Reflecting on 2010: Blogging

2010 was not my first year of blogging (my archives go all the way back to August 2008, though I didn't really get into the swing of things until summer of 2009), but it was the first year I really threw myself into it with a gusto. I researched, I read, I revamped - some changes for the better, some for the worse: added tracking analytics, with which I am unhealthily obsessed; bought a URL to remove the ".blogspot.com" from my address; started tweeting and created a Facebook page for the bookworm.*

But more than any of this, I hunkered down - to the best of my ability - with both my reading and blogging time. There are some posts I'm not so proud of, of course, a few pathetic attempts just to post something, the "must-keep-initiative" posts of desperation. But there were also a few that I am proud to stand behind - those that generated discussion, thought, and reflection. In case you missed them, here's a few I deem worth revisiting (with the caveat, of course, that I am more than a bit biased):

Goodbye (!) Exclamation (!) Points (!): After reading a piece in the Barnes & Noble Book Reviews by the always-hilarious Polly Frost about the incessant use of exclamation points, the grammarphile in me went a little beserk and seconded her message. Please limit these annoying punctuation marks, people! Unless you are saying "Congratulations!" or "Thank You!," they really aren't often necessary! Really! (See how annoying that was?)

To-Read Lists, and Why I Can't Stand Them: Because my book selections are very dependent on my current mood and situation (see How Book Selections Reflect Our Current State of Mind), I absolutely detest to-read lists, ordered lists, required reading lists, etc. My "lists" are organic, ever-changing, and rarely written down. How do you organize your lists of what to read next?

Why Read? An Impassioned and Somewhat Confused Argument: I have always taken issue with people who insist that avid readers are by default an isolated, lonely group (see also: An Engaged and Approachable Bookworm), but even more so with those who feel that better education lies outside the pages of a book - especially a fiction title. Books, I argue, are social currency.

And, most recently, This is the Reader's Life: I might not have read 100+ books this year, and I might have even gone days - weeks! - without picking up a book. But a reader's life is not spent 24 hours a day with nose in spine. Interruptions are natural, and here I try to tell others - as well as myself - that this makes me no less a "reader" than those who devour a book a day.

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* I also left NYC and moved to Maryland, job hunted (in a new industry), got married, and cut my hair short like Carey Mulligan. It's been a wonderful, hectic, crazy, busy, lovely year.