Summer in Review (and a little, bitty bookpile)

Crazy how fast time goes; it's time for another of my quarterly summaries! For those who're recent readers, some of the more random-seeming stats are based on my New Year's resoluations. Also, I go by the sun calendar for these quarters, which is why I consider July, August, and September to be summer. :)

Reading
Total: 53
Non-Fic: 17
Audio: 3
New Authors: 34
Women Authors: 21
African Lit: 0
East Asian Lit: 0
Auto/Bios/Memoirs Read: 6
Five Star Books: 18
One or Two Star Books: 8

Blogging
Reviews Published: 38
Entries Made: 73
Challenges Completed: 4
Challenges Participated In: 13

Whew! Well, on the reading front I read more than I have previously. I stayed pretty steady on new authors and women authors, which is good. Since I didn't start my non-fic challenge until August, I'm still not maintaining a very high nonfic:fic ratio. That's ok though-at least I'm reading more non-fic! I did awfully on the African and East Asian lit front; checking my Reading Across Borders II list, I only have one book for each on there. Maybe I'll be able to find some more at the library, or on bookmooch. I didn't like 15% of the books I read, which is higher than usual, but almost all of them were non-fic. I guess I don't have my guaranteed non-fic authors the way I do fiction. I did give a whopping 33% of the books I read 5 stars, which is pretty awesome. :)

The biggest changes this quarter were on the blogging front. I went from 18-19 reviews/quarter to 38, which is double! I also went from averaging around 40 posts/quarter to 73. I'm not sure why this blog suddenly became an almost daily thing in August; I actually became busier then than I'd been during the rest of the summer. Perhaps all of those challenges are spurring me on to do reviews. Either way, I'm pretty happy that I'm reviewing so many more books (72% of the ones I read). Part of it has to do with the fact that now I'm willing to do multiple shorter reviews, which seems an effective way of talking about some of the books.

Now, for what you've been waiting for! I went to B&N tonight, and I completely intended to just curl up in a comfy chair and read the book I brought with me. Somehow, these books hopped in my bag!
First up is Tithe by Holly Black. I've heard good things about this one, and I'm collecting YA lit in preperation for Dewey's 24 read-a-thon. Plus, it's this gorgeous trade paperback book for a mere $7! Gotta love the YA section; I saw several other books that I'll probably be going back for soon.
Then there's Nocturnes by John Connolly. I've seen his latest novel, The Book of Lost Things reviewed on several blogs, but Meli's review really got me hooked. Of course, us poor Americans have to wait a couple of weeks for it to come out in paperback. So I was browsing B&N's popular fiction table (which had a very interesting collection of international crime/mystery that I was coveting), and came across this. Isn't the cover awesome? It's a collection of short stories, and the back describes it as "a daring, utterly haunting anthology of lost lovers and missing children, predatory demons, and vengeful ghosts...In these stories, Connolly ratchets up the tension to almost unbearable0and irrestible-levels." Um, does this sound like a challenge we all know and love? That's what I thought! Have a sneaking suspicion Connolly will become a new favourite author, so I'd better start collecting now.
Finally, I've been craving George Eliot lately. I was orginally going to grab Middlemarch, which I read earlier this year, for a reread. But, it made more sense to get Daniel Deronda, since I hadn't read it before. I'm loving the pink colour, and the delicious 710-page-before-endnotes length.

And that's my latest booklust...the three poppets had to wander in and see what all the fuss was about. :) Now y'all need to post some pics of your latest book buys so I don't feel so guilty!

Spring in Review (and the promised bookmooch pile pic)

Wow! Half of 2007 is gone; how weird is that? Anyway, it's time to look back at this quarter of the year and check out my reading and blogging!

Reading
Total: 45
Non-Fic: 13
Audio: 3
New Authors: 31
Women Authors: 20
African Lit: 1
East Asian Lit: 2
Auto/Bios/Memoirs Read: 4
Five Star Books: 11
One or Two Star Books: 6

Blogging
Reviews Published: 19
Entries Made: 40
Challenges Completed: 4
Challenges Participated In: 7

So, I still haven't achieved my 3:2 fic:nonfic ratio, but at least I've kept it at about 3:1. I'll try to focus more on non-fiction; there is a lot of non-fiction that sounds interesting, but usually it takes me longer to read non-fic than fic. That inevitably skews the ratio! I've done well in the memoirs/bio category, but need to work on African lit and East Asian lit. Maybe I'll organise another Reading Across Borders challenge for myself. I read more 5 star books and the same about of 1 or 2 star books, so apparently I'm getting better at picking out books I'll love! I enjoyed 87% of the books I've picked up since March, which is definitely a good thing. :) As far as blogging, look at how many more challenges I've done! This might explain the tendency to burn out, but I do like how challenges get me to direct my reading. Perhaps the increase in challenges explains the increase in good books? I've done pretty well keeping up with the blog, and posting reviews. I'm behind right now, but I hope to fix that soon. I'm thinking about doing mini-reviews, where I talk about 2 or 3 books that I've read recently, but that I don't have the time to pay a lot of attention to (i.e.-they're not challenge books). This would fix the fact that I've reviewed less than half of the books I've read-that's the most concerning statistic from this quarter for me.

The best part of this quarter was discovering Book Mooch! And in honor of that, here is the bookpile of this week's acquisitions.



Well, that about wraps up this quarterly review. :) I'm going to start July off with a bang as far as reviews go, so watch this space!

Looking Back

Winter in Summary

A fourth of 2007 is already over. Since winter technically runs from Dec 22-March 22, I'm loosely describing this quarter as such. It's time to look at my reading and blogging!

Reading
Total: 37
Non-Fic: 10
Audio: 8
New Authors: 29
Women Authors: 17
African Lit: 0
East Asian Lit: 3
Auto/Bios Read: 1
Five Star Books: 6
One or Two Star Books: 6

Blogging
Reviews Published: 18
Entries Made: 43
Challenges Completed: 1
Challenges Participated In: 3

So, things aren't looking too bad. I've kept both of my blogging resolutions. As far as reading resolutions, I've recorded all books read and read more East Asian literature. I need to up my African lit and auto/biography reading. My fic:nonfic ratio is 27:10, or about 3:1. This isn't near the 3:2 goal I set for myself, so I'll need to work harder on that. Still, I'm pleased with how I've spent the winter reading. I enjoyed the vast majority of the books that I read (84%). And that's the most important thing!