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I hope you’re relaxing after the holiday chaos…I’m trying to! I didn’t do a Monthly Round-Up last month since I was participating in Nonfiction November (instead, I posted my Nonfiction November Mini Reviews), but I’m back! However, this may be the last monthly round-up for awhile. My workload has drastically increased with the podcast (more details below), so I’m going to be making some changes. I’m thinking these monthly posts might be the first thing to go…they take a long time to write and don’t get that much traffic. Speak up in the comments if you have strong feelings about this!
I read 7 books this month…which is low for me, but there was lots of holiday chaos and I spent a lot of my reading time getting the podcast ready to launch. I also decided to listen to Helter Skelter, the book about the Manson murders, which is 26 hours long, so that sucked up many of my audiobook hours (and I still have 15 hours to go!).
I always spend most of December reading backlist books (which I don’t get to very much during the year) and this year’s crop was excellent!
Winners
- FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE MONTH:
Silver Sparrowby Tayari Jones and The Dreamers
- An Anonymous Girl
- How to Be Married
- One Day in December
- The Kind Worth Killing
by Peter Swanson
- This Must Be the Place
DNF’s
- Olive Kitteridge
Best-Selling Book (via my affiliate links)
- Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
Y’all, this was weird! I’ve never even heard of this book, but someone bought 9 copies through my blog. Thank you to whoever this was!
Announcements
- Sarah’s Book Shelves has a podcast! I’ll be talking with a bookish guest every week and books he/she recommends. Episode 1 (with Georgia Hunter, bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones) is now live wherever you listen to podcasts!
- The New and Improved 2019 Rock Your Reading Tracker is now available for $14.99! I’ve made lots of improvements from last year’s tracker…check out more details here.
- Personalized Book Recommendations and the Superstars Facebook Group are available to anyone who supports Sarah’s Book Shelves on Patreon!
December Quality and Recommendation Sources
Reading Quality
December 2018
- % Successful Books Attempted (includes DNF’s) = 86%
- % Successful Books Finished (does not include DNFs) = 100%
2018 Full Year
- % Successful Books Attempted (includes DNF’s) = 64% (way above my 43% success rate from 2017!)
- % Successful Books Finished (does not include DNFs) = 86%
Successful Recommendation Sources
- Modern Mrs. Darcy (This Must Be the Place, Silver Sparrow, One Day in December)
- Ashley Spivey (This Must Be the Place, The Kind Worth Killing)
- Renee at It’s Book Talk (The Kind Worth Killing, One Day in December)
- Jeff O’Neal from The Book Riot Podcast (Silver Sparrow)
- Amy at Read a Latte (The Kind Worth Killing)
- Musings of a Literary Wanderer (How to Be Married)
- Gayle Weiswasser from The Readerly Report Podcast (One Day in December)
- Jan Belisle (One Day in December)
- Tara at Running N Reading (One Day in December)
- Book of the Month (An Anonymous Girl)
- Kaytee Cobb from Currently Reading Podcast (An Anonymous Girl)
If you’re interested in tracking these types of stats, my “Rock Your Reading” Tracker does all the heavy lifting for you! Enter your book details and it automatically compiles everything into Summary Charts in real time! Go here for more details.
Most Popular Posts
Posts Actually Published in December
Eight 2018 Books That Deserved the Hype…and Five That Didn’t
Book of the Month December 2018: What Book Should You Choose?
Best Books of 2018
Overall Posts
Book Club Recommendations
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Behind Her Eyes and THAT Ending: Spoiler Discussion (#WTFthatending)
Best Books of 2018 Lists by Fellow Bloggers / Podcasters
- Annie Jones at From the Front Porch podcast
- Gilmore Guide to Books
- It’s Book Talk
- Modern Mrs. Darcy
- Mind Joggle
- Novel Visits
- Read a Latte
- Running N Reading
- Sophisticated Dorkiness (Nonfiction)
- TBR, etc.
Most Anticipated Books of 2019 Lists
How was your reading month?
Hey! Thanks for sharing my lists. And I think these posts are good, but you also do a weekly round up of what you’ve been reading (I think) so I think it makes sense to cut this in favor of podcast stuff!
I like reading what worked for you and what didn’t book wise. However, I guess we see what is working when you do reviews of books, and we see what didn’t work when you DNF a book. Its your blog you should do what makes you happy with it.
Thank you! Yes – you would still see all that in my weekly reading updates on Mondays.
I read Helter Skelter years ago and found it very disturbing but compelling.
Ha – that’s about what I’m feeling right now. Am surprised at how much the LAPD missed!
Yay, so glad to be one of your successful recommendation sources! Congrats on the podcast!
Thanks so much for sharing my lists, Sarah. I’m amazed you got any books read in December with the holidays and getting ready to launch the podcast. Great job on it all and bravo for taking on Helter Skelter on audio. That’s one long book!
Congratulations on your podcast! And I also enjoyed The Kind Worth Killing.
In regards to the book purchased 9 times……I’m the queen of buying random things on Amazon, how does that work on your end? If I click on the link for a book to buy and add other stuff to my cart (Xmas gifts, food, etc.) do you see everything I bought through your link?, just the book? or just a total of the percentage? Thanks for explaining!!
Yes – I get credit for anything you purchase through my Amazon links…not just the book I link to! I can see every item purchased through my links, but not who purchased them. You’re welcome and thanks for buying through my links – it really helps pay for the cost of running the blog!
You had a super productive December Sarah, way to go! Thanks for sharing my best of list! Can’t wait to talk books with you in 2019
That’s a fabulous round up. I am so excited about 2019. I loved An American Marriage so I am super keen on Tayari Jones’ new book
Oh, it’s not new Tayari Jones…it’s from her backlist!