52 books challenge completed!

As you may have spotted from looking at the tabs across the top of this blog for the last couple of years I have been attempting to read 52 books in a year.  I decided to set myself this challenge at the start of 2013 because I had gone from loving books and reading several per month (or often several per week) to hardly reading any books.

As soon as I started working on the idea of The Sewing Directory it took over my life, I was working 7 days a week and just had no time for any reading.  I had also had a baby a year before I started the directory so by the time the business was launched I had my hands full!

When I blogged about doing this challenge several people said they wanted to join in.  The first year we did it via Twitter but this year we have a lovely Facebook group which has become an online book club.  The other members have encouraged me out of my comfort zone to try authors I never would have normally.

One of the books I tried thanks to others in the group recommending it.  I loved it, it was very moving.

Last year I didn't quite make it to the 52 books, I managed 44.  This year a good 10 weeks before the end of the year I passed 52 books!  In fact I've managed 54 so far and I'm now aiming for over 60.  I feel so proud to have gotten there, especially as not only did I write my own book this year, but I also moved house which was a pretty big ordeal taking a lot of my time and energy.

I don't quite know how I managed to fit it all in!  I think actually part of the reason I've read a lot more is because I've been run down and ill a lot of the year.  Then when too ill to work I read instead.  I've also travelled a lot, by train, so I've read several Kindle books. So next year it would be nice to just read because I'm taking time off for fun, not because of illness. I should make that my goal for 2015.  52 books read whilst healthy...