And what a great year it’s been… I get so much pleasure out of blogging about the books I’m reading, not to mention interacting with commenters and other book bloggers. I’ve catalogued the books I own on Librarything, Goodreads is a growing list of all the books I’ve ever read, and I’m giving away books on Bookmooch.

I have 330 posts. Now, my general rule is that I only post when I’ve finished a book, but I went through my archive and counted about 25 posts that were not linked to a book (ie contest announcements and blogging projects). That means I still read over 300 books this year. I’ve never actually counted my reads before, and I’m a little scared.

Those 330 posts generated over 1600 comments, for which I’m incredibly grateful.

My first post:
Robin Hobb: Three Trilogies, One Love

My first commenter not personally known to me:
Vintage Fan

First blogger to link to me:
Pretty Good on Paper

Most commented on:
George RR Martin Defends Genre

Most popular post that was not a part of my Stumbleupon storm in early June:
Essential Books for Children

My favorite reads this year:
My Tolstoys: War and Peace and Anna Karenina
Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy
Anna’s Book by Barbara Vine
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Dave Duncan’s A Man of His Word and A Handful of Men
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

And, finally, some of the gazillions of books I read for my job that I couldn’t blog about:

• Two crime novels by Sophie Hannah that I really enjoyed: Hurting Distance and Little Face
• The Foundling by DM Cornish–a great beginning to what seems like a fun YA epic fantasy series
• Jonathan Lethem’s overrated You Don’t Love Me Yet
• On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, which continues to haunt me
• Chelsea Cain’s creepy & disturbing Heartsick
• Homegirl Laura Lippman’s What The Dead Know–loved it, and not just because it was set in my dear old Baltimore
• Jill Smolinski’s fabulous, funny, and moving The Next Thing On My List
• Stephen King’s Lisey’s Story, which was not my favorite of his, but certainly not my least favorite
• Away by Amy Bloom–loved the period detail
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards, which I thought was highly overrated
• I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle–absolutely hilarious! Dewey’s review nails it.
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Yes, you should believe the hype.
• An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clark, which was a little too twee for my tastes.

And finally, I completed the first draft of my first novel–about 65,000 words that I’m now revising. So it’s not ALL about reading!

Thanks to everyone for making this so much fun! And much love to my husband for suggesting I blog my reads.