Even though we have a week to go in this year, I’m writing this post now because my best friend is coming to visit after Christmas and I don’t anticipate having time to write it then! Here’s Goodreads’ view of my year in books.
Just going by this, I passed my Goodreads Challenge goal of 175 books, but I fell short of my Pages Read goal of 48,001-60,000 pages. I have listed a slightly higher total of pages, but then I usually go by how many pages Amazon says the item has. Either way, I’m still a bit short of my goal. I’m still reading and who knows, I might make it, but I’ve got about 3000 pages to go, so I’m not so sure on that.
** UPDATE 12/30/17 – I have finished the Pages Read Challenge after all! Woo hoo! **
Other challenges I’ve managed to complete this year were:
I’m close to finishing my Cruisin’ Thru the Cozies challenge. I just need one more British Cozy and I’ve got an Agatha Christie lined up to read after Christmas. The rest of my challenges didn’t go so well. It was a combination of reading too many books for review and just not having time to read others. So next year, I’m going to join fewer challenges and really try harder at clearing up some of my backlist of reading.
My life took some decent size turns this year as well.
I started a new position at my library. I’m now working in acquisitions/cataloging instead of on the public desks. It has been so freeing for me. My anxiety was thru the roof when I was on the public desks and I would actually call in a lot. Now, I’m not calling in nearly as much and I love what I do. 🙂 Cataloging was my concentration in library school so to actually be doing cataloging is wonderful. I love my co-workers, my boss, the fact that I can set my own hours as long as I get my 40 hours in each week, all of it. 🙂
I’ve also been working on deep cleaning and reorganizing my room. While I’ve gotten stymied with a few of my plans with this, I have time off for the holidays and plan to really crank it out and end this project! After that comes tidying up my art area in the basement so I can make art again down there. 🙂
I’ve made several new friends this year through blogging and am having a lot of fun with it, even if I don’t have quite as much time to post as I did before!
Favorite Books of 2017
Here’s a list of some of my favorite books that I read this year. I can’t choose just one, so here’s the top 11 in the order I read them, so the beginning of the year is at the top and the end of the year at the bottom (I tried to whittle it to 10 and I just couldn’t choose one more to cut out so 11 it is).
- Assault & Beret – Jenn McKinlay
- Smugglers & Scones – Morgan C. Talbot
- Wish – Barbara O’Connor
- Color Me Dead – Teresa Trent
- Be Light Like a Bird – Monika Schröder
- Star-Crossed – Barbara Dee
- Once Upon a Spine – Kate Carlisle
- The Bear and the Nightingale – Katherine Arden
- World of Innocent – Nadine C. Keels
- Watching Glass Shatter – James J. Cudney
- The Dreamer’s Song – Lynn Kurland
Books I’m excited about for 2018
- Tempests & Slaughter – the start of a new series by Tamora Pierce, a young-adult fantasy novelist that I thoroughly enjoy.
- The Bishop’s Pawn – Steve Berry – love his historical/contemporary novels. He seamlessly blends old facts with a modern-day story line and then goes back and tells you what was real and what was fiction.
- The Girl in the Tower – Katherine Arden – the sequel to The Bear and the Nightingale. It was actually released this month, but I won’t get to it before January.
- Father Figure – James J. Cudney – I’ve read some early drafts and I’m super excited to see this get all polished up and published!
- A host of new cozy mysteries from Laura Childs, Jenn McKinlay, Vicki Delany, Meg Macy, Nell Hampton, Kate Carlisle and many more!
What books are you looking forward to in 2018 or are there ones you read in 2017 that you’re anxious to share with others? I’m always looking for great recommendations. 🙂
Valerie's Musings 