2013 Challenge Wrap-Up and Summary
What a year! 2013 was certainly a jam-packed year for me. I got married and honeymooned in Europe and now the whirlwind year has come to an end.It looks like 2014 will be an even bigger year! It's only week one and we've sold a house, bought a house and booked another overseas trip! Hence, we might also be a little broke this year too! We are super excited to be moving into a bigger home on a 1/4 acre block in a little country town in Sydney's South-West. It's only ten minutes from the major shopping hub... but we have our own little slice of country paradise. But with a big moving coming up and renovations... it will be months before we are fully settled in.It's no wonder with everything happening in my life these past twelve months that I've been quite unproductive when it comes to reading. I didn't achieve my 2013 Goodreads Reading Challenge:
Goodreads Reading Challenge Goal
You have read 129 books toward your goal of 160 books.As you can see I only managed to read 129 books when my initial target was 250 and then I dropped it to 160. So I didn't manage to beat my record of 198 books last year, but I did stay ahead of my 2011 stats of 112 books. I'm still pretty happy with reading 129 books considering how busy the year was and the fact that I took a brief hiatus from blogging late in the year.
Australian Women Writer's Challenge (AWW2013)
Aussie TBR List Pledge
In 2013 I pledged to read 85 books by Australian women writers. I didn't quite make my target, but I did manage to read 76 books which I think is a pretty good effort anyway. I plan to sign up for the 2014 challenge soon, but I'll have to rethink my target so that it's more realistic and achievable in the context of the year ahead.And finally, I set myself another goal: to read these 10 books by Australian authors in 2013. These books had been sitting on my TBR shelf and I wanted to have the opportunity to read them. I did actually manage to read 8 of them and the remaining to I attempted to read but marked as DNF (did not finish). Sadly, my attention span has been greatly reduced and if a book doesn't catch me in the first few pages I've been resigned to picking up something else lately.Dark Country by Bronwyn Parry (my review)Fetish by Tara Moss (my review)Tempt the Devil by Anna Campbell (my review)The Man who saw her Beauty by Michelle Douglas (read but didn't review)Jillaroo by Rachael Treasure (my review)Heart of Gold by Fiona Palmer (read but didn't review)Bella’s Run by Margareta Osborne (my review)Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta- DNFThe Rook by Daniel O’Malley - DNFCome Back to Me by Sara Foster (my review will be posted soon)I think I'll work on another TBR shelf challenge so that I can get to some of those books getting dusty on my shelves. I'm hoping that with requesting less review books in 2014 I'll be able to read some of the books I already have.
The Australian Bookshelf Blog... how did it measure up in 2013?
My most popular posts:I find it amazing that the top two posts viewed last year were the same that topped my stats at the end of 2012!
- 1 Book Review: 2 States by Chetan Bhagat July 2012
- 2 Book Review: The Seamstress by Maria Duenas December 2011
- 3 Book Review: Antonia and her Daughters by Marlena De Blasi May 2012
- 4 Book Review: Silence by Becca Fitzpatrick October 2011
- 5 Aussie Book Review: Tsunami and the Single Girl by Krissy Nicholson August 2013
Hmm... it's probably not great news that only one of my top 5 viewed posts were actually written this year!My top referrers:
- facebook.com
- twitter.com
- bookdout.wordpress.com- thanks Shelleyrae!!
- blogchicks.com.au
- http://auswomenwriters.weebly.com
Who visited my blog?125 countries visited the blog in 2013! Most visitors came from Australia. The United States & India were not far behind.Anyway, that's it from me for now. I'll be putting together a 2014 challenge post soon...