It’s my birthday! Which means it’s time to do a little reflection on my bookish year and the year as a whole. This was the first time when I was tracking everything based on my age and I think it worked really well. In this post, you will find a breakdown of my reading for year 27, some patterns I noticed and what’s coming up for Armed with A Book in Year 28. This is a more personal post than usual and I hope you won’t mind it. 🙂
Year 27
Year 27 arrived with one word written in bold – change. I had just been told that my position at work was very likely going to be terminated, we were in the middle of the pandemic without any vaccines and hardly able to see any of our family. I was feeling stuck, betrayed, mad at the world for getting me here. But I am not one to think negative thoughts very long – I like action and change is a reason to evaluate and reinvent.
A year later, a lot has changed. I work with a group of amazing individuals who understand my value, see my potential and want to see me grow in my career. I am engaged to my favourite person in the world and we are planning a wedding with our families and close friends. We own a house together and there is nothing like being in it. I have grown a lot as a reader and as a digital content maker. I miss Amma but am connected to her even more now that I make art. There is an actual book out there that has my art in it!
I have my teenage cat and my adorable little kitten who keep me company.
I have made friendships that I can’t be without.
I am loved and I enter a new chapter of my life knowing that I am cared for and have everything I will ever need.
Review of the goals from year 27
1. Read well known and thought provoking works.
How I did: I read over a 100 books this year. More than 50% of these books were from the library or my own, and not review copies. Review copies are usually upcoming books and it can be hard to gauge whether they would be thought-provoking or become well known in the near future. That’s why seeing the numbers for my owned and library books gives me hope that I was successful in reaching this goal. Any review copies that were thoughtful are a bonus! Thinking in terms of book types, I read a total of 6 memoirs and 7 non-fiction books out of my 107 books for year 27.
Books I loved and highly recommend with whys:
- Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse – For the wisdom – Review
- The Children’s Train by Viola Ardone – For the reality of parenthood and separation – Review
- The Councillor by E.J. Beaton – For the love of scholarship and academia – Review
- The Forgotten Home Child by Genevieve Graham – For history of where I live – Review
- The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin – For the world building and roller coaster plot – Review
- An I-novel by Minae Mizumura – For putting words to thoughts I hadn’t said aloud – Review
- I’d rather be reading by Anne Bogel – For the reader in me – Short Review
- High Conflict by Amanda Ripley – For times when I feel stuck – Review
- The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai – For memories and the importance of grandparents – Review
- Pet Sematary by Stephen King – For close calls – Review
- We are satellites by Sarah Pinsker – For love and differences – Review
- What we carry by Kalyn Fogarty – For realities of pregnancy – Review
- The boy, the mole, the fox, the horse by Charlie Mackesy – For truths of life – Review
- What we carry (memoir) by Maya Shanbhag Lang – For learning not to judge – Short Review
- Before the coffee gets cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi – For redoing the past – Review
- Bewilderment by Richard Powers – For heartbreaking big picture questions that we have to collectively understand and answer – Review
- Blue skinned gods by S. J. Sindu – For how our childhood shapes us – Review coming Nov 3rd – Find on Goodreads
- The Goddess of Nothing at all by Cat Rector – For pain, conflict and perseverance – Review coming Oct 4th – Find on Goodreads
I haven’t finished The Count of Monte Cristo, House of Leaves and The Book Thief yet and I am sure they will all make the next list.
I rarely bought books I did not want to take a chance on or hadn’t already enjoyed, I borrowed more from the library and Year 27 was the foundation of a number of reading and writing habits that would not have happened without this goal.
At the same time, reading mostly big publisher books particularly at the beginning of the year made me feel like I wasn’t helping the upcoming author community enough and I came up with the Indie Recommends Indie series after a positive interaction with an indie after a long time.
2. Pursue art.
How I did: I made lots of art! Including some of the creative work in my journal, I shared 80+ pieces on my art account, with more that I left unshared on my iPad. One of my author friends, Dan, reached out to me and commissioned a piece for the interior of his book. That has been such an honor and it got me into making art inspired by books. Check out the cover reveal for The Living Waters by Dan Fitzgerald for a sneak peak. If you want to follow my art and bullet journal account, find me on Instagram.
3. Read more with friends.
How I did: Buddy reads/ Book club / Read Alongs: 45
Ariel and I have been reading together for a few years now and it was nice to read more regularly with other friends. Erynn and I have discovered blog tour books as a quick way to do an impromptu buddy read. Ariel and I continue to read the same books while also trying out different books under the same prompt with our horror challenge. I read more challenging and longer works with Stephen. I also read with Charlie from Peaches Book Club. There are more friends I would like to read with and hopefully will this year.
Blogging Reflection
I haven’t looked at blog stats before so I thought I would add those in here. 🙂
From October 2020-September 2021, there were 165 posts on Armed with A Book. Ariel wrote 14 of these posts, while contributing to 9 Horror posts, 11 wrap up posts and 13 buddy reads.
Of the 107 books I read this year, 90 of them have or will have a full review posted to the blog. Another 9 I had included in my quick review post a few days back. That is amazing in itself because it shows how much of what I read ends up on the blog!
I started a new series called Indie Recommends Indie which has seen 9 posts so far and has given me lots of indie recommendations. I wasn’t doing author interviews for a bit and it was fun to get back into them with Kalyn Fogarty’s interview, author of What we carry.
I experimented with the blog a lot this time – while I tried to post a few times a week, I took a break in June to come back with renewed energy and that has worked wonders. Planning and preparing ahead never lets me down and September 2021 was the most successful year of the blog with over 4,000 views. Thank you for contributing to them and being a frequent visitor. It means a lot to me! 🙂
Year 28 Goals
1. Practice creativity everyday.
There were many times this year when I wanted to be more seen online and disappointed when I wasn’t. After multiple tries, I have come to realize that when I focus on myself – my art, my bullet journal, my blog and Instagram – when I take photos and create things for me, I have a sense of freedom and contentment that running after random numbers or comparing with others never gets me. So this year, I plan to do something creative everyday. It could be some staging, creating a new spread in my journal, making a mood board, making table centerpieces for the wedding… I am not going to limit myself.
2. Make a page for the memorable books.
It is amazing how much things evolve in a year and what sticks and what doesn’t. I wanted to keep a page for each book I read for Year 27 too but after 8 months of diligent notes, I gave up. I went back to writing on the blog and recording the dates for when I started and finished a book. By the time September rolled around, I had tons of ideas on how the bullet journal for 28 was going to look and I am hopeful that by not forcing myself to evaluate every book and by mixing the book notes with creativity, I will get further this time. I plan to go back and make pages for the books I have mentioned above.
3. Read more indie books.
My Indie Recommends Indie series has been a source of inspiration for me. While I can’t read every book recommended to me (and I have recently said goodbye to over 250 books on my list which I know I will never be able to get to), I can still support the authors whose books intrigue me. Last year I was all about known and thought-provoking books and while I did well, I realized that my strategy to get indie books was flawed. They can’t all come from tours and authors. They have to come from my own searches and friends. Indie authors are usually accessible to host on the blog too so I am hoping to collaborate more with people.
Wishes: There might not be as many impending changes as year 27 had anticipated but this year will bring its own unique situations, especially with the wedding. I hope to continue practicing being kind and understanding. I hope to stand up for myself and reevaluate if something is not going right.
~ New Logo ~
Doing art regularly finally led me to create my very own site logo! You probably already noticed it but here is a bigger image:
Thank you for hanging out with me on my special day! I promise to continue to bring book reviews and other bookish ideas to you! If you read this post so far, drop me a hello in the comments or anywhere on social media – it would mean the world to me to get a message from my readers. I am on Twitter and Instagram.
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