen’, a scrapbooking kit by Connie Prince.

Originally I’d planned to change it up quarterly, with graphics for each of the seasons, but to be honest, I’m still happy with the purple, so I have no plans to update anytime soon. Instead I want to work on content.

One thing I did was to eliminate my weekly posting of Contests and Giveaways. I’d been doing this for about a year, with limited success. Though I tried to update every Friday, I often fell behind, and had no reason to think anyone actually found it useful. About the same time, I’d started a Facebook page for my blog where I post links to my reviews as well as other fun stuff I find on the interwebs. I often share links to giveaways there, where it is much easier to just click share, and to be honest, I think readers found this more helpful. So I just quit posting to the blog, and a no one has mentioned the missed it, I think it was the right decision.

Another thing I did to help with my blogging is to participate in Bloggiesta several times throughout the year, as well as join the Bloggiesta Facebook page. For the most part, I use this to catch up with all the things I SHOULD have done but didn’t, but also for new ideas about resources. This is where I learned about Riffle! And I also learn there is more I could be doing! If you haven’t participated in Bloggiesta before, check it out. The next one is coming up next month!

One thing I didn’t do so well on this year was to post reviews on ALL the books I read. I like to do this because it helps ‘stick’ a book in my mind. If I don’t write a review, often six months later I don’t even remember reading the book! I’ll probably be mentioning this again when I post my reading wrap-up later this week, but for now, I will just say I hope to do better!

One other thing I hope to do is find a better way to DISCUSS the books we read, rather than just post a review. This also helps stick the book in my mind. I have a couple of ideas I hope to work on early in 2015...just as soon as I catch up on my reviewing! LOL!

Another thing I am knocking around is moving my blog to Wordpress. I’m not sure WHY I want to do this. I don’t really have any issues with Blogger, but everyone tells me Wordpress is better. If you have an opinion on this, please leave a comment. Tell my WHY I want to move to Wordpress….or why I should just be happy with what I have!

And please DO leave a comment. I have just (TODAY) installed Disqus on my blog to manage my comments and I have no idea if I did it successfully. But I’m pretty sure that if it works, it will my having an actual discussion, with notification of replies to comments, much more likely. So leave a comment and let me know if it works! Thanks! And Happy New Year!

UPDATE: I tried...but I can't seem to get Disqus to work on my blog. After I installed it, the comments box completely disappeared! I have removed Disqus for now, and don't know if I will add it back. Do you have Disqus installed on your Blogger blog? If so, how did you get it to work?

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the New Year! I haven’t been around much. The holidays always seem to take more out of me than I expect, and blogging gets set aside. What little ‘extra’ time I find, I spend reading. So I have a lot of catching up to do!

During January, I am going to try to put up a few posts regarding my 2013 reading and blogging, as well as some goals for 2014. So let’s start off with goals…

First let’s talk about blogging. I was doing pretty well until Thanksgiving, and then things got sporadic. So it is time to reevaluate.

• I have been doing a lot of reading but have not been very good about writing reviews, and even worse about posting reviews, even when I’ve taken the time to write them. So I am setting a goal of a minimum of 1-2 reviews each week. Since I do have a backlog, I will probably be doing 2 per week for the first couple of months, and taper down to 1 per week as my blogging catches up to my reading.
• I also want to get back to pointing you to freebies and contests. I had been blogging every Friday, but when things got too busy, I missed that. So instead, I am hoping to tweak the blog a bit and add a tab at the top that will be a list of current events. And hopefully I will be able to keep that up to date.
• I also hope to do some random musings and discussions about reading and blogging. I hope this will be interactive and that you will post in the comments. I’d like to know what you think.
• Lastly, I hope to continue participation in the Teaser Tuesday and Waiting on Wednesday memes, though possibly not weekly. I don’t always have a book I want to blog about, but I do enjoy participating, as it helps me keep up with new releases. I may modify my Waiting on Wednesday post to tell you about a book I am waiting to read, whether or not it has already been released.

Next, challenges. I don’t do well with challenges. While I usually hit my mark in READING the books for the challenge, I seldom get back to REPORTING what I read, so I never really complete the challenge. For that reason, I do not plan to particpate in many reading challenges for 2014. Here is what I plan

• The Goodreads 2014 Reading Challenge. I have committed to reading 52 books, or one per week. This will be the fourth year I have participated and at the same level. I’ve actually read 57, 55, and 53, so 52 is attainable, but still a challenge, since I don’t see any ‘extra’ time this year.
• The Historical Fiction Reading Challenge at Historical Tapestry. Historical fiction is by far my favorite genre, so the main challenge will be actually checking in and logging my reading. Right now I am signing up at the Medieval level, or 15 books. If I find that most of my reading is historical fiction, and I am remembering to check in, I will up that to Ancient History, or 25 books. But since one of my personal goals is to enrich my reading by trying different genres, I’m not going to commit to more than 15 at this time.
• Another ‘challenge’ is not an official challenge, but as I mentioned, I want to ‘broaden my reading horizons’. So I am going to take a look at Goodreads ‘Best Books of 2013’ list and attempt to read one book from at least 10 different categories. I will not restrict myself to the winners, but may choose from any of the nominees on the list.
• Another informal challenge to myself is to clear some of the books from my bookshelf and ereader. All these freebies are wonderful, but I really need to commit to reading some of them. So I am challenging myself to read one book per month that I already owned as of January 1st. Hopefully I will split them between ebooks and print books.

In addition to these, I hope to tweak my blog over the next month, though I’m not sure how far I will go with it. So keep watching. And tell me...do you have any reading goals for 2014?

Talk 2 Me: 'Borrowing' photos

This week I am not asking what you think as much as asking for your advice.

Earlier this week there was quite the discussion on one of the genealogy sites I frequent regarding copyright and the ‘stealing’ of photos for your web site and blog. A lot of people post photos of their loved ones with their family trees, only to find them pop up on other trees and sites, sometimes linked to the wrong person, and always without prior permission. This led to a pretty heated discussion with comments ranging from ‘it’s stealing just like if you downloaded and album and then uploaded to share with the world’ to ‘don’t put it on the internet if you don’t want me to take it!’. And of course everyone thinks they are right!

Moving away from genealogy, I started thinking about my book blog. Almost since I’ve had it, I’ve ‘borrowed’ cover photos and synopses from sites like Goodreads and Amazon. I’ve kind of been of the opinion that it is ‘free advertising’ and the would encourage that. I kind of sound like the attitude up above, no? But the big thing I took away from the genealogy discussion is this; most people really do NOT mind sharing photos, but they DO want to be ASKED! So now I’ve reached the point that I feel like I need an ‘official’ source for my info. I would like to ask permission from Goodreads, but I can’t seem to find a link to request that permission.

So my question for you all today is....

Where do you get the cover photos and information you use for your blog? Have you formally asked permission? Do you feel the need to ask permission?

I guess maybe I AM asking you ‘what do YOU think?’ And I’m looking forward to your answers!

What Do You Think? Ratings - Part 2

Just after reading that post, I visited A Bookish Affair and found even more reason to get my ratings systems nailed down and visible for all. The short version is, in addition to her blog being plagerized last week, she had an unfortunate confrontation from an author who was displeased with the review her book got. Meg was asked about her rating system (right at the top of the page!) by the publicity company. You can read the details on Meg’s blog, but the bottom line for me is....I need to have my ratings system well thought out and visible to all.

So I did some thinking and here is how it went...

I started out with the Goodreads system. I’ve always loosely based my ratings on Goodreads stars, but embellished is some with half-stars because I need those ‘in between’ steps. I thought about using 10 stars, but 10 stars seems a little overwhelming and I think most bloggers are used to 5 being a top ranking!

I also thought about using something other than stars. I’ve seen a lot of custom ranking bars around; fish, hearts, sea shells, magnifying glasses, etc. But since my blog is pretty general, nothing stood right out for a ‘theme’. I’ve always liked Roger Eberts ‘2 thumbs up’ for movies, but since I have trouble with only 5 stars, using only 2 thumbs would be way too confining! I guess I could use fingers, with 5 fingers as a top rating, but what about the bottom. When I give a book 1 finger, is everyone wondering which finger I am giving it?! So stars it is!

For reference, here is the Goodreads system...

★                  - did not like it

★★               - it was ok

★★★            - liked it

★★★★        - really liked it

★★★★★    - it was amazing

And here is MY system....

★                  - dislike; I shouldn’t have wasted my time

★★               - ok, but just barely; flawed but not a total waste of time

★★★            - liked it, but pretty average; not a big with a major impact on me

★★★★        - liked it a lot; will definitely recommend to others

★★★★★    - loved it; among the best I’ve ever read

I also give half stars to bump a book up if I think it is better than the star level indicated but not good enough to be bumped to the next star level.

Occasionally, after time as passed, I may revisit a book. It may have aged well and I realize it is more memorable or has more meaning for me than I originally thought. Or it may be, that in comparison to other books I’ve read, it doesn’t stand up as well as I thought it would. In those cases, I may adjust my ratings up or down by a half star or more.

So...that’s it! What do you think?
You can find review my ratings system at anytime by clicking the link at the top of this page.

What Do You Think? Rating Books

I recently came upon a discussion by Megan @ Love, Literature, Art & Reason that got me thinking about my star rating system. Basically, Megan uses a star rating system based on the Goodreads rating system and wondered if other readers interpret her ratings the way she means them to be interpreted. I think that is a really good question and one we all need to think about when we rate a book.

Here is my reply to her question....

• Great discussion. I also use Goodreads as a guidline, but also use half stars. To me, a 1 is a dislike and I shouldn't have wasted my time with it. A 5 means is is among the best books I've ever read and I will be thinking about it for a long time.
• In between is a 2, which means is was just barely ok, but probably had a lot of flaws that kept me from really liking it. But also not a total waste.
• A 3 to me is a pretty 'average' book. I liked it fine and don't regret reading it, but it is not a book that impacts me or I will be thinking about, and possible not even remember, a month from now.
• A 4 means I really liked it, I'm glad I read it and will recommend it to others, but it falls short of being one of my best books ever.
• I also do half stars, usually for books that fall just short of the next star. For example, I often give 3-1/2 stars to books that I think are a bit above average; I enjoyed them but would not recommend bumping other books of your pile to get to this one. Does that make sense?           

I have noticed that I often change my rating as time passes. For example, I may initially give a book a 3, but after discussing it at bookclub, or writing the actual review, I realize that there was more substance to it, more to think about,  than I initially gave it credit for.  And after time passes and I think back to it, it is a more memorable book than I realized. I may raise it a half star or more.

One thing this discussion has made me realize is that I need to think about my ratings system and really spell it out, both for you, the reader of my blog, and for me. I need to be a bit more consistent when I rate a book so that when I give a rating it always means the same thing. And I need to make that easy to refer to, as in, I need to have it visible on this blog.

So look for it. I want to spend a little time thinking about it and defining my terms, but I hope soon to revisit this, and to have a well defined rating system in place soon!

What do you think? What is your system for rating books?