Ah, 2014 has finally ended, and with that, I say good riddance! At least the stuff I was reading and watching was thoroughly enjoyable, so let’s see where December ended up.
Books
My goal for 2014 was to read 50 books. If you don’t count the novellas/novelettes/short stories, then I fell just shy of that goal. However, if you include those (some of those novellas were pretty hefty!), then my total for the year was 95, which is more on course for what I was reading back in my book blogging days. Still short, but considering the kind of year this has been, quite respectable.
44) Symbiont by Mira Grant
45) Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
46) The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Short Fiction
45) The Ninety-Ninth Bride by Catherine F. King
46) The Astronomer Who Met the North Wind by Kate Hall
47) The Awakened Kingdom by N.K. Jemisin
48) Snakes and Ladders by Seanan McGuire
49) White As a Raven’s Wing by Seanan McGuire
Comics
It utterly amazes me at the number of comics I read every year. Seriously, I added it up, and I read a total of 283 individual issues this year. There’s definitely down from previous years, but the way the issues have piled up is overwhelming, and I still have a very large TBR comic pile. There’s some series that are ending, which is good, and some series I’m pretty close to quitting. That said, I’d like to be more judicious and selective in the my titles for 2015, and keep it to the stuff I’m really into.
Individual Issues:
Batgirl #37
Black Widow #12
Black Widow #13
Ms. Marvel #10
Sex Criminals #8
Sex Criminals #9
Sleepy Hollow #2
The Massive #29
Movies
My husband and I had an epic Harry Potter marathon in December, which was a helluva lot of fun, because it’s been a while since I’ve seen these and it was a lot of fun to go back to the start, knowing how the series ends, and see all the little clues I missed the first time around. I look forward to do the same with the books, but that’s a marathon for a much later time.
Total movies seen this year? 14 total in theaters, and 61 in the comfort of my own home.
In December, we watched the following:
A Christmas Story
Elf
Guardians of the Galaxy
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
Home Alone
Palo Alto
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (in theaters)
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay: Part 1 (in theaters)
Total Recall (1990)
Television Shows
We didn’t finish and seasons this month, but we completed a total of 46 seasons of stuff. Damn, that’s a lot of television, but when you consider a nice portion of those to be marathons of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Friday Night Lights, it takes up a good portion, and most of the television we watch is during the fall to summer season, so it’s an episode a week for a limited number of shows. Still, those seasons do add up, don’t they?
That’s it from me! Also, feel free to share whatever 2014 stats you’ve got! How many books? How many movies? What were your favorites? Lay them on me!
Cheers!
Calico Writes 
How did you feel about Symbiont? I felt kind of mixed about it. Like there were plenty of individual scenes I liked, but I wasn’t hugely impressed with the book as a whole.
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I liked it far more than I did Parasite, which felt lacking narratively. Symbiont had more development, more of an arc, but this trilogy still doesn’t hold a candle to the Newsflesh trilogy, which was absolutely gripping. I think it suffers for that comparison, too.
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I preferred Parasite, but I agree that The Newsflesh trilogy was strong as a whole. I’ll still be reading the final book though, even if I’m not as excited about it.
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I think this is a trilogy that will benefit GREATLY from being read all at once. I look forward to the conclusion, since I’ve so far it’s gotten “better” for me with each installment.
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Here are my stats for November.
New books:
1. Cold Steel, by Kate Elliott. 3 stars. I finished this on 12-1-14, and talked about it along with the rest of the trilogy on last month’s post.
2. Soulless, by Gail Carriger. 4 stars. Mount TBR. I had left my kindle at work and had to read something off my paper TBR stack, which ended up being this book. I finished it an evening. Highly enjoyable.
3. Ancillary Sword, by Ann Leckie. 5 stars.
4. Symbiont, by Mira Grant. 4 stars.
5. Stranger, by Sherwood Smith and Rachel Manija Brown. 4 stars.
Re-reads:
1. The Death of Davy Moss, by Kristine Katherine Rusch. 4 stars.
2. Palladin of Souls, by Lois McMaster Bujold. 5 stars.
Stats for the year: 73 new books, 24 re-reads.
I finished the rest of the unread books I bought in 2013 and have 7 books left unread from 2014.
Mount TBR: 16 books read out of a goal of 24.
I had a goal of 6 substantive non-fiction/ history books, and only read 2. I have several others that I am partway through, but have not finished.
My two “project” books for the year were Dante’s Divine Comedy and Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses.
Goals for next year:
1. Read all the books I buy in 2015.
2. Read 12 books off my TBR stack.
3. Read 6 history/ political science books.
4. I having teaching company CDs on The Odyssey and The Illiad, so I want to re-read The Odyssey and read The Illiad for the first time this year, then listen to the CDs.
My immediate goal for January and February is to get caught up on books I might want to nominate for the Hugos. Books that I’ve read and plan to nominate are Goblin Emperor and Ancillary Sword for Best Novel and What Makes This Book So Great, by Jo Walton, for Best Related Work. I still want to read Mirror Empire by Kameron Hurley, Three-Body Problem, by Cixin Liu; Annihilation, by Jeff Vandermeer, Steles of the Sky, by Elizabeth Bear, and the new novellas by NK Jemisin and Patrick Rothfuss. If I have time, I may also read the Girl With All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey and City of Stairs, by Robert Jackson Bennett. We’ll see how I do.
I’m glad you almost made your goal of 50 novels. I personally count novellas in with my novel count just because they take so much more time and investment than a short story does. 🙂
I hope you have an excellent year next year and that things generally get sorted out for you.
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How funny, I was just dreaming about Carriger’s series last night! It’s so fun to read. I’m glad you enjoyed the first book so much. 🙂
I need to read Ancillary Sword, My Real Children, Mirror Empire, Three-Body Problem, and the last book in VanderMeer’s trilogy (all three can be nominated as one, like Robert Jordan was), and I still haven’t read the second of Bear’s trilogy, let alone the third (this trilogy can ALSO be nominated as one, like Robert Jordan was). Oh, I’ve got the Rothfuss to read too. 🙂 I guess I need to get cracking! 🙂
Good point about counting novellas! I think they count too, and those are mostly what I read last year. 🙂
Thanks for the well-wishes, and I hope you have an awesome year too!
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