It’s not quite the end of the year, and I’m anticipating significant reading time immediately ahead of me—what with Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays imminent—but I thought I’d post a retrospective on my 2014 reads now, with an update to come at the end of December, if anything changes significantly.
At the start of this year, I committed to recording my book reading activities on my Good Reads account to see just how much and what I actually read. Previously, my record-keeping was haphazard and incomplete at best. I set a goal of reading 100 books, something I was pretty confident matched my habits. It turns out, I underestimated by a fair amount.
As of November 23rd, I’ve nearly doubled that number, although 42 of the titles are actually rereads and some of the new books were novellas. I didn’t record books that I read but didn’t like and/or didn’t finish (hey, author here myself, so I have no wish to negatively affect another author’s chance of finding that ideal reader who will really love her work), and some of the titles are part of serials, rather than full-length novels. Still, everything factored together, I’m confident that I will have indeed read the equivalent of 200 novels by December 31st. Not shabby for a part-time writer who works a demanding career full-time and who tries to nurture and sustain a happy marriage, something that requires that I take my nose out of a book once in a while.
Though the following self-analysis is subjective in nature, the results may be interesting to other romance readers. Overall, it proved a good year of reading, although not totally spectacular, and that may have been my own fault to some degree, which I’ll explain later. In reviewing my Good Reads list, I discovered that:
My Favorite New Titles Published/Read in 2014 have been:
Skin in the Game by Jackie Barbosa
Training Lady Townsend by Annabel Joseph
Truly by Ruthie Knox
My Favorite New-to-Me Authors of 2014 are:
Samanthe Beck
Erin Kellison
Gina Maxwell
My Most Frequently Reread Books of 2014 have been:
Master of the Mountain by Cherise Sinclair*
Club Shadowlands by Cherise Sinclair
Reaper’s Property by Joanna Wylde
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Other interesting stats about my reading habits, provided by Good Reads:
Total titles read as of 11/23/14: 198
Longest title read: Yours for Eternity E-Book Bundle by Hannah Howell, Kaitlin O’Riley, and Alexandra Ivy
The oldest published title read: The Return of Rafe MacCade by Nora Roberts
The newest published title read: Hollywood on Tap by Avery Flynn
*Most of the books I read in 2014 were published after 2010.
Total pages read (as of 11/23/14): 44,919+ or the equivalent of more than 11 million words.
As I wind up my 2014 reading run, I am setting some new goals for 2015, naturally. After all, what’s the point of collecting data and running a self-analysis, if not to do something useful with the results, right?
- First, I’m going to try to reread fewer familiar titles by my favorite authors (though I’m sure I’ll be buying and reading their latest novels) to instead discover more new-to-me authors. Those 42 titles I reread, some of them multiple (multiple) times, could have been time spent discovering a new author or story. With limited reading time, I need to make smart choices. I can’t read everything. And some of my favorite authors have recently published stories based on some of my least favorite tropes, so while I love their work in general, I struggle to start their latest novels, a scenario which often routes me into opening familiar works instead of venturing into the unknown. I want to use my ambivalence toward some of these favorite authors’ new books to dive into new stories that attract me but have been written by unfamiliar authors.
- Second, I hope to end 2015 having experienced a mind-blowing, transformational, FIRECRACKER! read. Not one of the new books I read this year, with the exception possibly of Annabel Joseph’s Training Lady Townsend, had the impact on me that Joanna Wylde’s Reaper’s Property had on me in 2013. When I read Wylde’s biker book the first time, my brain melted down and reformed. I ended up reading it over and over, nearly continuously for a couple of weeks. I’ve returned to reread it periodically ever since. It’s like crack and I’ve became its addict. Reading Training Lady Townsend ended up being more like taking speed. Since I already knew Joseph’s work fairly well, her voice wasn’t as startling to me, though wonderful it is. Had this been the first book by her I’d read, it might have reached crack-level; I don’t know. (Based on readers’ posted Amazon responses, Joseph’s earlier book Mercy became a lot of readers’ crack, though that story ended up being far too dark for me.) A similar reaction happened with Jackie Barbosa’s Skin in the Game. I enjoy everything Barbosa writes, so, no surprise, I loved this book. Still, speed, not crack. I also appreciated Erin Kellison’s first Reveler book, Darkness Falls, which came close to reaching crack-level. I am continuing on in her series, because it’s excellent, but for me, not mind-blowing like Reaper’s Property has been. I continue to reread Reaper’s Property every couple of months in some determined effort to understand this story’s strangle hold on my psyche while I read it. I’ve read all the books in the series and savored them, but no more explosions, no more light shows in the sky. Some friends have told me that watching the series Sons of Anarchy, might help me figure out my attraction to the book. Maybe. Marie and Horse’s story couldn’t be more different than my own life experiences yet it fascinates and compels my imagination into spaces I’ve never traveled to before consciously. I’m speculating here, but I think that kind of fireworks read has to hit at a reader on all levels: story (archetypal), style/voice, and timing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of my favorite reads happen to be the first in a series. In 2015, I want to discover at least one new personal crack-level book and/or author. Consequently, I probably need to venture into the territory of testing out the work of new authors to make that type of reading discovery happen.
- Third, I intend to read more nonfiction. Though I still occasionally read fiction outside the romance genre (readers of my previous posts might recall that I’ve largely abandoned contemporary literary fiction because it’s largely abandoned story and substance for style), I don’t know why I rarely read nonfiction anymore. I once consumed nonfiction books like I consume my coffee in the morning. Reading smart, savvy blogs and a few in-depth articles here and there doesn’t adequately replace the pleasure found in reading extended, confessional memoirs or an informative, well-researched text on any topic. I once enjoyed a book on the invention of the screw. I can be fascinated by anything if the text is well-written. Reading nonfiction beefs up a writer’s general base of knowledge and functions as research for creating fictional characters (and settings) who’ve led extraordinary lives. For example, I just picked up Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential on sale because I’m interested in setting a romance series in the restaurant world. I worked in restaurants and bars from my mid-teens to my mid-thirties, supporting myself while I attended high school, college and grad school, so I have lots of personal experience, but I’m not a professional chef, and I never worked in a high-end restaurant. Besides being entertained, I imagine I will come away from reading Bourdain’s book with a deeper understanding of the culinary world. I plan to read it along with another book recommended by a friend titled Yes, Chef: A Memoir by Marcus Samuelsson. Together, these memoirs should help me create characters and a setting that feels authentic and real in my fictional efforts.
- Finally, like many other readers, I’m determined to set aside the type of reading time needed to catch up on whole series by some of my favorite authors like Sabrina Jeffries and Elizabeth Hoyt. They write with such wonderful finesse. I’ve been buying their new releases with the dedicated passion of any fan, but I’ve allowed these wonderful books to stack up (figuratively) unread on my Kindle. The best authors’ work is always more complex and more layered, requiring one to read at a focused, more leisurely pace, something that I haven’t had opportunity to do much in 2014. Since I often read books in 20-30 minute snatches throughout the day, and only get to read uninterrupted for one hour or so a night, it’s hard to enjoy these writers’ books without getting frustrated by interruptions. These books require me to sink into them and leave the rest of the world behind. Maybe to discover a mind-blowing book though (goal #2), I need to be mentally and emotionally available to experience a story that way. Fortunately, this year’s not over, so it’s possible that I may indeed revisit and read all of the books in these authors’ latest series before December 31st as a holiday gift to myself.
All in all, I’m marking 2014 as a happy reading year for me. Most of the books I’ve read have brought me lots of pleasure, represented by the 4 star ratings I gave them. The disappointments have been few and far between. With 30+ days remaining in the year, the next new book I pick up might end up being that Independence Day PISTIL that explodes in the dark sky of my deep psyche. And if it isn’t, I can always console myself with Sinclair’s always perfect Master of the Mountain, again.
*Sinclair’s two books, Master of the Mountain and Club Shadowlands are my fallback comfort reads on a regular basis. Something about the heroines and the heroes really attract me. I like intelligent, competent female characters who remain feminine and sweet—and yes, sexually submissive—even with their sharp minds, and I especially love the tough male characters who find them perfectly irresistible. These books match my ideal fantasy relationship.
Links to the titles mentioned above:
Skin in the Game by Jackie Barbosa
Training Lady Townsend by Annabel Joseph
Truly by Ruthie Knox
Master of the Mountain by Cherise Sinclair
Club Shadowlands by Cherise Sinclair (perma-free, I believe)
Reaper’s Property by Joanna Wylde
Yours for Eternity by Hannah Howell et al
The Return of Rafe MacCade by Nora Roberts
Hollywood on Tap by Avery Flynn
Darkness Falls by Erin Kellison
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Yes, Chef: A Memior by Marcus Samuelsson