My Favourite 2022 Blogging Moments Tag!

The new year has swept in and all memory 2022 seems to be fading! So I think it best to record some of my blogging moments- before it’s too late!!

Thanks to the brilliant Bookcorps– the creator of the tag- for this great wrap-up tag!

What’s your favourite book review?

I loved reviewing Crap Days Out, not least because I’ve been on a lot of these trips!

What’s your favourite discussion post?

Tiktok made me read some pretty average books… because I blame Tiktok for spreading mediocre books like the plague!

What’s your favourite fun post?

(By “fun post” I mean a post that doesn’t fall under a particular category like reviews, discussions or tags do.)

I have a soft spot for What Really Happens After Rom Coms and the Most Generic Thriller Plan– both are terrifying in their own way 😉

What’s your favourite book recommendation post?

Recommending Books I Didn’t Like– because I’m an optimist and see the good in everything 😉 (okay, maybe not, but I can take credit for doing that just this once!)

What’s your favourite book/bookish photo?

I didn’t share so many photos, but I am pleased with a couple of illustrations I shared to promote books!

What’s your favourite original idea/blog post?

My satire poking fun at true crime podcasts INJUSTICE! I had so much fun making this multimedia post and it’s an absolute injustice if you haven’t checked it out yet 😉

What’s your absolute favourite blog post you wrote this year?

Do I stand by my old reviews was such an enjoyable way to mark SEVEN YEARS of blogging! As cringey as it is to read over my old reviews, I found it fascinating to see how my views and style has changed (and how much it hasn’t!) Hopefully I get to try this again in another seven years 😉

Have you reached any blogging achievements this year?

Keeping going 😉 Honestly, sometimes I don’t say how hard it is to keep going when life is so very, very hectic. I’m really glad I managed to keep writing this year and so grateful for everyone that’s stuck with me!!

I’m tagging anyone who wants to do it!! What were some of your favourite blogging moments of 2022? Let me know in the comments!

My Reading Stats for 2019 – A Bookish Overview

Hello all! I’m doing another of my annual traditions today and sharing my stats from the year! Let’s get to it!

Now forgive me, this is the part where I get really geeky with statistics…

My ratings are a little down (they were 3.55 in 2017 and 3.66 in 2018), but I think this kind of variation is to be expected. I’m still happy I’m not choosing too many 1-2 banana books. When it comes to the types of books I’ve been picking, it’s somewhat of a mixed bag. One of the most interesting things to note this year were the couple of cross-genre books- some worked (Evelyn Hardcastle) others didn’t (Behind Her Eyes). Other than that, however, my tastes have remained quite consistent. Classics have been static (at 13% for the last three years!); fantasy was about the same as last year (34% again). Most significantly, YA is down from 47% last year to 40% this year (which I’d say is more like my yearly average and last year was a bit of a blip). Of course, given I’ve read considerably more books this year (last year I read 165), I’ve technically read more YA books in total 😉 Still, what I’m most excited about is that I somehow managed to read 15 non-fiction books- when I usually have to challenge myself to manage ten!! And while I don’t have the stats for this (I didn’t have the forethought to take note when I only listened to a couple a year 😉), there have definitely been more audiobooks (18 this year!)

A quick read about funny football stories 😊

An absolute SLOG!

Two this year, because it seems fitting to show a little balance:

I only DNF’d Otherworld- which is ridiculous- I need to get better at this!

Only 5!

Yeah I can understand that.

So undeserved! My goodness- this book deserves more love!

***New category***

And, to reflect my new reading habits, I had to include this new category, just so I could recommend these audiobooks…

And that’s a wrap! Do you keep track of your stats? How have your ratings been this year? Let me know in the comments!

 

My Reading Stats for 2018 – A Bookish Overview

Hello all! I did this last year and I had a lot of fun with it, so I figured, why not make it an annual tradition?

Also since I did it last year I figured I could draw plenty of comparisons!

What I find interesting looking at these stats is how some of my reading has changed in just a year. One of the best things is that while my number of books read has gone down (from 220), my average rating has gone up (from 3.5). I’m really excited to see this and my best guess for this improvement would be the way I choose books- aka I think I know my tastes better and reading so many reviews means I can vet books a lot better nowadays- so I owe the blogging community a vote of thanks for this one!

And cos I’m dorky and like statistics, I had a good time comparing 2018 to 2017 (link). For instance, the amount of YA I read was wayyy up- from 39% to 47%. Makes sense- I needed more time to relax. My reading of classics and literary fiction has remained largely static in terms of statistics- around 13%- although given how many books I read last year, this works out as significantly less. Fantasy reading is down from 43% to 34%, while contemporaries are up from 16% to 23%- not only is it interesting to note that I spent more time in the real world, but I can speculate that this more varied approach stopped some genre fatigue. Interesting stuff!

It’s sad that even though it was super short, it was still a complete waste of time.

It’s taken me years to finally brave this one- I count this as a total victory!

Normally I’m reluctant to use the term… buuut in this case I’ll make an exception.

Well, it is a little slice of genius

Just the one:

Ten! I did *a lot* of rereading this year and it was a great change! I used to reread way more when I was younger and it felt great to reconnect with that habit. I reckon it also had something to do with the fact that I got more enjoyment out of my books this year (just look at those ratings!)

HP x7 and Secret countess, wee free men, shiver (don’t remember reading it the first time)

Okay, duh.

Well then, this means you guys had better get on and read it 😉

It currently 4.65- possibly cos it’s a new release and only the most enthusiastic readers will have read it at this stage (in fact, when I started making this post it was 4.67, so there you go, it’s already going down).

At 3.26- makes sense- it’s a complete waste of time.

And that’s a wrap! Do you keep track of your stats? How have your ratings been this year? Let me know in the comments!

My Reading Stats for 2017 – A Bookish Overview

It’s finally here- my overview for the year. I made a post like this for a joke (the Mid-Year Reading Report), but you guys seemed to enjoy it and I had fun making it, so I thought I’d do another stats post, for reelz this time.

As I’ve teased a few times I’ve read a lot of books this year, had a lot of opinions and now all will be revealed. Let’s break this down!!

A lot of fun in a short space!

I’m kinda counting the Gulag Archipelago as one book, because technically it is (even though it’s in three volumes). Either way, I’m admittedly proud of finishing this, because even though it was heavy going, it was a personal project for me this year to educate myself a bit more about the evils of communism. After 2000 odd pages of this traumatic reading material, I can safely say being shackled to the state is a bitch. Which leads me onto…

As I teased in my “Most Disappointing Books of the Year” I did have a worst book of the year- and I don’t feel an ounce of remorse for labelling it as such. Not when we look beyond the famous rhetoric and see that this ideology killed hundreds of millions of people globally. What’s really shocking is that it’s easy to see why when reading this (especially if you read it alongside the Gulag or 1984). This book advocates for stifling freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of movement, freedom to have your own family *and* implementation by force. It’s the stuff of nightmares.

Onto happier subjects (although there is a distinctly Russian theme to this post), you guys know by now that I thought this book was MAGICAL. If ever you need to escape from reality for a bit, this is your ticket into a world of fairy tales. Stunningly beautiful and truly evocative of a Russian winter, I can’t recommend this book enough!

I’m actually lousy at DNFing, so even though there were definitely more books I should have given up on, I’m still proud of myself for giving up on these two:

Also Daughter of Smoke and Bone, which I totally forgot about.

(GAHHH SO UNDERRATED!!)

Average rating on Goodreads: 4.74

And that’s a wrap! What was your biggest read this year? Let me know in the comments!

Mid-Year Reading Report

Welcome, welcome, I’m sure you’re all as fed up with politics as I am, soooo I decided to politicise my blog today and give you my reading “coverage” for this first half of the year.

Since January, I’ve read a lot of books and I was looking forward to a landslide victory with regards to my tbr, but recently my campaign went a little sour and I’ve been hit by a terribly unsupportive slump… Hopefully I’ll be able to make up the votes (*ahem* books) in the latter part of the year, but we’ll see.

Now time for some helpful graphics so you know what I’m talking about 😉 :

So far so good- on the surface this looks pretty promising- let’s just not dig too deep or we might unearth some scandalous periods when I read absolutely nothing….

I’m not overly generous with ratings, so I’m pretty damn pleased this shows that I mostly picked up books I actually liked. One would hope I would continue this trend- but one can’t always trust the polls now, can we?

Annnnd I’ve clearly gone overboard with the fantasy- let’s see if I can have some more “balanced” coverage in the next part of the year… even if I am typically biased when it comes to my reading habits 😉 Never mind, I can always pretend otherwise!

So that’s it for now! Yes, I am being shifty about things like number of books reviewed, or books per month… but one can’t expect me to be entirely transparent! And please don’t ask me for facts & figures in the comments- there’s no way *anyone* can be expected to know those pesky little details!