Category: blogging

Sunday's In Bed With

Sunday’s In Bed With

Posted on by Cindy

This is being hosted by two of the sweetest people I have the privilege of knowing in real life, Kate and Kim. Sadly we don’t talk like we use to because you know real life happens but there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of them both.

Its going to be a busy week this upcoming week because Michael has exam’s this week at school, plus he has a hockey game and I finally have my first appointment with the MS dr. I am excited and nervous for this appointment. Will keep you all posted.

Anyways onto the books shall we.

Read this past week:

13 Little Blue EnvelopesThe Exes' Revenge

Both were really good books that I managed to breeze through this week.

Currently reading:

SlayerUpside-Down Magic #1: Upside Down Magic

I am still currently making my way slowly through Slayer. Since its an ebook I am only reading this in small increments. My physical book is one that was sitting in a basket by my desk since the last time I posted a book TBR so I am going to read that this week as well.

Up next will be these graphic novels:

Sunny Side UpThe Silver SixTeen Boat!

Since they were in the same basket I may as well squeeze these in between my ebook reading.

What are you reading today?

 

Sunday's In Bed With...

Sunday’s In Bed With…

Posted on by Cindy

This is being hosted by two of the sweetest people I have the privilege of knowing in real life, Kate and Kim. Sadly we don’t talk like we use to because you know real life happens but there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of them both.

As you can see I am late in sharing this but I woke up this morning not feeling well so I basically stayed on the couch curled up in a warm blanket reading. Hoping I am not catching something.

Read this past week:

Beware That Girl

Currently reading:

Slayer13 Little Blue Envelopes

I am currently reading two books at a time and that is because Slayer is a eArc and 13 Little Blue Envelopes is a physical book. I no longer bring my kindle to bed with me because it was affecting my sleeping since the MS diagnoses.

What are you currently reading?

2019 Reading Goals

2019 Reading Goals

Posted on by Cindy

What are your 2019 Reading Goals? What do you have planned to read? What do you have planned to do? Are they the same each year? How many books are you planning on reading?

Going into 2019, I realized I really want to make some changes to my blog and my reading. I have spent countless hours trying to figure out what I am going to do so I thought I would share my 2019 Reading Goals with you so that you know your not alone in this.

Reading Challenges:

  • The only two reading challenge that I plan on doing is the GoodReads one. That one is really simple and easy to do since I use GoodReads all the time. I really love GoodReads because you are able to track all your books (to read, currently reading, read etc) and it offers you stats (such as number of books read, pages, year book was published etc) which are perfect.
  • Now onto the second reading challenge and that is Tackle My TBR, I am setting a goal of reading 3+ of my own books from my TBR shelves a month in hopes of at least clearing some of those books off that pile by the end of the year.
  • I know I said I was only going to be doing two reading challenges but I got talked (on instagram by a lady I follow) into doing another reading challenge that is being hosted by Mrs Happy Homemaker, you can click on her name to take you to the reading challenge. Its pretty straight forward.
  • I am not going to do a book ban like I have in the past and although I really should. I have made a goal that if I buy books in a month, I need to read those before I am allowed to buy books in the next month. This one I really need to try to stick to.
  • I am setting a goal of reading 52 books this year. This is much lower then last year but since being diagnosed with MS I don’t want to stress if I can’t reach my goal. This way I feel as though 4 books a month is a good monthly goal and if I read more then thats great but if not I won’t stress to much about it.

Blog Challenges:

  • To read and review before beginning another book because I have this bad habit of not doing my reviews right away.
  • To properly label my posts.
  • To have more drafts in my folder so they are ready for a rainy day.
  • To promote my blog more on social media.
  • To share more blog things on my IG page.
  • Set up a blogging schedule.  (completed)
  • To post more regularly with different topics ie blog tours, book spotlights, bullet journal posts etc.
  • To clean up my goodreads shelves. (completed)

What are some of your goals for 2019?

2018 Goodreads Reading Stats

Posted on by Cindy

Img bookstack 360

Read 120 books (my goal for the year was 100) which equals to 27,727  pages read in 2018.

The shortest book read was at 32 pages:

The Curvy Tree by Chris Colfer

The longest book read was at 431 pages:

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

AVERAGE LENGTH  231  pages.
The most popular book on Goodreads was:
Night by Elie Wiesel
907,788 people also read Night by Elie Wiesel.
Least  popular book on Goodread was:Honey Moon Not Your Valentine by Sofi Benitez
9 people also read Honey Moon Not Your Valentine by Sofi Benitez.
HIGHEST RATED ON GOODREADS
The Snow White Effect by A.K. Mills
The Snow White Effect by A.K. Mills was the highest rated book with an average of 4.94
My top shelves were:
  • Other
  • 2018 books read
  • Stand Alones
  • Series
  • Adult
  • Books Bought 2018
  • paperbacks
  • Young Adults
  • Blog Tour books
  • Earcs

This is the second year I have actively used Goodreads to keep track of what I read in the year and also where I got books from (bought/borrowed/gifted/publisher sent). Another thing I started this year was keeping track in Goodreads various bookshelves such as the format of the book (paperback, hardcover, mass market paperback, audiobook, arc or earc/ebook), if the books were a stand alone or a series, the genre of book (adult, childrens, middle grade, young adult), blog tour reads, and if it was a debut. This was all personally for me to see what I was actually reading in a year and I have to say its actually nice to see it laid out for you.

Another thing I started late in the year (September) was taking a physical inventory of how many books were on my bookshelf after the massive book purge I did this summer (I actually spent a few days scanning the bar codes and adding them to my goodreads page). You have probably seen those results in my Book Unhaul post for December and yes that was a complete shocker. I never realized that I had that many books in my house sitting in boxes because you take for granted how many books actually fit into a box.

So the total number of books I currently have sitting on my TBR bookcases is  796  (this includes books I bought this year and the books I own that have never been documented). To break that down  116 is total bought this year and 680 is books I own that have never been documented, ie including 2017 and before.

Something new that GoodReads has seemed to added books over time and pages over time so I thought I would share that here as well. Not sure if everyone else’s is like this but mine shows from 2016 to 2018.

My biggest book month was January 2016 with 24 books read, then December 2017 was 21 books read and March 2018 with 16 books read. The months that I read nothing was November 2016 and March 2017.

In regards to pages read, January 2016 was 5253, followed by March 2018 at 3439 and then August 2017 at 3285. Which is interesting since December 2017 was my second highest books read in a month and I only read 2195 pages. August 2017 I read 15 books.

Do you use Goodreads to track your goals? Do you keep track of your reading stats? Do you check your reading stats?

First Book Of The Year 2019 (6th year)

First Book Of The Year 2019 (6th year)

Posted on by Cindy

The totally amazing and incredible Sheila from Book Journey is once again organizing the First Book of The Year 2019 edition. This is the sixth year that she is hosting this.

This is my 6th year of taking part in the  First Book of the Year  and I have to say its so much fun trying to figure out what book I want to start a new year off  with. The book can be a re-read, a guilty pleasure read or it can be basically anything you want to begin 2019 with.

I am going to be entering the new year with this:

The Child

ABOUT

The author of the stunning New York Times bestseller The Widow returns with a brand-new novel of twisting psychological suspense

As an old house is demolished in a gentrifying section of London, a workman discovers a tiny skeleton, buried for years. For journalist Kate Waters, it’s a story that deserves attention. She cobbles together a piece for her newspaper, but at a loss for answers, she can only pose a question: Who is the Building Site Baby?


As Kate investigates, she unearths connections to a crime that rocked the city decades earlier: A newborn baby was stolen from the maternity ward in a local hospital and was never found. Her heartbroken parents were left devastated by the loss.

But there is more to the story, and Kate is drawn—house by house—into the pasts of the people who once lived in this neighborhood that has given up its greatest mystery. And she soon finds herself the keeper of unexpected secrets that erupt in the lives of three women—and torn between what she can and cannot tell…