My Best Books of 2014!!

I meant to do this at least a week ago but I was a bit preoccupied by getting my Creative Writing assignment done.

I made a vlog of my Favourite books of 2014 earlier today which I'll embed below with the full list of books & authors mentioned. I also talk through the stats for my reading including the woeful lack of non-fiction books and the domination of YA in my reading (which is by no means a bad thing). The list isn't in any particular order but I rated them all as 5 Stars.



My Top Reads in 2014
The Forever Song by Julie Kagawa (Blood of Eden #3)
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan (Lynburn Legacy #3)
Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass #3)
Isla & the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins
City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare (Mortal Instruments #6)
Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor (DoSaB #3)
Half Bad by Sally Green (Half Bad #1)
Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi (Shatter Me #3)
Taste of Darkness by Maria V. Snyder (Avry of Kazan #3)

Honourable Mentions
Cress by Marissa Meyer (Lunar Chronicles #3)
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
It's not you it's me by Mhairi McFarlane
Half Wild by Sally Green (Half Bad #2)

The above list is only a fraction of the really amazing books I read in 2014, there are loads of books that I read that I rated 4 & 4.5 stars which I would recommend but these happen to be my 5 Star Reads. The Full list of books that I read in 2014 can be accessed from the bar below the header.

Were any of these in your list of Top Books from 2014? Are you planning on reading some of these in 2015? Should I be looking out for certain books to read soon?

I shall hopefully blog again soon about... something, I don't know what yet. I have a worrying amount of work to do for my Open University modules over the next few months so I shall have to focus myself on those.

Happy Reading until next time!
Ray

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Reading Goals for 2015

I know I haven't yet done a post about my Top whatever-random-number books of 2014 or looked at my detailed reading stats but I'll get to that soonish. Today I wanted to lay down some of the Reading Goals for 2015 with the full expectation that I'll look back at the end of the year and realise I've completed none of them. But hey-ho let's do it anyway.

Reading Goals for 2015

1. Read 120 books - I've downgraded this massively from last year's goal of 150 because with me trying to finish my first draft of my novel I have spent a lot less time reading so having a large total of books to read is just not going to happen. Making it 120 is more manageable and I'll feel less like a failure if I only just reach it.

2. Re-reads need to be only 25% of the Reading Goal - I had 53 of my 2014 reads being re-reads which was about 42% of my overall total so I want to try and get that number down to only a quarter so based on my goal that means only re-reading 30 books in 2015. It'll be a challenge but I have more than enough unread books to go the whole year without re-reading but there are some thing that I just have to read annually :P

3. Read some Non-Fiction - I read literally no non-fiction in 2014, not a single book. So I'd like to read at least 1 book a month in 2015, two if possible since I got a lot of non-fiction books for Christmas and I have a lot in my collection.

4. Clear some old TBR titles - I have a worrisome amount of books that have been in my collection since before I started cataloging my library and recording my reading so I really would like to get to some of those ancient titles this year *coughTheBookThiefcough*.

5. If I have something to say about a book, write a review - Doesn't matter how long or short it is, if I get to the end of a book and want to say something about it I ought to get it written down and post it. Most of my thoughts on my reading in 2014 have been voiced during videos I put up on Youtube which comparatively few people see so I need to try and write some kind of actual review here that people can actually find.

I think those goals will be sufficient for the time being, I don't want to set myself loads of really specific challenges that I may not want to do when it comes round to it. I could say I  want to read more classics or some other new genre but I don't want to force myself to read certain books since it might feel too much like assigned reading.

What are some of your Reading Goals for 2015?

Laters
Ray

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