In Books

One of my biggest regrets of the past year is that I haven't really kept up my book blog. It's not that I think a ton of people read it and I regret not getting my words out into the world to be read. It's just that I love reading, and I started my blog as a way to better digest some of what I read, and I like having a sort of concrete history of my reading experience.

This morning when I woke up to a quiet house and the prospect of 11:30 a.m. church (instead of 9:00 a.m.) I realized that I now have an ideal blogging time. It helped that I finished what I consider a major reading accomplishment just last night, and was in the mood for processing. I took advantage and wrote up a review of Cloud Atlas for my book blog, and then published a review of Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art that has been sitting unpublished in my account for ages, and updated my sidebar to include the last review I published (in April!) of The Assistant.

This has not actually been the readingest year for me. I averaged about 2 books a month, which is a pretty low figure for me. There were a lot of changes happening early on, and I found that I had to relearn how reading fit into my life. But it was an interesting book year all the same. I tried out graphic novels and Stephen King for the first time. I read all but one of the books chosen by the every-month-or-two book club I attend. I finished Anna Karenina something like ten years after I first tried it. I saw one of my favorite books, Life of Pi, get transformed into an awesome, visually stunning movie. I read Hemingway for the first time, against my will (it was a book club book that I didn't want to read), and liked it better than I would have thought. I used my Kindle a lot more than I did the previous year, though I still prefer actual books. However, after one move and in anticipation of having to move again in the not-too-distant future, I also made a goal to pare down my book collection. For every new book I acquire for my bookshelf, I must get rid of two. I'm not sure how long I can manage that, but it makes me more selective about which books I actually buy in hard copy.

My new year's goal is to read more, and blog more about what I read.