Sunday Salon ~ keeping track of books

When I first started this blog, it didn't occur to me to make a list of books as I finished reading them.  It looks like I officially started keeping an online list in 2009, a couple of years after I started blogging.  I eventually came back to add earlier years, based on random lists I found:  2006, 2007, 2008.  I noticed this morning that the way I add to my lists has evolved.  In 2009, I simply listed each book, adding my rating only to those I wrote about and providing a link.  One example of a 10/10 book was Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl.  I continued that pattern in 2010, but I did write about more of the books I'd read that year.  That year, I put a few ratings beside books without links.  At the bottom of that year's list, I added this:

January favorite (#18) ~ February favorite (#28) ~ March favorite (#42) ~ April favorite (#59) ~ May favorite (#65) ~ June favorite (#77) ~ July favorite (#80) ~ August favorite (?) ~ October favorite (#102) ~ November favorite (#114) ~ December favorite (#116)

In 2011, I added a photo of my first great-granddaughter reading (that photo at the top).  From then on, I have added a picture of a reader at the top of  my lists every year.  Looking at my favorites became easier, since I started adding a captioned photos each month, rather than at the end of the year.  That was awkward, trying to find a dozen favorites scattered throughout the year's list (well, I seem not to have HAD a favorite in August).  I also sorted out how many books I'd read were fiction, YA fiction, children's, essays, graphic novels, history, memoir, philosophy, religion, women's studies, or writing.  That didn't last.  Too detailed.  Who cares?  But it's also the year I started adding a photo of each month's favorite book, and that feature has stuck.

In 2012, my first great-grandson was the reader.  I added my rating system so people could understand exactly why I assigned one number or another.

10 - Loved it!! Couldn't put it down!!
9 - Excellent!
8 - Very Good
7 - Good
6 - Above Average
5 - Average
Anything lower - Nah
* DNF - Did Not Finish

Kiki Cat was reading at the top of my 2013 book list.  That's photographic proof that she read those books she reviewed over the years.  That book was My Cat: The Silliest Cat in the World by Gilles Bachelet, which she reviewed here.  Kiki gave it a 10 out of 10 because she loved the book.  It was actually her very favorite, ever.  Both of my great-grandchildren were at the top of the 2014 book list.  Jaxon was reading a book I'd given him, and I was reading Hop on Pop to Raegan.  Atop the 2015 book list is Raegan, reading in the car.

My twin great-grandsons were reading a cloth book on the 2016 book list.  Okay, they were looking at the book, which I'm sure their mother read to them at some point.  In 2017, another great-granddaughter was shown reading.  As she knelt in front of her play table turning the pages, she was strengthening her broken leg as it healed (see her photo below).  In December 2016, I had added quotes from two of the books I'd read.  Only two, but it was a start.  In 2017, I included at least one quote from every book listed.

And now we've reached 2018, when I made another change.  Not only have I been adding several quotes from every book, but I've also been occasionally adding more than one "favorite book" a month.  I read eleven books in May and added "another May favorite."  I read ten books in June and share THREE favorites.  Of the thirteen books I read in July, I picked two favorites.  I've already picked two favorites (so far) in December, and I still have today and tomorrow to finish another book or two.  What I'm reading now isn't a favorite, but there's always the possibility I'll dash through an excellent book in the next day, right?

Update 1-1-19:

Now my youngest great-grandchild (of six) is shown reading a book, sideways!  She's two years old in this photo and represents books I read in 2019.