Showing posts with label a bit of me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a bit of me. Show all posts

(Still) Wrapping up 2011: Stats and Challenges

11:44 AM mixagrip

You know, if I were more on top of things, I'd have done all this stuff before today.  Alas, I'm not. 

I really love to analyze the stats from my reading during the year, so here are a bunch of numbers (and a few more graphs) that show a bit more about what I read.

Total number of books read: 150 
(my favorites of the year are listed here)

Fiction: 142, 95%
Non-fiction: 8, 5% (ouch, I really need to up this number)


Age Range:
Middle Grade (or younger): 56
Young Adult: 78
Adult: 16


Sorta Genres:
Historical Fiction (ish): 19
Mystery (vague, I know): 2
Realistic Fiction: 20
Sci-Fi (ish): 2
Paranormal: 22
Horror (ish): 1
Magical Realism (in my opinion): 5
Fairy Tale Retelling (straight up, anyway): 3
Steampunk: 1
Fantasy (ish): 44
Dystopian: 20
Graphic Novels or Illustrated: 11
(Of course these "genres" won't add up to 150, since some cross over and some don't fit and so on.)

Authors:
Male: 38
Female: 114 
(Also not adding up because there are one book with a male and female author, three books with two female authors, one book with two male authors, and one book with three male authors.) 

Most Read: Catherine Fisher (4 books, the Relic Master series)

Most Read Runners-Up in a ten-way tie with 2 books each:
Richard Peck, Christopher Paolini, Lois Lowry, Kieran Scott, Jonathan Maberry, Cinda Williams Chima, Mary Pearson, Stephanie Perkins, Sophie Jordan, and Ursula Vernon

Source:
Books read for review: 69, 46%
Books from the library: 73, 49%
Books from my collection not for review: 7, 5%
Books borrowed: 1, <1%


Format:
Audiobooks: 14 
E-Books: 18
Print: 118

Other:
Published in 2011 (US): 72, 48%
Debut Authors in 2011: 23, 15%
Debut Authors in 2012: 1, <1%
Rereads: 10, 7%
Did Not Finish: 6, 4% (out of 156)
Books part of a series: 80, 53%

And while I'm wrapping up, here are the challenges I signed up for in 2011.  I just wanted to say: I finished them all!  The only one I nearly didn't was the historical fiction challenge, which definitely challenged me to pick more HF books.
 
Debut Author Challenge, hosted by Kristi of The Story Siren:
completed with 22 debuts (see the list here).
 
Middle Grade Book Challenge hosted by Cindy's Love of Books:
completed with 45 books (see the list here).
 
YA Historical Fiction Challenge hosted by YA Bliss:
completed with 11 books (see the list here).
 
2011 E-Book Challenge hosted by The Ladybug Reads:
completed with 18 books (see the list here).
 
100+ Reading Challenge, hosted by Home Girl's Book Blog:
completed with 150 books (see the list here).
 
I was also "participating" in two perpetual challenges, which I didn't do so well with.  The Local Author Challenge, hosted by Suey at It's All About Books, I read at least 2 by authors from my new locale, Arizona:
The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann and Slayers by C.J. Hill
And I think I got about 5 or 6 Utah authors too! (Ok, this year it will only be Arizona authors that count.)
 
For the Printz Project, I only managed to read one Printz book, the winner for the year, Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi.  I've gotta work on that a little better this year!

Whew!  Now maybe I can get some reviews posted.  Congrats if you made it this far!  What stats do you love to keep? 
 
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A Bookish Halloween

10:11 PM mixagrip

I was planning to post about my bookish Halloween, but kept putting it off.  But, at least it's not even a week late yet. Anywho, here is evidence of just how deep this weird bookish obsession goes (as if becoming a librarian was not proof enough).
The costume:

(My head's cut off mostly because my facial expression was so horrifying I just couldn't publicize it.)  Don't I just blend right in with the background?  People who knew me at the one party I attended thought it was funny.  Others just thought it was really boring.

The pumpkin:
It's not that great, but I gotta encourage reading, no matter what. Unfortunately we had zero trick-or-treaters (!) so no one enjoyed it but me and my hubby. And pardon the bad photos, I'm not that good with the camera.

What is your ideal bookish costume? Did you dress up?

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I'm a Fantasy Kind of Gal...I Think

7:15 AM mixagrip

So, I've not done any kind of discussion post in...let me check...two months.  I'm not good at them and I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I like lists and reviews - I'm comfortable with them.  Discussions?  Not so much.  Plus, my brain is so fried sometimes at the end of a work day I honestly don't know if I could come up with relatively new and interesting ideas that often.  Even so, here's what I've been thinking.

I decided to do a little stats analyzing (oh, my inner nerd) to see if those genres I tend to like get more 5 star reviews than genres I don't normally like.  And, of course, if the reverse is true of 2 star reviews.  Specifically, I wanted to see if fantasy had more positive reviews and realistic fiction had more negative.  Here's the breakdown from my blog in pie chart form (see above parenthetical exclamation): 


As I expected, fantasy topped the charts as the highest number of 5 star reviews with 31%.  Since I consider fantasy to be my favorite, I thought that was pretty awesome.  I was a bit surprised by how high realistic fiction was too, with 14%!  Then I did the same calculations for my 2 star reviews:


And discovered that fantasy also tops that list.  Mind you, I found that I nearly equally give 2 star reviews to each genre.  In fact, the only genre that seemed to move up a bit in comparison to 5 star reviews was paranormal (which, I kind of expected).  As this kind of disproved my initial theory, I thought I'd better look at my overall reading by genre.  I only did reading for this year since the data was the most complete.


As you can see, fantasy does top my list at 31%, though I was a bit surprised by how low dystopian was on the scale (only 13%).  It feels like I've been reading lots of that, but I guess not in comparison to fantasy and paranormal.  Based on this, it makes sense that fantasy tops both my 5 and 2 star reviews.  I read quite a bit more of that genre than any other, so I should have more reviews in general of that genre, both good and bad. 

If you've stuck with me thus far, bravo for you!  Do you find yourself reading more of a certain genre or thinking you give more negative reviews of a specific genre? 

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There's No Accounting for Taste

11:07 AM mixagrip

Today I was thinking about the many varied tastes we all have in books.  This is one of the things I love most about book bloggers is that everyone has opinions and most of them time they are very different.  Specifically, though I was thinking about when it seems like you have an opinion that is different from most everyone else's.  This usually happens when:

1-You love a book that everyone else hates, OR
2-You hate a book that everyone else loves.

To me, it seems like #2 happens a lot more than #1.  But either way, I was wondering what your response is.  Often, I will feel somewhat uncomfortable with my opinion and a little apprehensive in posting my reviews, for fear of retribution, though honestly I've never had any truly negative responses to my opinions on books, so I'm not sure why I have that fear.  I'm thinking this simply comes from my personal discomfort in having vastly differing opinions from all of you smart people!  (I'm realizing how silly this makes me sound, but I'm sticking with the truth here.)

I'll usually, when I have said reaction, stop and think about why my opinion is different.  Often, I'll check out reviews of the book to see what other people had to say.  I always try to retain my original opinion, but I like to see reasons for others' opinions.  This helps me understand why people hated or loved it and I had the opposite reaction.  It helps me think slightly more objectively and recognize the good or not so good things I might have overlooked.  I think this makes me a more balanced reviewer and I like that.  

What do you think?  Do you worry when your reactions are so different from the majority?  Do you look at others' reviews before you publish yours?  Any thoughts on this?

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Armchair BEA: Welcome and Hello!

7:36 AM mixagrip


Hello all and welcome to another year of Armchair BEA.  The prompt from the organizers is to introduce myself.  I'm not great at intros, I'll be honest.  I'm uber shy in real life.  And a little in virtual life.  But here goes:

-A librarian in search of a job: just left my academic library job in Utah to move to Arizona so my hubby could get more schoolin'.  I'd really like to end up working with young people, recommending the books I love most to them.  

-A kid-at-heart: something always draws me to read the MG and YA stuff.  I used to be an adult-classics-only reader, but once I found discovered that younger stuff (again) I haven't been able to feed the addiction enough.  Though I do try once in a while to broaden my horizons and pick me up an adult book.  I'm sure it's good for me.

-A board game player extraordinaire: ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but I have addictions to playing board games.  My current favorites are Ticket to Ride and Settlers of Catan.  Now I just have to find some local buddies to have game night with.

-A camper/hiker/backpacker: Right about this time of year (and, you know, four months ago) I get a real hankerin' for some camping.  I used to live for our family camp outs, driving two hours and hiking twice as long, to escape from civilization (and trust me, we didn't bring it with us).  I don't get to go for nearly as long or a far as I used to, but that desire to escape hasn't disappeared.  I'm thrilled to have a whole new state to explore the outdoors.

Ok, I think I've bored you enough with all those random details.  I Armchair BEA because my husband's in school and I currently don't have a job and pretty much, the money says no.  But, I'm ok with it for now (though don't ask me after I read all the BEA posts, I'm sure the green-eyed monster will strike).

Welcome to my blog and I hope to meet many new bloggers this week!

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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Excuse the Mess...

12:09 PM mixagrip

Oh, wait, you can't see it (thank heavens).  The mess I speak of is in my apartment.  We are getting ready to move, which is why this week and most definitely next week, my posting will be inconsistent (if not nonexistent).  Thanks for all my readers who will be sticking with me through this quiet time.  See you next from the great state of Arizona!

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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Best. Trip. Ever.

5:40 PM mixagrip

A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

I'm playing along again with this meme, and the question this week is about our favorite trip ever.  

Actually, I'm not sure I could say that there is one trip I've taken that was 100% the best ever.  I've had many fabulous trips in my life, some fabulous because of the location, and some because of the people I was with.  

In the first category, I have my trip to Paris with my high school friends, my trip to Japan with my mom, and my trip to the Czech Republic with my hubby to visit my parents.  In the second category are all the fantastic camping trips I've had with my family (beautiful place with my favorite people), my first trip to Disneyland with my college roommates (so much fun), my second trip to Disneyland with my hubby (his first trip), and so many many other family vacations.  

I wish I had digital photos from all of these trips, so I could share some of these memories, but I'll just show you a very small portion of what I do have, from my trip to the Czech Republic.

Loved this clock tower:

Me and my lion friend:

One of many very cool castles!

Mr. Darcy wishes he lived here!

One of many beautiful cathedrals

Little renaissance village:

Sweet little castle:
 
I love castles :)
 
And cathedrals on a hill:
 
Loved how these windows were replaced with abstract images (during communist rule), but are surrounded by religious panels that weren't broken during WWII
 
And there happen to be beautiful outdoor locations as well!




Plus, I really enjoyed the libraries and other bookish places that we were able to visit while there.   Check out these beautiful libraries and book museum.

What is (one of) your favorite trips?

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What's to Come: 2011

4:08 PM mixagrip

 A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

I'm glad to be back doing this meme again. And it's a perfect week for me to jump in, because we are talking about the most anticipated event of 2011.  And for me, that just has to be:

My husband graduating from school.  

Mind you, this graduation is actually leading to another three years of school.  But still.  Both of us are so happy to be leaving undergraduate work behind.

Which leads to the next anticipated event, which is moving.  I've lived in this state for all but about two years of my life and I am ready to try somewhere new.  Mind you, I am going to miss my Utah Bloggers and the fabulous socials we have about twice a year.  However, I am very happy for a change.  

Where are you going, you may ask?  Well, that is currently unknown.  Alas, we are doing the Waiting Game.  Waiting to hear back from the schools we applied to.  

So, that's really the big one for me.  It's kind of hard to plan for any other events when you don't know where you'll be in six months.  But, frankly, it's also kind of exciting.  

Plus, wherever we go, there will be books and new bookish friends.  So, here's to a new year of adventures and reading!

What's your most anticipated event this year?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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2010: A Year in Review

2:01 PM mixagrip

If you are not very interested in knowing someone else's reading numbers, you may feel free to skip this post.  I'll list my favorites of the year in another post either later today or tomorrow.  

Total books read in 2010: 206

Reading challenges completed: 
100+ Reading Challenge (206)
Young Adult Reading Challenge (122)
Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge (122)
Banned Books Reading Challenge (3)
YA-D2 Dystopian Reading Challenge (5, though I haven't reviewed them all)

Perpetual challenges I worked on:
Support Local Authors
Printz Project

Still working on:
Read, Remember, Recommend Challenge (6 of 10 books read)

Stats:
Young Adult books read: (122) 59%
Middle Grade books read: (54) 26%
Adult books read: (28) 14%
Children's books read: (2) .01%
Nonfiction books read: (7) .03%

Audio books: (8) .04%
E-books: (12) .06%
Review copies/ARCs (74) 36%
Owned (not for review) (7) .03%

Approximate genre stats:
Fantasy/paranormal: ~45%
Realistic Fiction/Contemporary: ~23%
Historical Fiction: ~19%
Dystopian/sci-fi/futuristic: ~13%
Other genres: ~1%

As you can see, most of what I read is young adult fantasy and still the majority comes from my library, which is just fine with me.  This year, I would like to read more nonfiction and more adult books (probably "classics").  Other than that, I decided not to define specific goals (after all, I am participating in a few reading challenges this year; those are goals, right?).  

Welcome to a new year of reading!


If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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Ghosts of Christmas Past

8:01 PM mixagrip

 A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to revisit some of my favorite family holiday traditions. If you don't care to stroll down someone else's memory lane, you can skip right by this post and I won't mind. But, here are a few of the things my family did growing up that I hope to do when I have kids of my own:

The big thing for our obviously Christian family was reenacting the Nativity.  My parents have been doing this for a long time.  Our Nativity over the years:

Here's the first photo I could find - it was probably not too easy to fill all the parts with less than four children:

It was always fun to have a "baby" to play Jesus, though this one was a bit big for the part of a newborn.

And of course with old cameras and young children, it was hard to get a good photo.

Add another child and they're starting to have enough to fill the parts!

My older sisters used to fight every year over who could be Mary.  That's when my father starting keeping track of who played her each year so the four girls would each get a turn (at this point I haven't arrived on the scene yet).

Note the awesome beard my oldest brother is wearing.  This was obviously before the time it became known as the "pee beard" for its funny smell and no one would consider touching it. 

I was pretty disappointed to discover my parents hadn't printed any of the photos of my first Christmas, when I got to be the baby. Instead, I present my second Christmas participating in the Nativity (though you can see I probably didn't participate, since I'm not in costume).

You can see a gap in the years since that last one, but a definite improvement in photo quality.  This is also about the time my older siblings started disappearing sporadically from the scene.

My sister discovers the joys of sporting a beard:

And the introduction of the sheep hat, a favorite costume item:

I'm particularly fond of this year, since we finally convinced my parents to participate (my mom usually read the Bible story and my dad filmed it).  Also a favorite is my sister's even more excellent beard made from her own hair.
 
Not our most recent Nativity, but one of my favorite later ones was the year we had three babies to participate.  It was a fun year. 

I'm definitely hoping I get to keep up this tradition with my family!

There's lots of other things my family used to do (and some they still do) like singing Christmas songs around the piano and having Christmas morning brunch.  But since this post is already too long, I thought I'd just give a shout out to the awesome candy-making my mom has passed on to me:


 
Christmas isn't Christmas without the candy.

What are your favorite holiday traditions?

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These are a Few of My Favorite Things

9:28 AM mixagrip

A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

For this week's question, we are supposed to list at least one thing we're grateful for.  Let's be honest, I've never been good at only picking one thing :)  Here's the short list:


Family
I assume this is number one on pretty much everyone's list.  Where would we be without family or the people in our lives we consider family?  They offer us support and love and everything we humans need.  My husband who is, you know, always there for me (and on and on and on about him).  I love living near most of my family - the get togethers are wildly entertaining (so looking forward to Thanksgiving).  I know I'll miss them when we finally move :)

A Job
This was a hard one for me to say, because I've been struggling so much with my job recently.  But, because of my job, we've been able to pay for my husband's schooling without going into debt.  We have enough to eat and a place to stay warm.  I'm glad to have one, especially in this economic situation.


Books
Yeah, it's cliche I know (considering I blog about books), but it's true.  Books are what keep me sane (some of the time) and help me relax and unwind at the end of the day (or the beginning or the middle).  I love to have something on hand to keep my mind from worrying about stuff I can't control (and some that I can).  This even makes me grateful for parents who taught me to read, for teachers who encouraged it, and for libraries who provide what no one individual could.  I love my books :)

What about you?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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Local or Not

10:22 AM mixagrip

A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

Today's topic is about Broadway musicals and theater?  I've seen two Broadway shows in my life (and neither time did I pay for them - otherwise, I might not have seen any).  The first was when a friend of mine invited me to see Annie back in 8th grade.  I love the songs and the story of this one, so it was a lot of fun for me. Not that I actually remember much from it, though.  Still, I kept the program somewhere, so I must have enjoyed it.  

The second was Phantom of the Opera, which I saw locally.  My church youth organization somehow managed to take a group of us up to see this when I was in high school.  Mind you, we were located pretty far back and to the side.  But, since I also adore the music to this one, it was a fabulous experience for me.

My husband and I prefer to see local theater, mostly because it's cheap and, well, local.  While some of the shows at our favorite outdoor theater are better than others, it's always a fun experience to go.  Just yesterday, we attempted to buy tickets to a local showing of The Scarlett Pimpernel.  Unfortunately, all of the performances are sold out - weeks in advance.  Needless to say, whatever kind of talent they have, local or not, we like to see it anyway.

What about you?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


Posted in ,

Slumping NOT Over

1:57 PM mixagrip

It's official.  I'm in a rut.  I've been trying to plow through lots of books recently, both library and review copies and I'm just plain tired.  I'm feeling sad that I feel like I have to "plow" through books at all.  I need some kind of literary pick-me-up.  Something that reminds me of just how much I love reading.  I'm open to your suggestions, cause I've got nothing.

Not only is it a reading slump, I'm feeling very unmotivated to blog as well.  You may have noticed a proliferation of book reviews and not a lot of anything else.*  That is a symptom of my slumpage.  I've just been taking my huge back log of reviews (from July - yes, I'm almost four months behind on my reviews) and posting them once a day.  It's almost as tiresome for me as it is for you.

What I'm really hoping will pull me out of both slumps is a chance to mingle with some awesome local and one awesome non-local YA authors this Saturday.  My library is having a teen book festival of sorts, and I'm hoping I'll at least get some food for thought if not my excitement for reading back.  I've got an author-love post brewing on my back burner and this event might just move it out of the dark recesses of my mind and into the public view.  

But, until then, I've only got more reviews from way back when (and a few from not-so-way-back-when) to post.  Thanks for sticking with me, everyone!

*I'm even so slumpy right now that I can't even think of a nice picture to include to break up the dull text of this post. 

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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What Comes in Threes?

9:46 AM mixagrip

A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.

Lots of things come in threes - I've heard it said of both good and bad.  But, this time, you get information about me in threes.  Today's A Bit of Me(Me) topic is to list three adjectives that describe me.  I was trying to be optimistic, but I kind of went for more honest. I am:

quiet
This one is obvious to many who have met me.  I was going to say shy, but I think in general, I am also a quiet person, even around those I know.  I don't like to speak up unless asked and I find that keeping my opinion to myself sometimes saves me a lot of grief later.  It also means I don't usually say too much about myself that can be embarrassing or spill others' secrets.

hardworking
A trait I definitely inherited from my parents.  Both are dedicated to working hard and accomplishing all that needs to be done.  I tend to want to get things that are necessary done first and completely before moving to something fun or relaxing.  Work, for me, is not always drudgery, but brings satisfaction and peace of mind.  I'm really hoping I can pass this one along to my kids.

non-confrontational
This has served me in both good and bad ways.  I definitely like to avoid arguments and fights with other people (though, perhaps my husband might say otherwise :).  Tension and anger always make me uncomfortable (at least when they come from other people) and I like to defuse situations as best I can.  But, this also means that I get walked all over.  I've been too embarrassed or afraid to speak up, particularly with overbearing friends or employers before.  Definitely, a two-edged sword.
 
What are your three?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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Quick Note

9:03 AM mixagrip

Just wanted to mention (rather later than I should have) that I was featured on Carina of Reading Through Life's Reading Roots.  It was posted on Tuesday, but for some reason I was thinking it was supposed to be today.  Stop by to learn more about my mysterious reading past.


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Hard at Work

3:06 PM mixagrip

A Bit of Me(Me) is hosted by Danielle of There's a Book.
 
For this week's topic, we get to talk about jobs we hated or were embarrassed by.  Well, it turns out I haven't had a lot of formal jobs in my short career.  Probably about seven total.  The one that I still get grumpy about wasn't exactly a formal job.  I worked for a friend of my father's who owns a small business.  He pretty much runs it himself with occasional help from some of my other siblings and then myself.  Essentially, I would fill orders and ship the product.  Sometimes I'd do mailings, which were a pain.  It may not sound that bad, but I had my reasons for hating it.  

First, it made me get out of my comfort zone on a daily basis.  I know that people encourage you to get out of it, but I really liked my zone at that time (and still do like it :)  Often, it required me to answer the phone and talk to strangers.  This is still one of my all-time top ten things I hate.  I'm shy, so I don't like it (good thing I never did work for a call center).  

Then, I had to go to the post office and send the packages with a credit card number written on a piece of paper.  That is correct, I was not trusted enough to take the actual plastic with me.  This made for some rather uncomfortable moments when payment would be necessary and I'd hand over a crumpled up paper with numbers written on it.  Sometimes I'd have people who were familiar with me and my boss' methods of sending packages.  Other times, they'd look at me, expecting something more.  Always it caused me huge amounts of embarrassment and much redness of face.  I loathed it.  Going to work was a dreaded nightmare.  

I also didn't much like my boss as a person, though he was a close friend of my dad's, so I never really said much about it.  He made me feel uncomfortable in the sense that he'd always ask me questions to see how smart I was (seriously).  Let's just say, I was not sorry to move on.

What about you?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage


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