Well, first off, I hit my goal. That was a big relief given the massive dry spell I encountered in late summer. The 100th book of the year, Over My Dead Body by Greg Melville got ticked off on December 18. Now, I may confess in my panic to reach my goal I may have cheated a little. Several of December's reads fell into the novella category. But, a book's a book, right?
But I digress, enough about what I read this month . . . that will be covered in a later post. This one is more of a look back at the goals I'd set at the start of the year. Back then I'd been hesitant to call them goals, or resolutions. I didn't want anything to impede my love of reading (we all know how well that went, aparently like writer's block, reader's block can crop up out of nowhere.)
I apologize to the six people who read that earlier post, but here's a repeat of my 2023 Reading Guidlines.
Don't read more than one book by the same author in a given month. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed blitzing through a bunch of Vi Keeland late last summer, but I also got a bit burnt out on her. Let's spread the love.
Throw in a few more mysteries. Richard Osman's third book is a given, but there are several series that I started ages ago that I need to catch up on. Sophie Kelly, Tasha Alexander, and Heather Blake immediately come to mind. Deanna Rayburn's Killers of a Certain Age is also high on my TBR list.
Read one indie author a month. I started doing this in late 2022 and I'm looking forward to continuing. As an indie author, myself, I feel it's only fair. Again, spread the love and make that KU subscription worthwhile!
Rate my reads This will most likely be the first resolution to fail. Unless a book is exceptional and I'm giving it five stars, I typically don't rate my reads. Because StoryGraph has such a good system for rating and is great at tracking statistics I'm more inclined to give this a shot this year.
Okay, let's break this down . . .
Point 1 - Don't read more than one book by the same author in a given month. This was broken quite early, in February. I blame Elsie Silver. The repercussion of blitzing through her entire backlist is now I have to sit patiently and wait for her next book. April 9, 2024 cannot come soon enough.
Point 2 - Throw in a few mysteries - Okay, I managed this . . . At least I'm caught up on Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club series (not to mention ecstatic that he plans on writing more). I did fail to catch up on other favorite mystery authors though.
However, in my defense, I will argue that I 'threw in' a few sci-fi/fantasy novels as well. I jumped on the Fourth Wing bandwagon and actually quite enjoy it so far.
Point 3 - Read one indie author a month. Whelp, this one was pretty simple. For a while, I felt like I was reading nothing but KU and Indie-published books. I'm starting to ponder next year's goals and (spoiler alert) one of them is Read One Traditionally Published Book a Month.
Point 4 - Rate My Reads - This is the one goal I feel I succeeded at the best. Thanks to StoryGraph, I've been really good at tracking my reads and rating them. Here's a glimpse of this year's ratings chart.
I'll be the first to admit, I'm not huge on doling out 5-star ratings. In 2022, I only ranked a book if I thought it was exceptional, and there were five that got 5-stars. (Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Greek Myths by Charlotte Higgins, The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston, The Roughest Draft by Emily Wibberly & Austin Siegemond-Broka, and The Man Who Died Twice by Richard Osman).
As you can see, there were only three 5-star rankings this year. No, I'm not going to list them here. I'm saving that reveal for my Top Ten of the Year list. I can say that one is (gasp) not a romance, and another is by one of the authors listed above.
All that being said, the last two weeks are going to be quite busy. Not only do I have two holiday dinners to prep in the next two days (including making tamales from scratch for the first time in my life - wish me luck there!), I'm in the home stretch of getting the second draft of Maggie and Malcolm's story finished. Then there are all the other characters chattering in my head demanding attention. I need to silence them while I focus on getting the end-of-the-year reading wrap-up finished - I read A LOT in December (remember I mentioned all those novellas . . .)
Then there's 2024 to consider. As I mentioned, I'm working on nailing down a few guidelines/resolutions for the year to come. Do I want to consider a reading challenge? What can I do to prevent readers-block? (Someday, I'll accept the answer to this is - nothing).
As I've typed this, the clock has ticked over to midnight. It's now Christmas Eve. I wish you all a happy holiday and I'll see you again in the new year, if not before.
Cheers,
CJ
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