2012: the blogging year in review

We are now counting down the last hours until 2013, which means that I am again contemplating the "state of the blog," as I do at this time every year.

This year I made 78 posts, including this one—up a few from last year. It's a far cry from the nearly daily blogging habit of the early 2000s, of course. February came close. I'd like to pick out a theme for the year based on my posting trends, but there really was none. (I almost chose "the end of the world," until I realized that Harold Camping's fiasco was in 2011. You're gone and forgotten, Harold.) No drunk moose or monkeys this year—somehow, I managed even to overlook the monkey in the Ikea store a few weeks ago! So I'll give myself good marks for maintaining volume, and take some off for scatterbrained topics. All in all, a C+ year.

I resolved last year to up my reading volume, and I certainly did that. My goal was to read a novel a week, or at least 50 in the year. If I can finish off the one I'm currently reading by tonight, then I'll have an even thirty. That's not bad; in fact, it's about a threefold improvement over last year.

I revived my Stephen King reading project, which had faltered in 2010, by going from The Shining to The Running Man, and I will continue to push through his collected works in 2013. I also took two books off my "incomplete" list that have been there for several years: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Heretics of Dune. (Once I read Chapterhouse: Dune in a week or two, I'll finally have finished all of Frank Herbert's original series. Finally, I made two new discoveries that show some promise for the future: the Saint books by Leslie Charteris (along with the TV series with Roger Moore and the old radio shows with Vincent Price), as well as the Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. I've actually never been much of a mystery reader, apart from Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayer.

You know, it occurs to me that if I converted the Crusty Curmudgeon into a book blog, I'd solve both problems: posting volume, and reading volume. (But that would be boring.)

2013 is a milestone year: September 4 will be the 10th anniversary of the Crusty Curmudgeon. While I'm nowhere nearly as active as I was for the first three or four years, I haven't given up. I don't intend to. I will see you again in the new year, Faithful Readers. All the best for 2013, and God bless you.