Yesterday (19 April) marked 10 years since I published my first post after deciding to become a book blog! I’ve written this post as a retrospective, a walk down memory lane, a way to see how my blog has evolved over the years 😊 For each year, I wrote an overview of how the year went, a brief summary of what life events occurred that year, and a list of my favourite reads and posts. For favourite reads, I selected books I read that year which I still recall fondly, so the answers may differ from what I said at the end of each year.

2014

Overview

On 12 March 2014, I wrote the following:

I’ve decided to reinvent this blog as a proper book blog. I’ve spent the past few years on the sidelines watching how things are done and I think I’m finally ready to give it a shot! Since I’ll be graduating university in June, I think this will be a good activity to fill that void. I would like to start working on it now as a form of procrastination, but I’ve only got three weeks of classes left so I’m going to try to hold out until then =) Watch this space.

“Book blog?”

That was followed by a 23 March post in which I migrated posts to a new blog. I had started casually sharing thoughts on books in Sept 2010, so when I migrated, I decided to keep the posts about books. My first post as a ‘book blogger’ came on 19 April, when I signed up for Kate and Kristen @ The Book Monster’s Summer Library Challenge. (The Book Monsters is no longer around but Kristen is still on Twitter.)

In addition to the Summer Library Challenge, I participated in a variety of blogging events throughout 2014. It was a fun way to jump further into the book blogging community. I participated in:

• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon (23 April)
• Armchair Book Expo America (26 May to 1 June)
  • Did anyone else read Alix E. Harrow’s blog The Other Side of the Rain back in the day? (At least, I’m pretty sure that was her, haha)
  • The winner of the giveaway I hosted for this event, Kai @ Fiction State of Mind, is still blogging!
• Leeswammes’ Literary Blog Hop (21 to 25 June)
• RIP IX Readalong (1 Sept to 1 Oct)
• Bloggiesta (18 to 21 Sept)
• Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon (15 Oct)

Life Events

• Finished university in April
  • (apart from one compressed crash course in Japanese language which I took in May and June)
• Moved to Japan in August

Favourite Reads

• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
• The Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye A. Walton
• Anne of Green Gables L.M. Montgomery

Favourite Posts

• Response: Thoughts on J.R.R. Tolkien
  • This was my response to two articles, “Sean Michaels: On J.R.R. Tolkien” and Simon J Cook’s “On Tolkien Fundamentalism“. Cook was kind enough to respond to my post in turn.
• Response: Literary Pilgrimages
  • I wrote about my experiences travelling to Oxford and New York City

2015

Overview

2015 was one of the years where I signed up for several community challenges: The Official 2015 TBR Challenge hosted by Adam @ Roofbeam Reader, Foodies Read hosted by Vicki @ I’d Rather be at the Beach, and The Re-Read Challenge hosted by Belle of the Literati and Hannah @ So Obsessed With. My favourite posts from this year stem the re-read reviews (listed below under ‘Favourite Posts’). A lot of these books are still my favourites… perhaps I should do a new series of re-read reviews 👀

2015 also marked the introduction of Family Reads! The concept is straightforward: my sister/dad/mom and I discuss a buddy read, with the books usually chosen by my family. I can’t believe I started that series only a year after I started book blogging. In nine years, I’ve posted 40 Family Reads (see them all listed here). I’ve evolved the style of Family Reads quite a bit since its introduction, and the feature had some slim years, but 2024 looks like it will be its strongest year yet.

Life Events

• Moved back from Japan in August
• Completed a certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from September to December
• Attended NerdCon: Stories in November

Favourite Reads

• Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George
• The 1918 Pilgrimage of Itsue Takamura trans by Susan Tennant
• The Rights of the Reader by Daniel Pennac
• The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne M Valente
• The Third Plate by Dan Barber

Favourite Posts

• Part of the Re-Read Challenge:
  • White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi
  • The Scar by China Mieville
  • Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

2016

Overview

After two strong years of blogging in 2014 and 2015, 2016 was quieter as I spent a lot of time travelling. But my 2016 travels gave me plenty to write about after I returned, having spent most of time in New Zealand and doing lots of LotR sightseeing, which I recounted in a series of five posts in the later half of the year (links below). I also fondly recall 2016 as the year I started to really develop my interest in the Karluk, lol, as I read Jennifer Niven’s The Ice Master.

One more fun fact: I read 116 books in 2016 thanks to Cybils judging, which is the most I’ve read in a single year since I started tracking in 2011.

Life Events

• Travelled to Australia and New Zealand from February to May
• Migrated to WordPress in September (I say this counts as a life event for a blogger 😝)
• Participated in Children and Young Adult Book Lovers’ Literary Awards (Cybils) as a round one judge for middle grade fiction from October to December

Favourite Reads

• Uprooted by Naomi Novik
• The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
• The Witches of New York by Ami McKay
• Solving the Procrastination Puzzle by Timothy A. Pychyl

Favourite Posts

• 6 Books on Dying in Modern Times
• What is Speculative Fiction?
  • This post doesn’t stand out much in the year of 2024 BUT it was the first time I mused on the blog about defining genres 🙂
• Brief Thoughts: The Karluk’s Last Voyage by Robert A. Bartlett
  • My first review of a non-fiction Arctic book on the blog!
• Literary Pilgrimages: Middle-earth
  • Part 1 – Rohan
  • Part 2 – Battle of the Pelennor Fields
  • Part 3 – Assorted locations around Queenstown
  • Part 4 – Assorted locations around Wellington
  • Part 5 – Hobbiton

2017

Overview

2017 was a fairly steady if ordinary year of blogging, as I had a lot going on in my personal life – but I didn’t have a full time job, so had a good chunk of time to devote to the blog. One highlight from this year is that I wrote my first guest post for Pages Unbound in celebration of Tolkien Reading Day. I also read a couple of my favourite authors, Anna-Marie McLemore and Seanan McGuire, for the first time.

Life Events

• Worked as an educational assistance supporting Speech-Language Pathologists in public schools from February to May
• Moved to Vancouver in August
• Started grad school in library studies in September
• Saw Depeche Mode in Seattle and Vancouver in October

Favourite Reads

• When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore
• Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
• When the Sea Turned to Silver by Grace Lin
• Strangers in the Their Own Land by Arlie Roth Hochschild
• Radio Silence by Alice Oseman

Favourite Posts

• Review of Vaddey Ratner’s Music of the Ghosts
• 5 Arctic Adventures From Icemen + The Luck Of The Karluk
• The Inevitable Disappointment Of Trilogies? (Thoughts On A Conjuring Of Light)
• Defining My Personal Canon

2018

Overview

In 2018 I continued with grad school, including a co-op position over the summer in a rural public library. I’m slightly astonished to see that I posted 82 times in this year?? Being in grad school was a lot better for my blog than being a full time employee, haha. It helped that I was specializing in children’s literature/services, so I transformed some of my schoolwork into blog posts, such as this post “15 Picture Books on the Contemporary Refugee Experience“.

As I scan through all the posts I wrote and books I read in 2018, I’m realizing 2018 was a great year for both of those things. I read the entirety of The Silmarillion for the first time! I participated for the second time as a Cybils judge, this time for round two middle grade speculative fiction. I started a new series “I Can’t Believe I Haven’t Read That Yet“. I have posted 25 iterations of this series. I love hearing which books folks vote for and picking up gems that might have languished forever on my TBR.

Life Events

• Worked as a children’s programmer in a rural public library from May to August

Favourite Reads

• Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez
• A Properly Unhaunted Place by William Alexander
• The Inquisitor’s Tale by Adam Gidwitz
• Spirit Hunters by Ellen Oh
• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

Favourite Posts

• Review + Discussion Questions For Laura Lam’s Pantomime
• 3 Picture Books about Child Refugees
• How I Fell in Love with Middle Grade Fiction
• Favourite Picture Books from my Childhood
• Reacting to Convenience Store Woman

2019

Overview

When I look back, 2019 is when the years start to feel ‘recent’. We all know how our sense of time became jumbled in 2020, so of course I remember 2019 as the last ‘normal’ year. But it was a year full of big changes for myself! I finished grad school and began my dream job as a children’s librarian. This is the year my blogging habits started to frazzle, as I began fulltime employment. I still haven’t figured out how to get the balance right, five years later, but maybe one day! In terms of reading, I read two of my all time favourite books since I started blogging: Nevermoor and Middlegame. 2019 had a lot of five star reads, but those two are on another level.

Life Events

• Attended ALA Midwinter in January
• Visited New York City in February (to see Tolkien: Maker of Middle-Earth!)
• Finish grad school in May
• Worked two jobs as an on-call librarian in June and July
• Started as a FT children’s librarian in late July
• Started as a FT children’s librarian at my local branch in October

Favourite Reads

• The Travelling Cat Chronicles by Hiro Arikawa
• Middlegame by Seanan McGuire
• Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
• A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott
• Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend
  • It’s a couple more years before I ‘review’ it, though!
• Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker
• The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden

Favourite Posts

• Reflecting On The Unique Experience That Is Reading An Oyeyemi Novel
• Talkin’ About Tolkien: Favourite Chapters In The Lord Of The Rings
• Cinnamon And Gunpowder: A Buddy Read With Dani
• Touring My Sister’s Bookshelves
• Five part series “A Book Blogger’s Reflections”:
  • What am I doing here?
  • Learning from other review styles
  • Favourite reviews I wrote in 2019
  • Developing a new review style
  • Reading challenges & community

2020

Overview

I’m sure we all have strong memories of this year! Just when I thought I might be ready to figure out the whole work-life balance thing… well, I won’t get into it much. In terms of reading and blogging, I was one of the ones for which the upheaval worked in my favour. I dove into Wyrd & Wonder and met lots of new blogging buddies!

Life Events

• Laid off in March
  • Prior to that, I spent Dec- Feb fretting because my employment term was up at the end of March, I had interviewed but hadn’t done well enough to secure a permanent/long term position, I was then offered a six month term as a teen librarian and was relieved to start preparing for that in March… This post gives a pretty in-depth description of what February and March were like for me.
• WWOOFed July and August
• Return to my hometown for September and October
• Started doing on call work at the library in November and December

Favourite Reads

• With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
• The Girl and the Ghost by Hanna Alkaf
• Homerooms & Hall Passes by Tom O’Donnell
• This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
• Deeplight by Frances Hardinge
• That’s What Friends Do by Cathleen Barnhart
• Hide and Seeker by Daka Harmon
• Black Water by David A. Robertson

Favourite Posts

• Favourite Reads of the Decade
• Slightly Spooky To Truly Terrifying: A Ranking Of Middle Grade Horror
• A Collection of Hobbits
• Get to Know the Fantasy Reader
• How Kendare Blake’s Three Dark Crowns Hooked Me
• 35 Middle Grade Fantasy Faves
• 18 Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Books by Black Authors
• A Book Blogger’s Reflections: One Year On
• 8 Quotes From I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights And Dilemmas Of The Reading Life

2021

Overview

For me, 2021 is mostly defined by my work life and not my reading/blogging life. I experienced quite a a trade off of one for the other. Work was not enjoyable, and by the end of the year, I had decided to make a huge change: leave libraries and move back to my hometown. Anyway, let’s move quickly past this year 😆

Life Events

• Back to FT work at my local library from January to December
• Moved back to my home town in late December

Favourite Reads

• All You Knead is Love by Tanya Guerrero
• Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff
• Lurking: How a Person Became a User by Joanne McNeill
• The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

Favourite Posts

• The Appeal of Morrigan Crow and Nevermoor
• The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Reading List

2022

Overview

Am I done writing this post yet?? It’s getting a little dreary looking back at 2020-2022 but I know things improve by the end, haha. 2022 saw some improvement over 2021 in terms of reading and blogging. I participated in Nonfiction November, and also joined Cybils again as a round one judge for middle grade speculative fiction.

Life Events

• Began a 100% WFH job in January
• Moved into my own apartment in May
• Started a new job as a children’s librarian in September

Favourite Reads

• Let the Monster Out by Chad Lucas
• Raybearer and Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko
• Siren Queen by Nghi Vo
• The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore
• The Green Children of Woolpit by J. Anderson Coats
• Taking Up Space by Alyson Gerber
• Children of the Quicksands by Efua Traore
• The Marvellers by Dhonielle Clayton

Favourite Posts

• What If I Don’t Read Any New Releases This Year?
• Several posts for Nonfiction November:
  • My Year in Non-Fiction
  • 5 Polar Book Pairings
  • 11 Books About the Social Internet
• Bookshelf Tour:
  • Tolkien
  • New bookcases
  • Arctic exploration, Japanese religion, assorted adult fiction and non-fiction, and a few MG faves
  • Remaining adult fiction and non-fiction, fairy tales, favourite YA and adult authors
  • Middle grade and young adult fiction

2023

Overview

2023 seems so recent, I almost don’t want to include it in this post! Blogging fell back again a bit from where it was in 2022. One highlight was participating in Bit About Books’ Summer Reading Challenge.

Life Events

• Saw Depeche Mode in Toronto and Quebec City in April
• Return to previous job at end of May
• Enjoyed some peace for the rest of the year!!!!
• Saw Depeche Mode in Denver in November 😁

Favourite Reads

• JoyfuL The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Lee Fetell
• Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living by Dimitris Xygalatas
• Babel by RF Kuang
• Don’t Want to Your Monster by Deke Moulton
• His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik
• Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher

Favourite Posts

• Let’s Talk About Stats: Views, Comments, Likes, & Referrers
• 10 Books on the Shikoku Pilgrimage

2024 and On…

And that brings us to 2024! So, what’s my takeaway from all of this? I think I can sum it up in, “Even if I don’t post reguarly, I can still create content that I’m proud of.” This review has inspired me to continue to strive for that blogging mindset I had somewhere around 2016 to 2018, and which I briefly recaptured in 2020. I don’t know if that’s possible these days, given the changing landscape of the internet, but I can also look back at those early years, when I had almost no audience, and think about how I still had fun blogging purely for myself. Reviewing this many years of blogging has reminded me that even if I can’t hit that ever elusive goal of 8 posts/month, I can still enjoy writing that which I do find time for.

Community Thank-you

I want to end this post with a massive thank-you to everyone who has followed, read, liked, or commented on my blog these ten years. One thing I noticed as I reviewed hundreds of posts was how my community has grown over time. There were years at the start where I would have zero interactions. Now virtually everything I post receives at least a couple interactions. I still blog first and foremost for myself, but it is so lovely to connect with other readers.

Thanks especially to the following bloggers, who have long been regular visitors to my little corner of the internet and whose posts often inspire my own reading and writing: Alicia @ A Kernel of Nonsense, Annemieke @ A Dance with Books, Brenda @ Log Cabin Library, Briana and Krysta @ Pages Unbound, Celeste @ A Literary Escape, Charvi @ Not Just Fiction, Deb @ Readerbuzz, Jessica @ Storytime in the Stacks, Kal @ Reader Voracious, Karen @ Ms Yingling Reads, Katy @ A Library Mama, Lois @ Aquavenatus, Lory @ Entering the Enchanted Castle, Louise @ Lone Stark on a Lark, Naomi @ Consumed by Ink, Sam @ Spines in a Line, Shay @ Required Reading, and Tammy @ Books, Bones, and Buffy.

While the book blogging landscape has changed drastically in recent years, I am glad you all have decided to stick around for now 💕