2012 Year End Thoughs/ Reviews...

Well, it's that time of year when you look over the past twelve months and see what you've accomplished and then take a look at what you might expect in the new year, that being 2013 this upcoming one. On a personal note, the year was a most enjoyable. The missus and I travelled a bit, the highlight being 3 weeks spent in England, visiting family and friends, watching the Olympics on the BeeB, even driving to Manchester to watch the footie match between the US and Canadian women. It was an excellent trip, most enjoyable. We haven't done a lot of other long distance travelling, but have travelled down island (that being Vancouver Island) to Combs, Victoria ( a couple of times), just for a change of scenery. It's always nice to hop in the car and take a small trip for a weekend. Victoria is one of my favourite places for book shopping, some of my favourite used book stores to wander around. And Jo and I always take advantage of our trip there to get a takeaway curry from one of our favourite restaurants, Da Tandoor on Fort Street. It's always nice to stop in and be remembered, even if it's just once or twice a year. Back to book stores, on our last trip to Victoria, we discovered that an excellent book store, Grafton Books in Oak Bay had closed its doors. Very sad as it was one of the highlights of that area of town.

Moving on to the subject of books, 2012 was a nicely successful year for me. I took part in various challenges in my various Book Clubs in Goodreads and for the most part completed them. For the 2012 Goodreads Reading Challenge I picked 75 books as my number to read during the year and as of today, I've completed 80. I have two books on the go at the moment, Elizabeth George's 9th Inspector Lynley mystery, Deception on his Mind and George R.R. Martin's 3rd Game of Thrones Book, A Storm of Swords and plan to have them finished by years end. I may have the chance for one more book, if I do, it'll be a freebie, maybe a book from a new author for me, Frances Fyfield. Continuing on, I've so far read 80 books and according to the Goodreads stats page that makes approximately 26,000 pages. On the other side of the fence, while I've read 80 books, I've also managed to add about 200 books to my TBR shelves. (Don't tell the missus!)

Onto my challenges -

1. In the UK Book Club, each month we voted on a different genre to read. This was a continuation from the previous year and we ran out of genres in October. We've updated out list and in 2013 will start afresh. To warm us up for the January Challenge, we picked a holiday book for December 2012. I finished two books for that December Challenge; Shakespeare's Christmas by Charlaine Harris and Tied Up In Tinsel by Ngaio Marsh, an Inspector Alleyn mystery.

Over the remainder of 2012, the genres and books chosen were -
January - Non - Fiction - The Zimmerman Telegram by Barbara Tuchman
February - Travel/ Exploration - Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World by Ewen MacGregor & Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire by Simon Winchester (much preferred)
March - Romance/ Erotica - The Virgin and the Gypsy, D.H. Lawrence; Summer of '42, Herman Raucher;
April - Psychiatry/ Madness - Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
May - War - HMS Ulysses, Alistair Maclean
June - Western - The Captive Witch, Dale van Every
July - Poetry - The Poetical Works of Mrs. Browning by Mrs. Browning
August - Lesbian/ Homosexual - Further Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
September - Chemical Fiction - A Scanner Darkly by Phillip K. Dick
October - Self Help - The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

I have to say that I'm still working on The Poems of Elizabeth Browning, I don't find poetry very easy. Of the books above, my favourite of the year was HMS Ulysses, an excellent heroic war movie. I thought it was fantastic.

I'll stop for today or this morning anyway. More to follow over the Xmas week; Top Ten books of the year, my favourite actresses, challenges for 2013, all sorts of fun. Enjoy your holiday week and keep on reading!