Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year everyone!!  I am looking forward to new books, new reading goals, and new book discussions!  To start the blog for 2015, I thought I'd recap the great books I read in 2014, and talk about plans for 2015!  

2014 Statistics

According to Goodreads, I read 53 books in 2014 (3 more than my goal of 50), for a total of 17,656 pages!!  That was quite an improvement over 2013, when I read 38 books, consisting of 13,837 pages.  I did a lot of reading for a busy mother (tween taxicab) who works full time and also started a (VERY) part time Mary Kay business this year!

The books I read:

If you're dying to see the whole list, you can always check out my Goodreads stats here: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/1324133  

I had a plan at the beginning of 2014 to not only read 50 books, but to read 20 particular books within those 50:

1) Me Before You 
2) The Storyteller
3) The Goldfinch
4) The Husband's Secret 
5) Orphan Train 
6) The House Girl
7) The Tenth of December
8) The Interestings
9) The Burgess Boys
10) The Silver Star
11) Cuckoo's Calling
12) Ocean at the End of the Lane 
13) Going Clear
14) Divergent 
15) Sycamore Row 
16) Truth-Stained Lies
17) The Living Room
18) When Jesus Wept
19) Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels
20) Brotherhood 

The underlined books are ones I completed.  So even though I was over my goal of 50 books, I only read 10 of the 20 MUST READS I planned to.  I'm fine with that, because it means that I found other books I wanted to read at the time, and there's always 2015!  

Favorite Book of 2014:

I started this blog about a year ago, with my favorite book of 2013.  As I have read and reviewed books through 2014, I never thought about which might be my favorite.  On New Year's Eve, however, my dear friend Amy Schwab conducted a Facebook poll, asking readers for their favorite books of 2014.  It made me stop to think about all of the books and narrow it down to one favorite....The Husband's Secret, by Liane Moriarty (which I reviewed on this blog May 3, 2014).  Thanks for the challenge Amy, and for a great list of books I gathered from your poll of friends!

Plans for 2015:

Just like I did last year, I've set a reading goal with Goodreads.  My reading goal for 2015 is 55 books.  It should be an easy goal to meet, since I read 53 in 2014, but it's the perfect reading plan for me for this year. I read a lot (a WHOLE lot for someone with a busy life), so I think that trying to read much more would inhibit my ability to get anything else done.  I also don't track in those statistics my daily Bible reading.  I enriched my life immensely during 2014 with the 53 books I read, and expect 55 more books to do the same.  I have come up with a new list of "20 Must Reads" for 2015, which includes some of those I neglected to read in 2014, and others:

1) Frog Music, by Emma Donaghue

2) The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt

3) The House Girl, by Tara Conklin

4) The Tenth of December, by George Saunders

5) The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer

6) The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout

7) The Silver Star, by Jeannette Walls

8) Going Clear, by Lawrence Wright

9) Truth-Stained Lies, by Terri Blackstock

10) The Dancing Master, by Julie Klassen

11) When Jesus Wept, by Bodie Thoene

12) Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels, by Mindy Starns Clark

13) Dear Daughter, by Elizabeth Little

14) Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel

15) Landline, by Rainbow Rowell

16) One Plus One, by JoJo Moyes

17) Leaving Time, by Jodi Picoult

18) I am Pilgram, by Terry Hayes

19) Mean Streak, by Sandra Brown

20) All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr

STAY TUNED to this blog for reviews, updates, and more as I venture through another year of reading!   God Bless you all in 2015!