2023 Year-End Reading Survey

 

This Year-End Survey was originally created and hosted by Jamie over at The Perpetual Page Turner. However, I see no recent iterations of this post. Feel free to linkup at the bottom of this post and visit others' posts, if you wish.

Jamie offers this opportunity to look back over the year of reading, recalling new favorites and listing some of the (many) books we didn’t manage to read.

Here’s my 2023 Year-End Survey.

2023 READING STATS

Number of books you read:  250

Re-Reads:  26 (I can't remember when I've had so many re-reads.)

Most Popular Genre: Picture Books. I read more fiction titles (29) than I have read in many years. I also read sixteen books about writing.

BEST IN BOOKS

Best Book You Read In 2023? Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.

Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t? Find Your Unicorn Space had a great title, and I thought it was going to tell me a lot about creativity, but instead, it ended up being more of a memoir.

Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read? The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. I don't want to say any more about it. Otherwise, it won't be surprising.

Favorite new author you discovered in 2023? Claire Keegan. 

Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone? Huda F Cares. It's a graphic novel, and it's excellent.

Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year? The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

Most memorable character of 2023 Winn-Dixie. What a great dog.

Most beautifully written book read in 2023? The Bee Sting. But know going in that it is bleak, bleak, bleak.

Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2023 to finally read? The Count of Monte Cristo.

Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2023? Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Sleigh has 36 pages. The Count of Monte Cristo has 1,276 pages. 

Favorite Book You Read in 2023 From An Author You’ve Read Previously? Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver and Tom Lake by Ann Patchett.

Best Book You Read In 2023 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure? Most of the contemporary fiction books were based on other bloggers' recommendations: Hello Beautiful; We All Want Impossible Things: The Bee Sting. 

Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read? Stickler Loves the World by Lane Smith (picture book).

Hidden Gem Of The Year? We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman.

Most Unique Book You Read In 2023? Wed Wabbit by Lissa Evans.

YOUR BLOGGING/BOOKISH LIFE

Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)? Paris in July. 

Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2023? Celebrating fifteen years of blogging.  

Best bookish discovery (book-related sites, bookstores, etc.)? I enjoyed meeting lots of new book bloggers this year. I hope I'll meet more next year.

Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year? Yes, all nine of them.

LOOKING AHEAD

One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2023 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2024? The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.

Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2024 (non-debut)? Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott

Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2024? The Oz books.

One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2024? Read slower and savor in 2024.

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So concludes this year-end survey. Congratulations if you made it all the way through to the end! What have you been reading this year? And what are you looking forward to reading next?

The Sunday Salon: The Last Few Days of 2023

 

Welcome! I'm happy you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. What is the Sunday Salon? The Sunday Salon is a place to link up and share what we have been doing during the week plus it's a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

I decided to start out the year with poetry. I picked Clint Smith's Above Ground. Here's an interview with Smith on Late Night. See what you think.

What I'm Reading Now...

I'll finish most of these on January 1st...

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks (Happiness)

Live Your Best Life: 219 Science-Based Reasons to Rethink Your Routine (Happiness)

What if Jesus Was Serious? A Visual Guide to the Teachings of Jesus We Love to Ignore (Spirituality)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Ozathon)

If On a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (Fiction)

A Winter in New York by Josie Silver (Fiction)

The Book of (More) Delights by Ross Gay (Happiness; Essays)

The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine (Spirituality)

The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka (Classic)

Baking Yesteryear: The Best Recipes from the 1900s to the 1980s by B. Dylan Hollis (Cookbook)

The Road to Roswell by Connie Willis (SciFi)

Above Ground by Clint Smith (Poetry)

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: I Finish My Last Two Books of the Year

The Most Recent Additions to My Bookshelf

A Christmas Carol: Which Movie/TV Version is the Best?

Above Ground: Poems by Clint Smith: Friday Book Friends: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

I'm joining (or creating) these challenges for 2024.

2024 Nonfiction Reader Challenge

2024 Back to the Classics Challenge

(my challenge)

2024 Chapter-a-Day Challenge

2024 Ozathon

2024 Gaia/Nature Reading Challenge

(my challenge)

2024 Super Past Due Reviews Challenge

Creativity Reading Challenge 2023

(my challenge)

2024 Happiness Project Challenge

(my challenge)

Mt. TBR Reading Challenge

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

We received our first birdhouse

from our granddaughter for Christmas.

I would love to hear 

any birdhouse advice you might offer.

Good Thing #2:

I saw this mural on a wall in Galveston

on my way to meet my writing friends.

Serendipitously, our randomly-selected writing prompt 

that day was kindness.

Good Thing #3:

I see why they say 

"the bluebird of happiness."

How was your week? 

I hope you will share your bookish posts with us

and I welcome comments.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.

Above Ground: Poems by Clint Smith

Today's Featured Book 

Above Ground by Clint Smith

Genre: Poetry

Published: March 28, 2023

Page Count: 121 pages

Summary: 

Clint Smith’s vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair in the same hands, how we carry intimate moments of joy and a collective sense of mourning in the same body. Smith’s lyrical, narrative poems bring the reader on a journey not only through the early years of his children’s lives, but through the changing world in which they are growing up—through the changing world of which we are all a part.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Freda's Voice, but Freda is currently taking a break and Anne of Head Full of Books is filling in. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

"I Am Looking at a Photo

of George Floyd and his daughter as they sit

in the front seat of his car. The little girl is adorned

in matching mulberry-colored clothes from her shirt

to her pants, with small silver balls holding her braids..."

Here is Clint Smith talking about poetry and reading from this book on Late Night.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

December 29th - January 4th - Did you exchange gifts for Christmas with other book lovers? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee Addicted Writer)

Not this year. But I did get a lot of books for Christmas!

   

A Christmas Carol: Which Movie/TV Version is the Best?

It is the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol that we watch every year. "It's the best," my husband says, and I go along with him, deferring to his superior knowledge of all things video.

But this year I think a little more about this. 

I like the story, A Christmas Carol. It's a story of Bad-Person-Turning-Good, and that's probably my favorite sort of story. 

I like the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol. But is it really the best?

I look around to see what others think. Whew. Let me tell you...there are a lot of people out there who have watched a lot of Christmas Carols.

Here's a little of what I find:

The highest-ranked Christmas Carol based on audience ratings on iMDb is the 1951 version of the story, starring Alastair Sim. Dickens London Tours has always thought the 1951 version is the best. Cinema Blend ranks the 1951 version as the best, too. Of all the sites I explored, it is the 1951 version that is most commonly named as being the best.

Many like The Muppet Christmas Carol. It comes out on top in a ranking by CBR.

Samuel Stokes has watched almost every version of A Christmas Carol, and his favorite is the 1984 George C. Scott Version. The Atlantic agrees.

ScreenRant picks the 1999 Patrick Stewart version as the best.

Tor chooses Scrooged with Bill Murray...

I need to watch as many of these as I can and pick for myself, I decide.

So I do.

And some versions...well, there are some versions I should have probably skipped completely. Ebenezer, a Western version, with Jack Palance in the title role, is one of these. 

It doesn't take much time watching the Smurfs' Christmas Carol, Barbie: A Christmas Carol, A Flintstones Christmas Carol, Mickey's Christmas Carol, Sesame Street Christmas Carol, and An All-Dogs Christmas Carol to figure out that these are not working for me. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

 

I take a look at Family Ties Christmas Carol, and Star Trek Next Generation Christmas Carol. Nope. Nope.

The musical version with Kelsey Grammer...okay, nope.

What do I recommend? 

Before I list my favorites, let me tell you that, sadly, there are Christmas Carols I could never find. I'm pretty sure I would have liked Robert Zemeckis' A Christmas Carol, an animated version, from 2009, with Jim Carrey; and Spirited from 2022 with Will Farrell and Ryan Reynolds; and the 1997 animated A Christmas Carol with Tim Curry and Whoopi Goldberg; and the 1970 Scrooge musical with Albert Finney. One or more of these might have made my list. But, alas.

I considered several (random) factors most important: (1) faithfulness (or, in the case of takeoffs, the effectiveness of the twist of the plot) to the original story of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens; (2) actors, especially the actor in the role of Scrooge; (3) how much I just-plain liked watching the show. 

Here are my top ten favorite movie/tv versions of A Christmas Carol...

#10

Blackadder's Christmas Carol

Blackadder starts out good and turns bad in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. 

#9

Rich Little's Christmas Carol

Rich Little does his classic impersonations to fill all the roles in Rich Little's Christmas Carol.

#8

Scrooged with Bill Murray

Scrooged has Bill Murray, and that alone makes Scrooged worth putting on my list of Best Christmas Carols. (But, and this is just my two cents, if you want the best Bill-Murray-turns-good, I'd send you in the direction of Groundhog Day. )

#7

BBC/FX A Christmas Carol

The BBC/FX 2019 version of A Christmas Carol is very good. It's very good, but dark. Not for the kids, definitely, but very good and very dark.

#6

Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol

There were lots of confusing parts for me, a person who has never seen Dr. Who, but, though Dr. Who: A Christmas Carol deviates wildly from the original story, with spaceships about to crash and machines that control the sky and people stored in freezers and sharks that fly in the air...if you can accept that this is a very non-traditional CC, this version is delightful.

#5

1984 A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott

Everyone says George C. Scott is magnificent in this film, and they are right---he is.

#4

1951 A Christmas Carol with Alastair Sim

Very classic. This version sticks close to the original Christmas Carol story, and it has a formality about itself that I like. 

#3

1999 A Christmas Carol with Patrick Stewart

Patrick Stewart is a wonderful Scrooge. It was a delight to watch his Scrooge transform into a better human being.

#2

The Muppet Christmas Carol

Michael Caine gives the performance of his life in this version of Christmas Carol. Michael Caine is the penultimate Scrooge. Kermit as Cratchit is Oscar-worthy, too.

#1

1938 A Christmas Carol (my husband's favorite)

We watch this version last, and I find that I like everything about it. I like the actors: Gene Lockhart as Cratchit, with his real-life wife as Mrs. Cratchit, and his real-life daughter as his daughter, plus excellent casting for Scrooge and his nephew, Fred. I like the script,  a script that shows enough of the backstory of Scrooge to understand how he lost his way. I like the details: the cobwebs and piled-up newspapers in Scrooge's house; poor people lining up to get their geese cooked by the baker in town to save money; the plum pudding on fire as it is set on the table.

Yes, my husband was right...I think the 1938 version of A Christmas Carol is the best. 

Which is your favorite Christmas Carol?

Link up with Lisa from Boondock Ramblings and Erin from Still Life, with Cracker Crumbs this holiday season with any Christmas/holiday-themed posts, and join in the celebration of a Comfy Cozy Christmas here.

Add your links to Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Create With Joy, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.