February flew by. I was sick with COVID for half of it, including my birthday. It was definitely a bummer, but I’m grateful to be feeling much better now and getting back into the swing of things. On the bright side, all the time laid up gave me plenty of time to read. So, the month wasn’t a total loss.
Read More »January has been an absolute whirlwind. Between my parents’ six eye surgeries, several vet visits, and ending the month being sick with COVID, it is a wonder I got any reading done at all. I was super motivated this month, though, and read a lot of great stuff. I participated in my first buddy reads this month and had so much fun with it. All in all, it has been a pretty good month despite ending it being sick.
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Happy New Year! What better way is there to start off the year than looking back on accomplishments from 2022? Last year was a fantastic one for the blog, and I read so many great books. I haven’t decided on my goals for 2023 yet. In usual fashion, I’m a bit late. lol. So, I’ll have another post at some point detailing what I hope to achieve in the coming year. For now, here’s how 2022 shaped up for me.
When this year started, I planned to track all sorts of stats and had a spreadsheet to track them. I think I gave up on that task by March. LOL. So, all I have to look at this year is the stats provided by Goodreads. For a look at all my reading from 2022, you can check out My Year in Books on Goodreads.
I finished out the year doubling my Goodreads Challenge goal. I set out to read 100 books in 2022. I ended up reading 201 books during the year, which is the most I’ve ever read. It was a really great year.
I wanted to end the year with at least 50 reviews completed for NetGalley and a feedback ratio of at least 80%. I doubled my goal of 50 total NetGalley reviews and brought my number of reviews up to 100. I also achieved my feedback ratio goal and finished off the year at 81%. It has been a really productive year when it comes to ARCs, but I think I’m going to try to slow down on them a bit in 2023. Of course, I’ve already gotten a ton of them… So, we’ll see how that goes.
My goal for 2022 was to read at least 2 nonfiction books. I ended up reading 5 nonfiction books, which more than surpassed my goal. It was a mix of LGBT, politics, and history, and I enjoyed each of them. I’m going to try to keep reading at least some nonfiction moving forward because I really liked it.
I set the goal of reading all the comics I buy during the week I buy them. This definitely didn’t happen. LOL. I have giant stacks of comic books I need to read. I’m going to need to think of a more realistic goal for 2023…
I tried to focus on having a majority of the books I read in 2022 be books I bought, borrowed, or received prior to January 1, 2022. I’m not going to even bother figuring out the stats for this because I know I didn’t even come close to achieving this one. Most of what I read this year was ARCs of 2022 releases.
I planned to finish or catch up on the following 5 series by the end of 2022:
· The Broken Earth by N.K. Jemisin
· Arthurian Saga by Mary Stewart
· The Extraordinaries by TJ Klune
· Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling
· A shit ton of different Shadowhunters books by Cassandra Clare
I did really great with this goal. I finished four out of the five series, and I did read a ton of Shadowhunters books. I only have one more book to go to be caught up. So, I consider that a major success considering how many I had to read at the start of the year.
I didn’t formally set any blogging goals for this year. However, I was hoping to get at least 300 WordPress followers and break 10,000 views before the end of the year. I accomplished both of those tasks and consider 2022 to be a very successful year. I’ve also made so many new blogging friends this year, which I didn’t expect. Now I can honestly say that you all are the reason I’m still blogging because you make it so much fun. Thank you to everyone who visited the blog, liked a post, or commented their thoughts. I’ve loved interacting with you all even more this past year and am looking forward to seeing what we all get up to in 2023.
This year I’ve started getting much more traffic from search engines. These five posts have done particularly well at bringing in views from search results, especially Google. I’m honestly not sure why, but I’m glad that at least some of my reviews are getting a slightly wider audience. Here are my top five posts of the year:
I’ve limited this list to posts published in 2022 because I had a ton of posts from 2021 that received a random view here and there. Much of this list is posts from the last couple of weeks, which makes sense because they haven’t had the time to get as many views as most of my other 2022 posts. There are a couple of meme posts too that did particularly poorly for whatever reason. Here are my five least viewed posts of the year:
I hope you all have a great holiday, and I wish everyone the best for the new year. I’m excited about what is to come in the new year, and I’m looking forward to continuing to share my thoughts about great books with you all in the year to come!
I enjoyed the month of October. It was relatively quiet, and I always enjoy giving away buckets of treats for Halloween. Our neighborhood is super popular, and it is always a big event with people setting up tables at the sidewalk to give away goodies to the kids going from house to house. I also went on a trip to visit my in-laws. We haven’t made that trip since before COVID started. So, it was nice to make it over there and see them and our nephew. I got approximately the same amount of reading done as in September, and I met one of my goals for the year, which is super exciting (Hint: It involves NetGalley). All in all, it has been a pretty great month. Now, let’s get down to the specifics.
Read More »As I’m sitting here thinking back about this month, nothing special really stands out. I honestly can’t believe it has already been a month since the last wrap-up post. It seems like it was just the other day. I’m excited the weather is finally getting at least a little cooler. Although, I’m sure we will still have several last gasps of summer before fall really arrives. I do live in Louisiana after all. I don’t really have anything else to say about September. So, let’s just move on to my updates about reading. lol.
Read More »Where did August go?! Seriously. The month flew by, but at least I can say I got a lot done. I had tons of doctor’s appointments this month. Those aren’t really ever fun, but at least I can now confirm I’m still free of any metastatic disease (AKA no signs of cancer recurrence)! I also got quite a bit done around the house, bought a new dryer that I love and makes laundry go so much faster, and helped my in-laws haul off my wife’s old clunker of a car that has been sitting in our garage for a year. So, I’d say that’s a pretty great month. With all the activity, I haven’t been in the mood to blog as much, but I’m going to try to do better in September. Without further ado, let’s jump to what I’m sure you all came here for – my reading progress!!
Read More »It has been a while since I’ve done a monthly wrap-up. Two months to be exact. I’m not sure why but I just couldn’t be bothered to do one last month. I just wasn’t feeling it even though June was a pretty great month. I’ve been in a bit of a funk, and some new meds made July a rough one. I’m finally feeling a bit better, though. So, I thought I’d wrap up my reading from the last couple of months and check in on how I’m doing with my goals.
Read More »Well. Another month has come and gone. It has been a pretty great one with all the Star Wars stuff (Celebration, Star Wars Day, etc.) going on. New books, shows, and LEGO sets were definitely welcomed into my home with open arms. lol. Other than that, though, this has been a pretty dull month in my household.
Read More »Hello, everyone! How is it already May? April was a pretty good month. The first week or so I was still recovering from oral surgery, but I’m grateful there were no complications. I’m feeling better now and am all healed up. I also went on a short vacation over the Easter holiday, which was nice. I haven’t left the house much since COVID started. So, it was nice to have a change of scenery even if it was only for a few days. Unsurprisingly, the other major thing that happened this month was that I read A LOT. I participated in two readathons and ended up reading even more than usual. Scroll below to see all the details!
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Happy Saturday, everyone! We’ve reached the end of another week. I hope it has gone well for you all. Today I’ll once again be wrapping up my my reading progress, comic book reading, and my blog posts from the past week.
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Biblio Nerd Reflections 