2021 Year End Wrap Up Chat

 

Prospect House in London

Robin at Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks posted some questions to get us chatting about our 2021 reads.  I thought I would answer them here.  

• What were your reading goals for the year?  How many books did you read? 

My Goodreads goal was 104 books.  I read 104. 

I also participated in a few challenges:

Cruisin Thru the Cozies Challenge

The Literary Life 19 for 2021 Reading Challenge

Calendar of Crime Reading Challenge 

Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge

• Did you explore outside the box, delve into new worlds or take comfort in the old.  Let your fingertips doing the walking, sorting through your TBR stacks, reading whichever book caught your eye or yelled the loudest for your attention. Did you heed the call  of your dusty books calling your name, whispering read me, read me. That's not creepy at all, is it? Only a bookworm would understand and listen.... *grin*  

“We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel... is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”

― Ursula K. LeGuin

 I tend to not do well with a list of books to read, but rather just like to read what I am in the mood for.  I found that to be very true in 2021.  I like to walk through the library and grab what catches my eye... But sometimes, when I get to the library, I seem to have stage fright and can't think of a thing I would like to read.  In order to remedy this, I keep TBR lists in the notes app on my phone.  I view these lists as suggestions for what to read when I can't think of anything to read because if I decide I am going to read everything on these lists, I want to read nothing on these lists.  

• What was your most entertaining read of the year? 

Boo by Rene Gutteridge

• Which stories stuck with you the longest?

“When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.” ― John Berger, Keeping a Rendezvous

My Mrs. Brown by William Norwich

The Last Bookshop in London by Madeline Martin

Home by Marilynne Robinson

The London House by Katherine Reay

A Circle of Quiet by Madeleine L'Engle

• Which characters did you fall in like or love with? 

“I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn't exist.”  ― Berkeley Breathed

Everly Swan, her aunts and Detective Grady from Closely Harbored Secrets by Bree Baker

The Bronte Sisters from The Diabolical Bones by Bella Ellis

• Which stories or characters made you want to dive into their world and live there?

Everly Swan and the Seaside Cafe Mysteries

• Which stories surprised you, made you reflect, laugh out loud, tear up, or irritated the heck out of you?

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman made me laugh out loud.

• Which stories inspired web wonderings and lead you on rabbit trails? 

“I’ve always thought that a good book should be either the entry point inward, to learn about yourself, or a door outward, to open you up to new worlds.” –Taylor Jenkins Reid

A Palette for Murder by Jessica Fletcher and Donald Bain had me looking up the Hamptons.  

• Which stories would you read again and again? 

“Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said..."As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar.”

― Cornelia Funke, Inkspell

I am not much of a re-reader.  

• One book you think everyone should read?

I can't think of one.

• Where in the world and through what time periods did your reading adventures take you? 

Some of the countries I visited:

*Japan

*England

*Greece

*India

*Israel

*Poland

*Afghanistan

*Scotland

*France

*Russia

*Germany

*Mexico

*All over the United States

I didn't keep track of the time periods I visited, but I think I will in 2022.

• Share your stats, new to you author discoveries, favorite quotes, or covers. 

“What I love most about reading: It gives you the ability to reach higher ground. And keep climbing.”–Oprah

A few of my favorite, new to me author's - 

Donna Leon

Madeline Martin

Kylie Logan

Bella Ellis

Allison Montclair

What about you?  How was your reading in 2021?  Did anything stand out to you?

~ Gretchen