2011 Wrap Up, Part 1

Happy New Year all!  I'm excited for 2012 because it'll bring some awesome book releases to look forward to....and some life changes as well (graduation, hopefully a new job, and possibly a move).   

Here's Part 1 of my 2011 recap, which includes my challenge results.  I'll post Part 2 soon.  It features my favorites and not-so-favorite reads from the past year. 

2011 Recap:

- I read 58 books this year, which is up from 53 last year.

- I quietly had my one year blog anniversary in April 2011. I promise to actually celebrate it this year.

- Started my second year of graduate school in the fall.  I only have two semesters left!  I'll finish my Masters in Library Science (MLS) this summer.  Thus, I'll be looking for a new job as a librarian (preferable for fall, if the stars align and luck is on my side....too dramatic?).

- I celebrated my second anniversary on BookCrossing in August.  I joined in August 2009.

- Participated in one 24-hour Dewey read-a-thon this year.  I couldn't participate in the October read-a-thon because I was out of town visiting a friend.

- Sadly, I didn't complete any books in June.  I had a crazy busy summer semester (only six weeks long) that caused a major leisure reading road block.  Hopefully, I won't repeat it this year.

-  In November, I read the most books that I've ever read in one month, 13!  I was on a Jenny Han and Stephanie Perkins binge.

- Near the end of the year, I focused on new releases from 2011.  I loved it!  There are so many awesome first books of series out.

Reading Challenges:

2011 Pages Read Challenge: Last year I didn't reach my pages read goal, so I decided to shoot for the same number this year: 15,000 pages.  I actually reached it this time!!!  My final tally was 16,101 pages, 107% of my goal.  Yahoo!  I even read more pages that I didn't count...including my 400+ page textbook and a few books I disliked enough not to finish (cough...The Thirteen Hallows...cough). 

Read Ten 1001-Books Challenge:  Epic fail! I only read five 1001-books this year. I'll try it again this year.

• Erewhon by Samuel Butler.
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
• The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
• The Wonderful O by James Thurber
• The 13 Clocks by James Thurber

A-Z Read & Release Challenge: Another fail!  I haven't done anything with this ongoing BookCrossing challenge for a number of reasons.  First, a majority of the books I read this year were library books so they can't be registered.  A few registered books I releases were repeat letters (G and R). I'll keep my eye out for books that fit into this release challenge, but I'm not gonna sweat over it. 

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my 2011 Wrap Up and my 2012 Goals post!

2010 Wrap Up

Wow, I can't believe it's 2011!  I'm still deciding on my reading goals for 2011 (I know I'm late to the party), so let's wrap up some loose ends from 2010.  It was a busy year.

2010 Recap:

- Started this blog in April 2010. My first real attempt at blogging.

- Started graduate school in the fall for a Masters in Library Science (MLS) so I can become a librarian. The program runs through Summer 2012.

- 2010 was my first full year on BookCrossing!  I joined in August 2009.

- Became a regular attendee of the Audubon BookCrossing group.

- My first two wild releases caught by an anonymous finder:

• Shoot Him If He Runs (Stone Barrington) by Stuart Woods, caught on 11/22/10
• The Darkest Evening of the Year by Dean Koontz, caught on 11/22/10

- Participated in 5 BookCrossing bookrings/rays/boxes:

• Green Angel by Alice Hoffman
• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
• How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell
• The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen
• Manga/Graphic Novel Bookbox!

- Participated in 3 read-a-thons (two 24-hour Dewey read-a-thons and the HUGE TBR Read-a-thon in June)

- Received my first ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in the mail!

• The King's Mistress by Emma Campion
• Plus, five more ARCs.

- Read my first manga and graphic novel.

• My first graphic novel: The Courageous Princess by Rod Espinosa
• My first manga: Crescent Moon, Vol. 1 by Haruko Iida

Reading Challenges:

• 2010 Pages Read Challenge: My goal was 15,000 pages.  My final tally was 13,600 pages, 90.6% of my goal. However, this number doesn't really represent all I've read.  One issue I struggled with was determining what types of materials to count as pages read.  I read a lot of manga this year and did not record most of it...thousands of pages worth.  At first, I didn't think I should incorporate them in this challenge, but I ended up adding a few in the total.  So if I did include all the manga, this number would be way beyond 15,000.  I have to decide if I will include them in my 2011 goal.
• Read Ten 1001-Books Challenge: I read six 1001-books this year.
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
• Through the looking-glass, and what Alice found there by Lewis Carroll
• Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
•  A-Z Read & Release Challenge: Read and released 8 books (B, C, E, G, H, J, R and S). This challenge is on-going, so I'm not worried about completing it within a certain time period.  It's harder than I thought because of the releasing component.  Some of the books I read are library books or in my permanent collection, so completing this one will be a challenge.

My 2010 Favorites (and not-so-favorites):

- Favorite YA series: The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

- Favorite YA book: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White.

- Favorite adult series: Dark Days series by Jocelynn Drake. 

- Favorite adult book: Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.

- Favorite manga series: Library Wars (v.1-3) by Kiiro Yumi.

- Favorite children's book: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

- Favorite guilty pleasure: Vampire Diaries series (bks. 1-4) by L.J. Smith.

- Best obscure book (haven't heard of but you must read): Green Angel by Alice Hoffman.

- Most moving book: Tunes For Bears To Dance To by Robert Cormier.

- Most disappointing book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon.

- Least favorite book: Tithe by Holly Black.


I'll post again soon with my 2011 reading goals and challenges.  Meanwhile, I need to spend some time updating my blog and BC profile.

BC Bookshelf Update: End of 1st Semester!

BC Bookshelf Updates features my latest bookish and BookCrossing (BC) activities including book trades, RABCKs, book rings/rays, challenges, and all things BookCrossing. Enjoy!

I completed my first semester of grad school!  Plus, we got our grades already and I did really well! YAY!  So it's time to celebrate.  I'm going to catch up on my leisure reading over the next month of freedom before the grind starts up again.  Here's the latest BC updates:

Manga/Graphic Novel Bookbox: I signed up for my first BC bookbox. This box is full of manga and graphic novels shipped to participants across the U.S. (sorry not an international one). Participants take as many as they want, but add the same number back to the box and then send it on it's way to the next person on the list.  Here's the forum link if anyone else is interested in joining.  I received the box in the mail yesterday and I can't believe how many volumes are in it!  It's gonna take a few days to go through and decide what to keep.

Audubon BookCrossers:  The ABXC group meets monthly at the Panera Bread in Audubon, PA and last Sunday was the largest gathering that I've attended there so far.  We had the usual BCers attend, plus Flut3girl home from college and nat4lee visiting.  It was so large, we attracted attention from a number of Panera-goers who asked about what we were doing.  We informed them about BookCrossing and several people even left with books.  What a wonderful thing!  For the first time, I brought books to the meeting and left without any.  That's a good accomplishment for me right now since my bookshelves are overflowing.  I need to release more and bring home less (or at least stuff that I will read and release).

Park House Coffee OBCZ:  Sad news from Ridley Park, PA.  The Park House Coffee (a.k.a. Park House Cafe), which is home to an Official BC Zone, has closed.  The cafe changed ownership multiple times in the last few years, but the OBCZ (run by my pal Bascula) persevered. Park House Coffee was a wonderful place to grab a hot drink and relax. I hope it reopens again.  I'll keep you updated.  A group of BCers met there in November hoping to start a new meetup group, but plans will be postponed until we find another location.

Reading Challenges:  Since I haven't reached my challenge goals yet, I'm going to hold my own little read-a-thon next week.  What else would a bookcrosser want to do on vacation!?!  I'll be away visiting family for the holidays, but will host my own 24 hour read-a-thon on Tuesday or Wednesday.  It'll come down to the wire, but I think I can pull off my "Pages Read Challenge" goal of 15,000 pages. I have about 1,700 pages to go.  I have four books to read for the "Read Ten 1001 Books Challenge."  Not sure if I'll reach that one, but I'd be satisfied with one more completed.  I'm still figuring out my challenge goals for 2011 so stay tuned.

I'll post again next week, until then...

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! 

Introducing...BookCrossing 2.0!

WOW! BookCrossing has a new face...BookCrossing 2.0 is up and running!  We BCers knew it would eventually happen, so I backed up my html code from my profile and hoped for the best.  It's very different from what I'm used to and here's some changes I've noticed and my thoughts about it so far:

- Your name and statistics are front and center.  That's pretty cool since the font of the statistics before seemed much smaller.

- I like that my website URL (yep this blog) is completely visible (before it felt hidden and unimportant).  

- Most of my profile is hidden and you have to select "extended profile" to view it.  I put a lot of effort into creating and updating my profile.  Other BCers can see that I'm active and I like to share my progress in reading challenges, so I'm a little bummed that it's not automatically visible. I hope BC makes this optional.

- I lost some friends. I had at least 19 and now I'm down to 15, so I have to figure out who's missing.

I'm going to explore the site for a week and get used to it before I form a complete opinion about it.  It's cool that the BC creators genuinely want our feedback to improve user satisfaction.  Based on some of the comments in the forum, it might take a while to get the kinks out.  We'll see...but for now I'm going over there to hang out.  Let me know what you think about the new BookCrossing.

BC Bookshelf Update: RABCKs, Trades, and ARCs...Oh my!

My BC Bookshelf Updates will feature my latest BookCrossing (BC) activities including book trades, RABCKs, book rings/rays, challenges, and all things BookCrossing.  Enjoy!


I'm so excited...I got a bunch of awesome books over the last few days, including a trade, a RABCK (gotta love rabcks!!!), and my first ARC!

Here's the details:


I traded Holly Black's Tithe for the second book of the Dark Days series, Dayhunter by Jocelynn Drake. I came across the first book (Nightwalker) by chance from my BC pal sherrisue76.  We went to King of Prussia mall in March to wild release books and, after reading the back of the book, I decided to catch the book myself.  I'll post a review for both books later this week. The 4th and 5th books in the series will be released this summer. YAY!
Jocelynn Drake's website and blog!

RABCKs (Random Act of BookCrossing Kindness) are incredible!  Sometimes you get really lucky and an awesome BookCrosser will send you a book from your wishlist.  It's one of those things that makes BookCrossing special...a community of book lovers who grant book wishes (sometimes out of the blue).  It feels great to send and receive RABCKs.

I received a RABCK in the mail last week!
A Series of Unfortunate Events, The End by Lemony Snicket. Thank you for the RABCK OboeChica!  I'm so happy to receive this book!  The series is apart of my permanent collection, at least for now.  In the future, I'll probably organize a book box or giveaway.  I currently have books 1-7 and 13.  This summer I want to read the entire series straight through, filling in the gaps with the help of my local public library.

Last but certainly not least, I received my first Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) in the mail!  I won a copy of The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors by Michele Young-Stone from Crown Publishing Group's Read It Forward website.  It was released on April 13th, so it's not technically an ARC since it arrived late...but it's a still a free book.  So thrilled to read and review it.  

The monthly Audubon BookCrossers (ABXC) met on Sunday at the Panera Bread in Audubon, PA (in a shopping center on Trooper Road).  If you're a BookCrosser in the Philly area (or just want to swap books for free), please stop by!  Meetings usually take place on the first Sunday of the month at 3:00pm, but it sometimes changes due to holidays.  Check the ABXC yahoo website for more information.

At Sunday's ABXC meeting, I released four books:
The Lifted Veil by George Eliot
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
100 Best-Loved Poems Edited by Philip Smith
Caribbean by James A. Michener

I took two books home with me:
The Stars Shine Down by Sidney Sheldon
Hoot by Carl Hiaasen (It's a 2003 Newbery Honor book!  Plus, it was a unregistered book...which means a non-BookCrosser left it on the table with other wild released books)

That's it for now!  I'll post again soon.

Let's start at the Beginning

Welcome to The Ramblings...of a BookCrosser!  I'm Michelle.  I spend my days working in academic library and read in most of my spare time.  I love BookCrossing and have a new found obsession for reading book blogs.  My favorite books to read are YA/childrens books and series.  This is my first real attempt at blogging, so I will be figuring out my writing style and discovering blogging identity along the way.   

Don't know what BookCrossing is?  Well, it's an awesome site where you register your books, get a tracking number for it (aka BCID) and release the book into the world in the hopes to see where it goes in the future.  Well, that's the main premise but all BookCrossers are different and use the site in many ways.  Some people use BookCrossing (BC) to organize and review books but never release any.  Some BCers love to release books into the wild without reading.  While others, like myself, enjoy reading and then releasing the books to other BCers, especially people wishing for the book.  I find the website fun and pretty flexible.  BookCrossers are extremely nice and love to chat in the forum.  To learn more about the concept and terminology, go to their extensive FAQ page.

But I want to blog beyond all things BookCrossing.  I'll try my hand at book reviews and (maybe) memes.  Plus, I'll incorporate some author/publishing news and information about local book events to the Philadelphia area....anything else that might be relevant.    

Feel free to leave a comment on my posts.  I would love any advice or ideas from other bloggers.  Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you'll follow my future posts.  Enjoy reading!