2013

2013 was a big year for me. I was freshly back in the States after several years living in the UK. I had a lot of personal firsts and eventually settled into a life that looks nothing like one I thought I would ever live, but makes me stupidly happy all the same.

I also managed to read a prodigious number of books. This was admittedly at the expense of my own writing, but  I’ve yet to find that perfect rhythm here. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it. I’d appreciate no one pointing out the obvious flaws in it.)

At the end of the year I like to look back at my READ list and relive the best of the best. So, in no significant order (Come on, choosing five is hard enough!), here is my 2013 Top Five:

10 Ways To P*** Off A Reaper, by Leigh Parker

The Bone Road, by Mary Holland

Murder Has Consequences, by Giacomo Giammatteo

The Nightlife: New York, by Travis Luedke

The Nirvana Plague, by Gary Glass

Each one of the above is worth checking out and some of them have received very little attention from readers. This saddens me. I’m hoping to see this change in 2014.

2014

The reason I’m three days late writing this New Year post is because I’ve chosen a new project…ok, to be more honest, a new project has kind of sprung up on me. I need a new way to organise my ebooks. Goodreads is working for me, but I’m getting close to outgrowing it. For example, at the moment I simply delete and ignore all read books. This means I have no idea what I actually own. I really don’t. And it’s not like Amazon makes it easy on you. I find their Manage Kindle page slow and clunky, at best. 

So…the project…Calibre. It’s a “free and open source e-book library management application developed by users of e-books for users of e-books. It has a cornucopia of features divided into the following main categories:

• Library Management
• E-book conversion
• Syncing to e-book reader devices
• Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
• Comprehensive e-book viewer
• Content server for online access to your book collection”

I’m predominantly interested in the library management aspect of it. It’s fairly easy to use and does just about anything I could want. But I have 3000 ebooks to catalogue! No matter how easy the process it’s time consuming. I’ve spent the last 2.5 days setting this sucker up and I’m not done yet. If you have any tips, feel free to post them. I could use all the help I can get.  I’ve promised myself I’ll get this done before I read anything in 2014. Hoo-yah! Here’s to being obsessively detail oriented.

Once done, I will being doing B00k R3vi3ws’ Indie Fever challenge again this year.

I’ve signed up as a Fanatic, with a goal of reading 75 indie books this year. It shouldn’t be too hard. I’m sure I at least doubled that last year.

I’ll also be doing the Gooreads Reading Challenge. 

 I basically consider this a default challenge. I’ve set a goal for myself of 200 books, but if I’m lucky I won’t make it. Yea, that’s what I said. I’m hoping to establish a regular writing schedule again and the obvious compromise is read less, write more. Fingers crossed.

I intened to start my year off with Angelfall, written by Susan Ee and published by Feral Dream. It thereby hits both challenges and has the added bonus of being the January book of the month for the GR Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy forum. It’s YA, but I have high hopes. 

I’m also keeping myself open to book review requests. Each of my 2013 Top Five was a request of some sort. I requested 10 Ways to Piss off a Reaper from the author. The Bone Road, Murder Has Consequences and The Nirvana Plague were sent to me unbidden by the authors. (Though, from past reviews ,Giacomo has to know I am always open to one of his books. In fact, I have another one, Finding Family, languishing on my TBR. I just haven’t managed to get around to reading it, but I know I’ll love when I finally do.) And Luedke offered me a copy of The Nightlife: New York, only to discover I’d already grabbed if from the Amazon free list. So, experience has taught me that keeping myself open is a great way to discover new talent and hidden gems. 

So raise a glass to 2014 being as good as, if not better, than 2013! I’m looking forward to every moment of it. Thanks for stopping by and starting the year off with me.