It’s that time of year again, stats and reviews are everywhere. I didn’t do a 2013 round-up, as far as I can recall,1 but I did do a quick review of 2012 the year before.
In 2014 my Goodreads stats tell me that I read 95 books, the longest of which was Kate Elliot’s Spirit Gate, it was well worth the length2. On Goodreads I rated 24 books with 5 stars, which usually translated into a 9 or 10 star here on the blog. That’s a lot of good reading! The ten star books this year were :
- Falling from horses by Molly Gloss (review)
- The voice that thunders by Alan Garner (review)
- Kindred by Octavia Butler (review)
- The Hundred and One Dalmations by Dodie Smith (review)
- Michael Rosen’s Sad Book by Michael Rosen3 (review)
- Address Unknown by Kressman Taylor (review)
So that’s 6 books, sounds about right. Two of those were rereads, one was a picture book, one a nonfiction, 4 were by female authors, one by a person of colour. My goal for next year is to read a diversely as possible. Books by POC etc will be tagged with diverse universe inspired by Aarti’s blog tour/challenge of the same name.
Format-wise 20 books were ebooks, or at least I’ve tagged 20 as being ebooks, I may have missed one or two, or overall I’m still reading the majority of my books in hard copy. But I’d say a large part of that is because I work in a library and get to nab new books as they come in. Twenty-seven books in 2014 were from the library. I’ve only tagged 6 as being rereads but as I reread all of the October Daye series I’m guessing that I forgot to tag some of them correctly.
I posted yesterday about the lack of diversity in the settings of the books that I read, obviously this only applies to books set on earth, google maps doesn’t let you add imaginary places … yet, so that’s something I’ll have to work on in 2015.
Now, on to the films…
There is no Goodreads for films, although I have started checking-in on IMDb, but that isn’t as useful. Anyways, my 10 star films in 2014 are :
- Locke dir Stephen Knight (review)
- To Kill a Mockingbird dir. Robert Mulligan (review)
- 12 years a slave dir. Steve McQueen (review)
And that’s it! Hmm, I think I’ll add The Boxtrolls (review) and Guardians of the Galaxy to my “five favourite films” of 2014.<
Overall I pretty good year, more so for books than films. What was your favourite book or film of the year?
Guardians of the Galaxy is one of my favorites of the year too. And To Kill a Mockingbird is a fantastic film…and play, if you ever get a chance to see a theatrical version.
You had a good year of reading. I’m hoping to get to a few more reads this year, and track my short story reading too.
Carl V. Anderson´s last blog post ..Favorite Reads of 2014
I’d love to see a theatrical version Carl, but I’ve never heard one being performed over here. I’ll have to keep my eye out for it.
Guardians really was a great fun film
I don’t think I could pick just one favourite book; I’ve done a Top 10 and that was hard enough! Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely one of my favourite films of the year too though. I wish you more happy reading and viewing in 2015.
jessicabookworm´s last blog post ..Top 10 Reads of 2014
I couldn’t pick just one either. I tend to just go back over my highest rated books. Although sometimes I’ve loved a book and not rated it 10 stars (Scorpio Races for example) and I could’ve very easily added that to my favourites list. But you have to have some cut off point :)
I also love Guardians of the Galaxy. So entertaining.
Well done with your reading as well – I’ve not read any of your books above but if you gave them 10 stars then I really feel I should add at least one of them to my tbr (I’m trying to be circumspect!) – now, I just need to choose which one!! – am erring on the side of Kindred.
Thanks and Happy New Year to you.
Lynn :D
Lynn´s last blog post ..My best reads for 2014
Kindred is a fantastic book. Not the easiest of reads because it deals with slavery and racism, but so important.
If you wanted to try a shorter book I’d really recommend Address Unknown, its a series of letters during WWII and it really packs a punch.