2016: The Wrap Up

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2016: The Wrap Up

Books and more books of course. And Hamilton.

                     What was a girl to do when there were so many books and so little time: READ! That’s what! This year as usual I started off with re-reading the Harry Potter series. You may ask “But Stacie, why do you read that series over and over again when you have so many other books to read?” Sigh* Number one: You must not be a Harry Potter fan. Number two: It makes me happy. Moving on!

                   This year I turned 30 years old (cue the mix of anxiety, happiness and utter horror at the realization of this landmark) and I wanted to do something memorable. A friend of mine came up with this amazing idea to read a book for every year that I’ve been alive. Voila we now have “Reading through 30 years” which would be later coined #birthdaychallenge. That was my big to-do of this year. I gathered a list of books to tackle this year using the Pulitzer prize list, New York Times bestsellers list, book recommendations and Goodreads to find books published throughout my life. The goal was to read them all this year and so I did. I must say that it was time well spent. Many of the books I chose were books that I had contemplated reading before but kept pushing to the back of my “to-be-read” pile. This was the perfect excuse to push those books back up and read them. I discovered quite a few authors that I really enjoyed and even found the inspirations for this year’s theme (#keepingitshort) while reading. All in all, it was a fun theme that was loose enough to not feel constraining but it had purpose. And now I can say I’ve read books from each year of my life. We call that geek cool.

                So confession time: Social Media and I have a love/hate relationship. I feel like I’ve been on facebook forever without really enjoying it but I came up with excuses to keep it. I started a page for this blog, I made sure to keep up with family and old friends on the platform but honestly I was getting tired of it. Twitter and I never saw eye to eye. I started a twitter handle, again for the blog, but never really enjoyed being on it (it still exists by the way, I’m trying. Honestly, I am,). Then something absolutely amazing happened: Litsy! And it’s like the heavens parted and delivered this in my lap and said “This is for you! Go forth and enjoy.” I am obsessed!

                So what is Litsy? Litsy is an app that is focused on books. It’s been best described as a mix between Goodreads and Instagram and I couldn’t agree more. You can write a review, a blurb or quotes and you can post pictures. But you have to tag a book in every post you make. It is amazing. It’s a community of people who love everything to do with books. You can share book recommendations. You can share theme ideas which is how "Reading Through 30 years" evolved into the #birthdaychallenge. You can have discussions about different books. I even became a moderator for Litsy Feminist Book Club, an unofficial book club which focuses on feminism and social justice. I have met some amazing people on this app. And it has become an amazing place to interact with people using an online platform. I’ve since gotten rid of my facebook account because this is the only form of social media I really enjoy.

                Serial Reader is another app that I stumbled across while using Litsy. I don’t consider myself to be very well read when it comes to classics which makes this app absolutely amazing! Serial Reader takes classic books and sends them to your electronic devices as “issues.” Each issue is meant to be read in twenty minutes or less. The amount of issues you receive completely depends on the size of the books. I’ve seen books have issues that range from five issues to almost a hundred (think Les Miserables). I will freely admit that I have a hard time reading some of the classics. I’ll either get bored, or get interested in another book so it makes completing (my pretty long list of) classics almost impossible. Until now. Serial Reader helped me (finally) tackle The Iliad, simply by checking my Nook and reading it for a few minutes a day. I started journaling while reading which helped me keep track of everything going on in the story. At the end of it I was really glad I did it and extremely happy that I found the app. It’s definitely worthwhile to have.

                On a completely different note: I fell in love with the Hamilton Musical this year! Head over heels in love with Hamilton. I need tickets immediately. That was my tangent.


               In conclusion this reading year rocked my socks off. Completing my “Reading Through 30 Years” theme/#birthday challenge, discovering and falling for Litsy then immersing myself in Serial Reader, have made this year a reading success. I’ve geared up for 2017 and all the trials and tribulations that may come. My new theme #keepingitshort will have me reading a short story after every book I read, which will be an amazing way to get me to read more short stories. I’ve got my books with me, and I feel like if nothing else I'll have plenty to read in 2017. 


             

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