2013 Wrap-up

Favorite Books of the Year

1. A Song of Fire and Ice series (Books #1-3)
2. The Passage
3. Let's Pretend This Never Happened
4. Neverwhere
5. The Mark of Athena
6. The Book Thief
7. The Angel's Game
8. The Lace Reader
9. Hyperbole and a Half
10. Me Before You

Honorable Mentions: The HM category is reserved for rereads that I really loved.  

1. Persuasion
2. Mansfield Park
3. Coraline
4. The Secret Garden
5. Emma
6. The Host

Total Books Read – 160 books

Total Pages Read – 53,622 pages

I averaged 4468 pages per month.  My lowest month was June with only 2669 pages.  My highest month was January with 6823 pages.  I hope to read 50,000 pages next year.

Book Rating Stats –

• 5 stars —63  books
• 4 stars — 63 books
• 3 stars — 33 books
• 2 stars — 0 books
• 1 star — 1 book
• DNFs -- 3

Special Projects/Features

Readathons —I completed 10 readathons this year.  Amazed by my totals!

• Bout of Books 6.0 (January) -- 2671 pages
• A Winter's Respite (January) -- 1135 pages
• Wicked Valentine's (February) -- 2113 pages
• Take Control of Your TBR Pile (March) -- 787 pages
• Bout of Books 7.0 (May) -- 1230 pages
• High Summer (July) -- 924 pages
• Bout of Books 8.0 (August) -- 1976 pages
• Tackle Your TBR Pile (September) -- 2310 pages
• FrightFall (October) -- 1304 pages
• End of the Year (December) -- 2354 pages

Bloggiesta in September — Second time around!  I got so much done in one weekend.  Cleaned up a ton of back-end issues on the blog.  I am going to try to make this a yearly activity.  I may or not do both the March and September events, but I'm hoping to do at least one a year.  It helps me focus on cleaning up my blog periodically.

Day Zero Project  – I made some progress on my goals list, but not as much as I would like.  I have the first half of 2014 to finish as many as I can.  I'm going to attempt to knock off a few by scheduling them as monthly goals.  We'll see how it goes...

Quote Wednesday — I'm always on top of this one.  It's so easy.  I have so many great quotes laying around, I always find one to use.

Music Monday — This past year was mostly about highlighting my all time favorite songs.  2014 will be about going back to focusing on single songs I like.

Top Ten Tuesday — I'm really sporadic with these...  I just don't always feel inspired by the topic, but I always check because sometimes I love the topic.

Fashion Friday -- I love looking at pretty clothes and found myself playing on Polyvore a lot.  But no one ever saw my creations.  So, I created a new feature on Fridays to showcase my creativity.  This will be carried forward into 2014.

Pregnancy Updates and Baby Milestones -- I had to include these in 2013.  Obviously I won't be continuing the pregnancy updates.  The baby updates will continue weekly for a few months and then I'll probably only do them monthly.

Good Things -- Utter fail on continuing this past the first couple of months.  I was just completely uninspired.

Book of Lists -- See above...

Project Life -- I started using the Project Life method for scrapping in October.  I wanted to show off my weekly spreads, so I created a monthly feature.  With participating in a PL class this January, I hope to get some great ideas to use in the coming months.

Reading Challenges

I started out with a GoodReads challenge, but with their change in policies in September, I decided to part ways with the site.  I've shopped around and decided not to replace GR with anything for the moment.  Instead, I will just be tracking books read and books to read on my blog.  As to the other RCs, here's the final breakdown:

• Fall into Reading 35/35 100%
• The Four Month Challenge Part 11 19/20    95%
• The Four Month Challenge Part 12 15/20   75%
• Sub Genre   15/15  100%
• Nerdy Nonfiction   15/15  100%
• Genre   18/18  100%
• Paranormal    10/12  83.3%
• Dystopia    4/6  66.7%
• Witches   5/5  100%
• Telling Tales   3/5  60%
• Historical Fiction  1/5   20%
• Back for the Classics   10/10  100%
• Romance  5/5  100%
• Neil Gaiman  15/15  100%
• Jane Austen  10/10  100%
• YA/MG Fantasy  2/5  40%
• Graphic Novel  20/20   100%
• Steampunk  5/5  100%
• Zombies  6/6 100%
• New Author   25/25  100%
• What’s in a Name   6/6  100%
• Monthly Key Word   12/12  100%
• Women Authors  25/25   100%
• Ebooks  25/25  100%
• Mount TBR  60/60  100%
• TBR Pile  30/30  100%
• Library  24/24  100%
• Seriously Series  8/8   100%
• Dusty Bookshelf  15/15  100%
• Books to Movies  20/20  100%
• Eclectic  12/12 100%
• Blogger Recommendation  10/10   100%
• 52 Books in 52 Weeks   52/52  100%
• Book Bingo   63/73  100%  86.3%

Total: 26/34 challenges   76% done

Total: 600/624 slots    96.2% done

Overall Thoughts/Reflections/Musings/Ideas

2013 was a great year for reading.  Overall, I didn't read as many books or pages as 2012 (life happens), but I did encounter some great finds.  I'm really looking forward to reading from my own stacks this coming year.  I'll be carrying most of my features over to the new year.  I'm thinking about adding a few new ones, but they are still in the planning stages.