Nine Years of Blogging

Nine years ago today I started this blog.

It has been an interesting and sometimes long slog. I don’t have a lot to talk about in the state of the blog, with a new job starting in December I didn’t get to do any of the enhancements I was hoping to do.

I saw a bunch more bloggers disappear and/or shift to bookstagram/booktube. I’m both happy for them because they found a venue they enjoy, but also like meh because I rarely watch videos about books and most of the bookstagram posts seem to be more about the photo and staging than content or creation.

This being said, I know I did a poor job of keeping up with people’s blogs or finding new blogs, but I’m basically 90 years old in blog years so I’m a crotchety old blogger. So on to what I was able to compile for the year:

Top Book Posts of All Time from July 2018 – July 2019

1. *Book 272: The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (Apr 18, 2014)
2. Book 528: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda – Becky Albertalli (Dec 18, 2017)
3. *Book 364: Burn After Writing – Sharon Jones (Aug 3, 2015)
4. Book 54: The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester (Jul 25, 2011)
5. Book 345: How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) – Lee Crutchley (May 4, 2015)

The Handmaid’s Tale and Burn After Writing are repeats from last year and The Professor and How to be Happy have always hovered toward the top. The newest is Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, which stems from the movie being released in the last few years and the book being reissued. I’m actually expecting The Handmaid’s Tale to take over the top spot of all time in the next year or so because of the series and the announcement of the sequel, The Testaments, to be released by Atwood later this year.

Top 10 Book Posts Published in July 2018 – July 2019

1. Book 576: Boy Erased – Garrard Conley (Nov 21, 2018)
2. Book 600: Shortest Way Home – Pete Buttigieg (Mar 8, 2019)
3. Book 565: Superhero Ethics – Travis Smith (Aug 3, 2018)
4. Book 572: Tip of the Iceberg – Mark Adams (Aug 31, 2018)
5. Book 563: You Are Not Alone – Debbie Augenthaler (Jul 27, 2018)
6. Book 594: River Queens by Alexander Watson (Feb 12, 2019)
7. Book 577: Crazy Rich Asians (Crazy Rich Asians #1) – Kevin Kwan (Dec 11, 2018)
8. Book 564: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Harry Potter #2) – J.K. Rowling (Jul 30, 2018)
9. Book 589: Lethal White (Cormoran Strike #4) – Robert Galbraith (Jan 23, 2019)
10. Book 568: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Harry Potter #4) – J.K. Rowling (Aug 14, 2018); Book 569: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter #5) – J.K. Rowling (Aug 16, 2018)

Rowling takes the cake on this one—she does have the advantage that I’ve read more books by her than any other author so far this year. The three Harry Potter Books were re-reads, Shortest Way Home, Superhero Ethics, Tip of the Iceberg, You are Not Alone, and River Queens were all galleys from publishers/authors/publicists. The one book I thought might make the list when I checked a few weeks ago, was The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen Randle, but it was nudged out by the two Harry Potter books climbing up in the last few days.

Top 5 Non-Book Posts Published in July 2018 – July 2019

1. 2018 Year End Recap
2. Elite Eight
3. August, September and October Recap 2018
4. April Recap 2019
5. November and December Recap 2018

No surprise here, the posts with the longest time to percolate have the most views. The April one is a bit of an outlier, only being three months old. Maybe it was the seeing Pete Buttigieg (I mean that post got more traction than the response to his book), or maybe it was the Future Library. Who knows?

Top 10 Book Posts of All Time

1. Book 356: The Witch of Portobello – Paulo Coelho (Jun 12, 2015)
2. [▲1] Book 272: The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood (Apr 18, 2014)
3. [▼1] Book 122: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot (Jul 5, 2012)
4. [▲1] Book 102: Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie (Mar 28, 2012)
5. [▼1] Book 91: A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) – George R.R. Martin (Feb 1, 2012)
6. Book 121: The Absolutist – John Boyne (Jul 3, 2012)
7. [▲2] Book 245: How to Be Happy (Or at Least Less Sad) – Lee Crutchley (May 4, 2015)
8. [▼1] Book 115: Farm City – Novella Carpenter (May 31, 2012)
9. [▼1] Book 159: By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept (And On the Seventh Day #1) – Paulo Coelho (Dec 10, 2012)
10. [New Entry] Book 110: The Color Purple – Alice Walker (May 14, 2012)

Some changes here, How to Be Happy climbed two spots and I have no idea. The Handmaid’s Tale is poised to topple the five year run of The Witch of Portobello, which I never thought would happen. The Color Purple, maybe because the play is being revived around the world knocked 50 Shades of Gay by Jeffery Self off the list (which is fine by me – most people just want a free pdf of that).

The other fun thing to note is that books 8-10 are the ones that are still gaining traction when I actually dug into the stats. They’ve been viewed in the past few weeks where some in the top are securely in place because of their major stats boosts when they first came out.

And that’s it for my ninth year of blogging. I’m sure there are more stats, but because work was so crazy I’m ACTUALLY drafting this on July 20th right before we head out to the beach for the hottest day of the year (WHY?! who knows).

Let’s see what year 10 brings—I haven’t made any decisions about quitting or moving on or anything else really, I’m just sort of expecting the status quo to be maintained for at least another year.