Bookish [and not so bookish] thoughts

In an effort to wrap up 2018, today I spent a bit of time cleaning up my Goodreads list by adding tags I'd forgotten to add when I read the books and going back and adding a new tag, "reviewed" to all the books that I wrote reviews for sometime during the year. It took a little time since I had to cross check Goodreads with my blogpost list. Sometimes I don't title my reviews with the name of the book, so that meant I had to open up different reviews to search for titles. It wasn't a tedious process. In fact, I had fun rereading some of my posts.

Here is the shocking (to me anyway) thing I discovered: I wrote 90 reviews last year. 90. Whoa. If you had asked me how I did at reviewing books last year, I don't think I would have said I wrote that many reviews. Breaking the stats down---I read 150 books, 27 of them I didn't finish (Cybils books mostly). Since it is very unlikely I would not write a review for an unfinished book, I am going to back those out of my list. This leaves 123 books that were review-worthy. I reviewed 90 of them, leaving only 33 books I didn't review. That is 73% reviewed, to 27% not reviewed. Woot woot. I am even impressed myself.

I had set myself a reviewing plan for 2018 to take a little heat off the pressure the "need" to review all books. The plan was to write reviews for: a. ALL book club selections; b. any books I thought were potential Printz Award books (YA); and c. all YA/Junior nonfiction books. Other books could be reviewed but I didn't need to feel pressure if I decided to pass on them. Based on this plan I still have several reviews to write before I can close the door on 2018.

• Book Club selections:
• Before We Were Yours (for book club this month, but read in 2018)
• An American Marriage
• Educated
• Possible Printz Award books:
• Darius the Great is Not Okay
• The Astonishing Color of After
• JH/SH Nonfiction titles:
• Forget it, too many and most I didn't finish. I did review all but three of the finalists, though, so I might go back and attempt reviews on those three.
• Just because books:
• The Soul of America
• The Wisdom of Sundays

I know it isn't necessary but it helps me, so I am challenging myself to write these seven reviews by the end of the month and I'll keep track on a little counter. Today I start with The Soul of America since I've had the physical library book sitting here for weeks and I have to return it soon.

On non-bookish topics---

• We finally got our health insurance switched over but it involves lots of hassles. Ugh. The good thing though, once all the hassles are dealt with it will save a ton of money each month, especially on prescriptions. In the meantime I still don't have a flu shot and I need to get one!
• Bingley, our male puppy, has finally figured out how to lift his leg to pee, well, sort of. He still sprays his underside quite often which requires frequent little baths. I just got done bathing him so now I smell like pet shampoo.
• Don and I are stuck in the middle of four TV series: Poldark (PBS); Outlander (Starz); Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime); and Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Hulu). It takes work just remembering how to find them.
• We've put away all of the indoor Christmas decorations from the main rooms, but the guest room is still a junk pile of decorations that need to be tucked away.  Out of sight, out of mind?

My goals for today:

• Shower...ha-ha, I shouldn't even have to mention it. Guess who isn't dressed yet?
• Drop by the library to pick up the books on hold
• Read 100 pages of Beartown. Without daily page goals, I'll never finish the book.
• Start review of The Soul of America
• Drop by the guest room and survey the scope of the task at putting away the last of the Christmas decorations, maybe even put a few things away.
• DOABLE!