A New Year’s Eve Wrap-up

I finished all my challenges this year! Woo! So this is just a quick wrap-up post reporting in on the results for each challenge and whether or not it’s happening next year.

Favorite Fiction Reads From 2012

As with my non-fiction favorites, this  list is a best of the best look at my fiction reads this year. Although I read a lot of good fiction this year, I didn’t have as hard of a time as I expected narrowing this down to just the five books on the list below. The list is mostly not ordered, but I am starting with a book that was by far my favorite read this year…

The King of Clubs in Mini-reviews

This is a review of both my last book in last years book-to-movie challenge and my last book for reaching my goal of 150 books read this year! It was a short one, but it was all I could handle when Netflix got rid of the TV show for my original choice at the last minute (drat you Netflix and your evil, inventory changing ways, haha).

Book Review

This short story is classic Poirot and I could see it making a great introduction to Agatha’s quirky Belgian detective. The interaction between Poirot and his friend Hastings is particularly funny in this one, which starts with a fairly traditional beginning – detective observes high-profile news item, astutely predicts when a certain person will ask for his help, and then is asked as predicted. Although short enough to leave me wanting more, this did have all the things I like about Agatha Christie, including a surprising twist only Poirot can see and the use of little details plus an understanding of human nature to make some surprising deductions. While definitely not long enough for me to recommend if you’re looking for a cozy detective story to spend the afternoon with, it would be a great introduction to the genre.

TV Show Review

Shakespearean Sonnets – A Review

I’m going to do this review pretty informally because I don’t read a whole lot of poetry and so don’t have a very good standard for comparison. However, as we’re getting down to the wire for finishing 2012 challenges, I needed to read some poetry for the Around the Stack in How Many Ways genre challenge. I’ve always loved Shakespeare and the sonnets were free for kindle, so here we are

Favorite Non-Fiction Reads From 2012

Although I read a lot of great books during 2012, today I just want to share the best of the best – the ones I’d really gush over while telling a friend about them. That means I’ve narrowed this list down to my top 5. I do have a slightly more extensive list on Riffle though, a new website advertised as “Pinterest for books”. The list is here. For those of you interested in trying out a new social reading website, I anticipate having invites soon so leave a comment if you’d be interested when those are available Now, in no particular order, here my five favorite non-fiction books from 2012…

Photography Friday

Hello all and happy Friday! To wrap up the year, this week’s photography Friday includes a random sampling of pictures I like but didn’t post earlier in the year. I’m now back in New York after visiting my family and my boyfriend’s family over break. Doing both definitely kept us busy (on top of catching the flu!) but we had a really good time anyway and enjoyed seeing everyone. I hope you all had a great holiday too!