Books Read in 2014

I read around 50 books in 2014, mostly in English, four in French and a few books for children in Georgian. Over 16 000 pages in total.

“Istanbul” by Orhan Pamuk

I tried to review each book I read for this blog. The highlights for me were the following (the links are to my reviews):

“Cathedral of the Sea” by Ildefonso Falcones

“The Man from St. Petersburg” by Ken Follett

Where are the Children? by Mary Higgins-Clark

“Istanbul: Memories of a City” by Orhan Pamuk

“The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz

“Alone in Berlin” by Hans Fallada

“Dumb Witness” by Agatha Christie

“A Morbid Taste for Bones” by Ellis Peters

I also managed to read some classics that had been on my “to read list” for a very long time like “Middlemarch” by George Eliot, “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Homage to Catalonia” by George Orwell and “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens.

There were, a few books, I wished I hadn’t bothered with, usually I will put down a book if I haven’t got into it by the fiftieth page but I persevered with “E is for Evidence (Sue Grafton), “Ratner’s Star” by Don DeLillo, “Nutcase” by Charlotte Hughes and “A Hero of our Time” by Mikhail Lermontov. I regret the time spent on these books I didn’t enjoy.

I’ll see if I can read another 50 in 2015, and try to include some in Georgian….

One Year of Blogging

I have been blogging for one year !

7 November 2013 I posted my first blog post.

Lamborghini Gallardo

Then a lengthier post about Blogging

starting a blog

From those early beginnings I have made a further 268 posts on  this primary blog and 168 posts on a second blog. The second blog is focused on my hobby of collecting diecast model cars (Matchbox, Hot Wheels etc)  diecast blog

The viewing stats make for compulsive viewing, for the primary blog they peaked in March and then dropped to August and have since made a small revival.

monthly views (primary blog)

The diecast blog stats are different they keep going up and up.

diecast blog viewing stats

The two blogs are quite different the diecast blog has had 7721 views (6 Nov 2014) but it only has 27 followers. The primary blog has had far fewer views (3796) but has far more followers (134).

The diecast blog being more specialised gets a lot of hits from search engines, if someone were to type “Deagostini Supercars”  or “Eaglemoss Ferrari” into Google my blog would be high up in the findings.

This primary blog has a wide range of topics. From the beginning it was intended as a showcase for my photos and I have been regularly posting images here. I also follow the “Weekly Photo Challenge” which appears each Friday with a new topic to depict. the most recent being “Descent”

“Descent”

I also use the blog to interpret my life in Tbilisi (Georgia) as a foreigner and particularly my struggles with the Georgian Language. I love reading and each book I read is reviewed as are the much rarer films I see at the cinema (the last  film I saw was Guardians of the Galaxy ).

I find blogging quite compulsive, sharing my thoughts and images with the cyberworld, I’m not sure if blogging has changed me as a person, I hope it has made me a better writer and photographer, but it may be to early to judge.

I tend to use Twitter, Pinterest, Stumble Upon and Google+ merely for posing links to my blog posts. I spend a lot more time (probably too much) on Facebook. The first two windows I open on my computer when I turn it on are Facebook and WordPress.

I have learnt a lot reading other blogging posts, I will tend to follow those who follow me and also other WordPress sites I find on various Google searches I make. I first blogged a photo of a Matchbox Lamborghini Gallardo, now I have a second one.

 

Matchbox Lamborghini Gallardo Police