Starting to wrap up 2014 with...a Month of Favorites!

Gooood morning, reader friends!  It is December 1, and instead of posting a monthly wrap-up for November, I am jumping into the Month of Favorites event, hosted by Estella's Revenge, GirlXOXO, and Traveling with T.  All month, we'll be discussing our favorite books (and book-related things) from 2014.  Since I always do a best-of list at the end of each year, I figured this would be a great way to do it...just all month long instead of one day, because I know you can't get enough of me.

Today we're doing a bit of an introduction:
"About YOU and Your Reading this year (eg. fave genre, fave author, how you read (percentage (%) physical, eReader, audiobooks), when you read, what genre did you read the most from this year, which author was most prolific on your reading list, how many books did you read, give us a clue about what your fave book read this year is – but don’t tell us – let us guess!)"

Well, most of you know a lot about me already, but here goes...

Favorite genre: If I had to pick one (ridiculously broad) genre, it would be contemporary fiction.

Favorite author: Can't just pick one!  Stephen King, Jodi Picoult, Jon Krakauer, Audrey Niffenegger, Emily Giffin, Michael Pollan, Gillian Flynn...I'll stop there.

How I Read in 2014:
I broke this into a few different categories.

1. Total books read: 43 (so far!)
(My goal was 40, so I am patting myself on the back.)

2. E-book vs Paper
I read 14 e-books, 28 paper books, and 1 audiobook.  This will come as no surprise, given my struggles with e-reading earlier this year.

3. ARC/Tour Books vs. "Free Range Reading"
I read 15 ARCs/tour books and 28 books of my own choosing.  I made an effort to cut back on ARCs this year, and it seems I did well!  I am looking forward to a few more in 2015 though.  Ready to get my early-reviewing hat back on.

4. Most-Read Genres
21 contemporary fiction, 11 young adult, 5 nonfiction, 3 women's fiction, 2 classics, 1 mystery/thriller.
This, of course, is based on my subjective decision on what falls into each of those genres (a mystery can be contemporary fiction too, but I had to choose one category for each book read).  I was originally surprised at how much YA was there, but then I remembered the Rochester Teen Book Festival--that explains that!

When I read: In tiny snippets!  That's how it feels these days.  I often wake 10-15 minutes before the kids and my husband, just to get a few pages in at the start of the day.  I used to read in the afternoon when Small Fry and Tater Tot had overlapping naps (90 glorious minutes! Shared with housework, but still)...HOWEVER, Small Fry no longer naps.  So now I usually read while snuggling with him on the couch for about 15 minutes during an episode of Dinosaur Train.  :)  At night, my husband and I spend as much time together as possible after the kids go to bed, so I usually don't pull my book out until he goes to sleep...and manage about 3 pages before I conk out myself.  Ha!  But I maximize my reading time as much as possible...and have been known to pull my book out if I end up in a long line at the dentist, or the grocery store, or the post office...

As for my favorite book of the year?  I generally don't pick one favorite for the year--my M.O. is to make a top 10 list (in no particular order), because I find it too hard to choose only one.  However, I've already started thinking about my list, and unsurprisingly, it's mostly contemporary fiction novels.  If you have any guesses on what I loved the most, leave them in the comments!

Here's to a month of favorites, my friends!  How did YOU read this year?