Looking Back on 2009 and Looking Ahead

A new year is here now, marking a year of my running this blog seriously.

Looking back on 2009:
Challenges:
I managed to complete (surpass in fact) the LibraryThing 100 Books in 2009 challenge. My post listing the books is here (and it's why I'm not listing the books I read for the year here).
I participated in and completed the Love Bites challenge, from the Royal Reviews blog.
Then there was the What's In A Name challenge, which I didn't manage to complete. I didn't manage to read a book with a building in the title, or one with a relative.
Another successful challenge was the TBR Challenge Lite. This is one that I hope is running again this year. With my Unread Books 2010 list, I need it.

There were a lot of really good books that I ended up reading over the past year. Many of which I have to thank the folks over at LibraryThing as well as the many blogs I follow for telling me about. You lot are the bane of both my book list and my budget.
Anyway, the best non-fiction book I read  in the past year was also the first ARC I was given for review: The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett.
I'm having a harder time deciding on the best novel though. It's a toss-up between the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs and Hand of Isis by Jo Graham.

2009 was also the year I started my own challenge: the Pre Printing Press Challenge, which will run until April 30th of this year.

Looking ahead for 2010:

Challenges on the go:
The Pre-Printing Press Challenge which has four more months to go. I've got some work to do on this one to make my goals. I'm also thinking about running it again for 2010-2011.
The Arthurian Challenge, which runs until the end of March. I signed up for three to six books, and I've managed to finish three, so technically, I've completed the minimum requirement for the challenge, but I'm goint to try and get at least one more done.
The Really Old Classics Challenge. This one runs until the end of February, and I'm reading the book for it now: Shakespeare's The Midsummer Night's Dream.

I have no idea if I'm going to sign up for more challenges this year.

I'm going to start a new feature on my blog, a more or less weekly post called "What Would You Recommend?" where I suggest a book and ask what you would recommend for someone who liked that book to read. It's going to be more or less weekly because I don't have regular access to the internet anymore.

I'm also committing to at least one book review per week (hopefully more, but the length of time it takes to read a book can vary. If there isn't a review post in that time frame, feel free to ask me why (and see what creative excuses I can come up with too :) ). Sometimes that little push is what it takes.

Here's wishing everybody a happy and healthy New Year.