I suppose it makes sense that I should return to blogging and look back on the past year. I may not have blogged but I have actually been reading reasonably well. Sure, I went through slumps at various points through the year but with the pressure off of me to read because I was no longer blogging and it actually helped me rediscover my love of reading. I did worry at one point last year that I would have to stop thinking of myself as a bookworm as I was only readying 4 or 5 books in a month and I was really forcing myself to get there. Thankfully, the passion returned and I am reading a lot more. I figured it was best to look back at last year and tell you about the highs and lows. Storygraph makes this incredibly easy as it gives you a yearly wrap up and gives you loads of stats. I thought I was going to have to go through my book tracker spreadsheet to get all this info so this should be fun.
I read 115 books.
Look at the pretty graph representation of the books I finished, this was fun to see when my reading slumps hit.
I DNFed 6 books. I admit, this figure was probably far higher but I didn't mark every book I started and read about a chapter of before abanding as DNF which I will change for 2024.
My most read author was Sarina Bowen as I read the whole of the True North series along with a few spin off books and developed a full obsession with Vermont. Also Bill Willingham as I began reading the Fables series of comics again but I don't know if I really count that as most read author.
My average star rating was 4.04 which isn't surprising considering I will probably DNF any book that I would rate under 3 stars but is interesting to see.
I read 26 5 star books. There were a few rereads in there but still a bit of a surprise to see.
I leant towards light-hearted reads with a slight dip at the end of the year when I raced through some books by Karen Rose, not sure what else caused the dip.
I read mostly romance, this isn't really a surprise but I did dip into a few other genres as I forced myself to read books I owned and tried to cut down on my book spending.
Looking at my books read I forgot I even read some of these last year! They obviously made an impact on me. I wanted to highlight my favourites, this won't be all of my 5 star reads and I'm choosing to exclude rereads from my list because I've probably spoken about them before but below are the books which I enjoyed and am glad I read in 2023.
Goals
Read 100 books - I had been keeping my reading number pretty low for the past few years to take the pressure off but I really enjoy trying to stretch myself to read more because I am terrible at falling into a reading funk and reading nothing for weeks. I want to try and read more, I won't force myself to finish books I don't like but I will count DNFs if I hit 20% in a book and hate it. I usually read 100 books so this shouldn't be too much of a stretch if I keep out of any major reading slumps.
Reduce my TBR - this may be vague, I should really pick a specific number but after compiling all of my unread books and discovering I had 227 books to read proposing I reduce the TBR down to 50 or something seems incredibly daunting. I’ll be happy if, by the end of the year, my TBR is at under 100 including any new purchases. I’m not sure if that is achievable though. My book buying has gone down so it could happen but only time will tell.
Return to blogging - this one is a challenge I'm a little nervous about. I've tried to return to blogging a few times now and I'm nervous I have just outgrown it. I know that it should really adapt to me. I think I need to return and figure out exactly what I want from my blog because currently I don't know what is. Maybe I'll figure it out maybe I won't. I just want to give myself another chance with blogging and see where it takes me.
Review every book I finish - I tried to do this but often fail so I think it's time I try. A paragraph of my thoughts is all I want, it doesn't need to be an essay, but I know there are plenty of books I've read in the past and didn't review and I haven#t the foggiest what they're about anymore.
Reading challenges
I have 3 reading challenges I am joining for 2024 as well as a bonus one just for January.
Taylor Swift Reading Challenge
Monthly Key Word Challenge
This challenge is hosted by Kim & Tanya on their new blog Chapter Adventure. I've tried this one for the past couple of years and each year I fall into a slump at some pojnt and fall behind. Will 2024 be the year I break this cycle? Maybe, but it always prompts me to read something from my shelves which is why I'm continuing to try it. I like it's broad enough that I'm not limited to very specific books but not so broad I'm left guessing how to interpret a prompt.
Reading Randomiser
I am so psyched for this one as this is something I have actually being doing with my Kindle already in that I use a random number generator to help pick my reads. The only difference here is it's more specific with different prompts for each month and a bonus each month too. Hopefully it mixes up my reading a little, I just need to sort a shelf with all my owned books to get this one to work.
Bonus: January Pages Challenge
I'm also participating in Storygraph’s pages challenge because I think it would good to try and get myself to read at least a page a day, or a chapter of audiobook. I often use the excuse I'm exhausted from work for not reading but I also know I could listen to a chapter of audiobook a day and easily manage to get more reading in but I don't. I think a challenge like this will help motivate me to read more. Hopefully, this way I start as I mean to go on for the year and fly through my 100 books and clear my shelves. This is more to force me into a routine so we’ll see how it goes.
What are your goals and challenges for 2024? Are you even doing any or are you just going with the flow when it comes to reading?
Well hello there, it'll be interesting to see if anyone is still about after a year. What have I missed?
I took a well-deserved break from blogging last year. I felt lost with it, my passion for reading wasn't there and I honestly didn't know if I wanted to come back to this blog. I actually didn't miss blogging, or not as much as I expected. I missed the community and the fun parts of talking about books but I also fell a little out of love with reading so didn’t feel like I had anything to contribute when it came to books and I certainly didn’t want to hear about what everyone was reading when I still had 250+ unread books to deal with. Over the last couple of months of 2023 I began thinking about my little old blog more and began to miss the community. I'm not sure the blogging community is still what it was, I don't think I was alone in drifting away a little last year, but I'm willing to give it one final shot given how long blogging has been a part of my life it feels wrong to just disappear.
What inspired my return?
Honestly, a big reason I wanted to come back was BookTok. That is a sentence I never thought I’d write. It’s not exactly BookTok itself, as I only see glimpses of it on my TikTok feed but more the passion for reading which I keep seeing. BookTok itself seems a little out of touch, they are far too in love with Colleen Hoover and ‘spice’ in books. I guess it shows the age of a lot of people on TikTok as I know I certainly went through a similar phase about 6 years ago so I don’t really feel like I fit there. I suppose I am very much the Steve Buscemi gif of how do you do, fellow kids because I feel too old for all that. But I have seen a lot of journals start popping up on my feed, more specifically reading journals and that is what actually inspired me. These BookTok readers have the most amazing reading journals with such creative spreads and I have been inspired by the creativity they have shown. Last year’s attempt at a reading journal was shocking in comparison (I gave up after 2 months) but now I have a journal filler with my challenges and a plan to track my reading and TBR list on there.
In the process of creating my 2024 reading journal I was sad I didn’t have anyone to share it with and I began thinking more and more about my blog. I want to be able to talk books again and I know there are people who feel the same. I want that sense of community back because I’ve been missing it. I’m not sure my reading journal or my return to blogging will be consistent but I’m willing to give it a try. I’ve even made it a New Year’s resolution.
One thing I do know is I will not be on social media as much. I actually think the slow implosion of Twitter helped me care less about blogging as I wasn’t seeing what everyone was reading and doing. I haven’t deleted my twitter yet but I think it will happen. I rarely log on anymore and I just don’t miss the toxicity of that place. I am trying to use Threads but I’m not in love with it yet. It has improved a lot of late so I’m liking it a bit more, we’ll see if I can be consistent about going on there though.
What will I blog about?
It's still going to be books here, and a little of my book journal (maybe) but I think I might get a little less personal. I like talking about my life, but also as I get older I prefer to keep some more of myself back. Is that a sign I’m getting old? Possibly, but I also saw a documentary advertised the other day about trains I thought looked interesting and I then realised I was turning into my nan so really this doesn’t surprise me.
One thing I want from my blog is to keep it low pressure, I’ve found my reading picked up last year when I just spent my time trying to enjoy reading. I need to keep the blog the same because I can’t handle the stress and hardly have the mental energy some days to spend hours making sure I have 5 posts up a week or something crazy. We’ll see how it goes but it should be fun.
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