We are verging on our 4th day of the new year and all my bookish buddies have made their new reading
resolutions for 2015, analyzed, and written up the statistics of their reading from 2014. So here I am sliding in to home plate with mine. I made some over zealous reading resolutions last year. See here if you don’t remember. Well I promised to read certain titles, read Australian and Russian literature and to read some unread books on my shelves. Well it was all a fail except reading some of my unread books and reading
The Good Lord Bird. Well better something than nothing.
The good thing about last year’s reading was that I managed to choose and read a lot of very good books. My top 10 of 2014 is full of the best of the best. (post coming soon) No complaints. Five of them received five-star ratings and for me that’s excellent, since I rarely give out five stars. So in this fresh new year my resolutions will be few but meaningful. I want to do a lot of pleasurable and meaningful reading, as last year, that seems to work for me. I have no time for mediocre reading, I feel I’m too old for that. There are a multitude of books I want to read before I die. That wasn’t meant to sound desperate but I need to write my book for that. Last year my page count was a miserable 13,511. Wretched! So my last and biggest goal of the year will be to increase my page count abundantly.
As for my reading stats, I read:
53 books and 7 of them were over 400 pages
13 graphic novels
27 novels by black authors
21 novels by women
32 novels by men
9 memoirs/non-fiction (4 of these were graphic novels)
from 13 different nationalities, including French, American, Indian, Nigerian, English, Scottish, Columbian, Norwegian, Dominican, Portuguese, Japanese, Canadian, and Cambodian.
The longest book I read was Americanah with 477 pages and the longest graphic novel was Habibi with 672 pages.
The shortest book I read was Phenomenal Woman: Four Poems Celebrating Women, with 32 pages.
Having been shy of my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal by two books and short of my Big Books goal by three, I’ve decided to fix my Reading Challenge at 50 and the Big Books Challenge at 10. Hoping that this will keep me well-rounded and reading longer books, but most importantly extremely good ones.
As you’ve probably noticed there are some big changes on the blog today. I’ve changed the name of my blog to Brown Girl Reading and opted for a new style. The name change has been a long time coming and I feel this one suits me better, as does the style of the blog. I hope you enjoy and approve of the changes. So, here’s to you for following me and to 2015 which I hope will be great for you all – in life, in love, in friendship, in health, and in reading. Happy New Year!
Great post! I love the new name and design, I think both suit you as well. I fell short on my reading goals too. The last quarter of the year, I started picking up a ton of self help books and I don’t even know why. Oh well, maybe I’ll meet my goals this year. Wait. First I have to set my goals. lol
Hey Thanks! Glad you like the changes. Last year was a weird year for reading for me because I just couldn’t read what I said I was going to. Typical fickle me. lol! Check your Goodreads I’m sending you a message over there. As for stetting goals, I say keep them simple and doable. Happy New Year!
Love the new name and the new design.
Thanks Heather! How are you? Will you be coming back with more videos at some point this year?
I love your new name and fresh look of your blog—what a way to strut into 2015! I’m not interested in what you didn’t accomplish reading-wise in 2014: the breadth of your reading is impressive. I am, however, kinda curious about the writing goal that you merely hinted at in your post….
Thanks Leslie! I’m glad you like it. Thanks again for the compliment on my reading year. Well firstly I want to be consistent which I wasn’t at all last year and darling you know what they say”Less is More!” I want to put out quality posts and blogs and I don’t want to be swaye away from my reading whims. I’d also like to do some more creative writing and maybe even participate in NaNoWriMo for the second time. Last year I was way to critical of my writing to participate. I have a few ideas I’d like to take the time to map out. Not so sure this will happen but I hope I’ll give it a second try.
DiDi, I love your new name and design. I have been considering moving from Typepad to WordPress.
Thanks so much Joseph for the compliment. It was the time to do all of this. You definitely should move to WordPress. Just go and check some of the blogs that are on here. They have awesome content and they look pretty original. Let me know what you decide so that I can follow you. 🙂
Didi, are you using the WP hosted by WP or are you using a hosting site. Also, are you using the free Wp or the pay WP?
I’m using the wordpress Premium account. For that account you need a domain name, which means you have to pay, however you can just get a free blog address which has wordpress.com at the end.
Hosted by WP.
Didi, I am a quill and vellum at aquillandvellum.wordpress.com
Ok will go and check it out! 🙂
I love the look of your new blog! I think we feel the same about our reading. You get to a certain age and it becomes important that what you do, what you read, to matter. I didn’t think you were being morbid; I totally get it! I will be taking a hard look at those books I have and reading those that I really want and have wanted to read. I haven’t made a video of my 2014 reading, but I did write a post on my blog. I’m hoping to get back to writing more posts for my blog since that is more easily accomplished than filming at this point. Happy reading to us both!
I’m not sure where this login will send you. It might link to my professional blog. My reading blog is http://territalksbooks.com in case you need the URL.
Thanks! I was wondering what your blog was called and where to go. I’ll definitely be checking that out. Hope you will film a bit more or write a bit more. I value you opinion.
Thanks Terri I’m glad somebody understands me. I also don’t want anybody pulling me off my reading track. It’s so easy for that to happen on Booktube. I guess this is the year of selfish and “fickle” reading. Here’s to pleasurable reading and common goals Terri and to us! 🙂
I, too, at the age of 51, have decided that what I read needs to matter. What reading time I have left needs to be spent on books of quality.
Absolutely! That doesn’t mean you can’t slip in a light one every now and then. ?
Brown Girl Reading! Love it, what inspiration 🙂
Like you, I missed my challenge by 3 books (it was 60 and I read 57) so bringing back to my standard book a week thing at 52, anything more is a bonus and the objective has never been to consume books, but to ensure that I do read regularly and a book a week should be manageable. 🙂
Like you too, I just want to read good and great books and I want to change my mind, often, I love interacting with people like you and learning about new authors and books and expanding my horizons through literature.
You’ve had a good, diverse reading year too, another reason I love following your reading 🙂
Totally love the new look and good to know you’re back writing on here, you’re so brave to put yourself out there on the tube thing – but I love that you’re getting your writing cap back on too, I might have to join you, I really want to dedicate time to doing that in 2015. Let me know when you start writing the next novel or are you going to work on the first one?
Bonne Continuation mon amie!
Claire Happy New Year! Thanks for your support and glad you like all the new changes. I’ve decided to go with the old motto “Less is More”. So more meaningful reading and blog posts. Posting to post is not where I’m at. As for writing I’d like to start brainstorming some ideas and I’m seriously thinking of doing NaNoWriMo this year if I can get it together. I’m still not confident in my creative writing and I don’t practice nearly enough, however this year will really try to make an effort. Rest assured that I’ll be on here at least once a week. If I can make it twice even better. Everybody looks if they are starting the year with a bang and that’s encouraging. Will let you know when those creative writing juices start flowing. 😀
Happy New Year! I love your new blogname:)
Thanks Rowena! 🙂
Happy New Year! I do love the new blog and the name is great. I am impressed with your reading stats. This past year, I started really reading again and have actually set some goals for myself too. I always enjoy your Youtube videos and am nervous about starting my own. Until then, I will continue to blog. If you have free time, feel free to check out my blog.
http://www.belindascrafts.com/category/belindas-book-nook/
Have a blessed day!
Happy New Year To you Belinda! Thanks for the compliments on my You Tube. And thanks for the support. I felt I needed to keep my goals simple. I’m going to check out your goals on your blog. Thanks for leaving the link. 🙂
Your blog looks nice. I’m not sure what it looked like before, but I like it.
I hope you meet your reading goals this year. I honestly have never met mine, but I am very serious about it this year and I’m doing all that I can to meet it. My goal is 50 books. My previous goals were drastically smaller that this years goal, but it’s ok because I need the challenge. I just have so many books that I want to read…
I enjoyed reading your post. Thanks for sharing.
Well before my blog appearance was bland. I was a little tired of it. Happy with it for now. As for my reading goals I usually pick 50 books or a few more. However I hope to push myself to read more pages and to try to aim for really good books. My TBR is from here to the other side of the planet and I want to get to as many of them as possible. Thanks for the compliments! 🙂