Looking Back at My 2009 Reading (Part 1)

I was busy watching football all weekend so this had to wait until today.

A look back at my 2009 books and reading.



I went into 2009 with a mission for my reading. I wanted to be less structured and more spontaneous. That meant drastically reducing the number of challenges in which I participated. It did not mean throwing out my “to be read” list completely, but I intended to make it easier to go with the flow and pick up a book I just heard about if it sounded interesting.

Mission Accomplished.

I only joined a handful of challenges this year and it was just what I needed to do. I have a few favorite challenges and I joined a couple that came along that I couldn’t resist, but I left myself plenty of room for those whimpulsive reads.


My second major goal for 2009 was to make some progress in the many different series I am reading.

Again: Mission Accomplished.

Over half of the books I read this year were part of a series. Most of those were from series I’d already started, and a few were from new series. More details are in the statistics in a follow up post.


So, this more whimpulsive approach to reading worked well for me. I was able to enjoy a lot of books that I’d wanted to read but had set aside in order to meet challenge goals. I was also able to take advantage of book recommendations from other folks right away instead of putting most of them off until I finished challenge book lists. I fully intend to do the same in the future by limiting my reading challenge commitments to just a few that I really want to do.

One of my best sources of book recommendations has been fellow book bloggers and this year that expanded into the realm of Twitter. I tentatively explored the world of Twitter earlier this year and have been able to connect with a large group of long familiar as well as new to me book bloggers there. I have developed some new blogging connections and expanded my long list of TBR enablers.

Finally, my reading this year pushed some limits in the area of Young Adult books. I hadn’t read much YA before, but that changed in the latter part of 2009. It started with The Hunger Games because after reading so many positive reviews I just had to read (and love) it. After that I began paying more attention to recommendations for YA and Dystopian fiction. I can say I was pleasantly surprised at how many YA books I read and enjoyed this year. Thanks to all who contributed to push me in this direction (I'm looking at you in particular, Galleysmith).

All in all I had a good reading year. Most importantly, my reading this past year felt less like work or obligations and more enjoyable and fun.