THE STATS:
Annual Blog Stats
Posts - 333 ( ↓ 12 )
Words written - 193K ( ↑ 9K )
Views - 39.0K ( ↓ 0.3K )
Visitors - 12.3K ( ↑ 0.9K )
Followers - 576 ( ↑ 50 )
Comments - 10.7K ( ↑ 0.4K )
Book Stats
Books read - 191 ( ↑ 7 )
- Novels/Novellas - 165 ( ↑ 5 )
- short stories - 7 ( ↑ 5 )
- manga/graphic novels - 7 ( ↓ 4 )
- comics - 12 ( ↑ 1 )
Pages read - 42,856 ( ↑ 2.3K )
Words read - 14,603K ( ↑ 886K )
Average Rating - 3.11 ( ↓ 0.20 )
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
General Life Thoughts
Mrs B didn't break her arm this holiday season. Hallelujah! If you think I am kidding, well, the last two years before this she HAS fallen at work and broken either her arm or wrist. I think we're done with that nonsense. Thankful? Yes!
We bought a new to us car, which is the newest car we've ever owned, a 2016 Subaru Impreza. We paid for it in full in cash, so we own it outright and no monthly payments. Thankful? Yes!
I now have a coworker who is my size and thinks like I do, procedurally. I'll turn to him and tell him how I want something done and he's already doing it that way, because that makes sense to him. He's also toned down the talking a LOT, so he's also self-aware. Short-Round seems to be working out. Thankful? Yes!
Insurance and Endocrinologist. My endo quit her job at the end of last year and so far the hospital hasn't hired a new one OR transferred me to one of the other ones on staff. They have tried to shuffle most of "dr who quit's" patients back to their primary. Since I have an insulin pump, my primary said "no way!" and told the endo department to make things work. I'm still caught in limbo. Also, insurance is changing how they cover insulin and without an endo to help guide me, I'm left to call the endo office and complain until they get sick of me and do something. Thankful? NO!
In May Mrs B and I began attending the SDA church every Sabbath (Saturday). It is about an hour away and pretty much takes up the whole day. I also stopped going to our sunday church then because I couldn't handle a crowd of people each day on the weekend. Mrs continued going to the sunday church because of all the friendships she had. I began re-attending the sunday church in October as I needed expository preaching (preaching on and about the Bible itself) and the SDA church was much more topical and Bible adjacent. A concrete example is as follows. This fall the pastor at the sunday church started going through the Book of Daniel. He would preach on and explain a chapter or part of a chapter each sunday and the goal is to go through the entire Book of Daniel. The Adventist church has a pastor that we share with another church and so he is only there twice a month. The rest of the time various elders and other lay people (lay refers to them not being ordained) would have talks on subjects that were important to them. Those times would incorporate Bible verses and Biblical principles, but they weren't explicitly teaching the Bible itself. I need expository preaching, as only the Word of God can convict people of sin, righteousness and judgement. Good stories will never get anyone into Heaven. I also needed the manly friendships I had forged at the sunday church. It is only 10minutes away from our place as well. So now I am back to attending both full time and I'm exhausted. I suspect 2026 will see me attending the SDA church once a month and the sunday church every week. Mrs B loves attending both, all the time. More power to her I say! Thankful? It's Complicated ;-)
I had double vision for two solid months and was off work. Then from Thanksgiving to New Years both Mrs B and I had the flu several times. It wasn't the old fashioned "achy breaky heart" kind flu, but the whole can't keep food or water down and feel like a monster truck has stomped all over us. Not thankful it happened, but thankful it's over, for now.
General Bookish & Bloggish Thoughts
My reading was almost the same, overall, as last year. The numbers are all within acceptable parameters, except for my average rating. Which I blame squarely on all the bad dnf books I somehow got tricked into reading. If I have a book guardian angel, he was totally asleep at the wheel in the last part of the year. I had EIGHT dnf's this year. To put that in comparison, I had two in 2024 and four in 2023. Shame on you, Book Guardian Angel, shaaaaaame!
~Bookstooge's Total Slacker of a Book Guardian Angel
Posting was pretty good, especially considering I took Saturdays off for most of the year. I was relatively happy with how the blog went this year. I was spared the chinese bot invasion, so I can actually trust the numbers that WP gave me. I know that was not the case for some of the people I hang out with here. Comments and Likes stayed steady throughout the year. I have to admit I was hoping for a bump in stats, but the fact that I stayed steady with several long time bloggers fading away (for various reasons) makes me realize that I need to be grateful for what I have.
I went from dotblog at the end of 2024 back to the free dotwordpressdotcom site and I must say, I felt it. I had built up a decent google presence and that dropped like a stone when I switched back. I also began working on fixing all those dotblog links in my posts but partway through the year I just ran out of steam and stopped caring. I still pick at it but very desultory and not in a determined and organized way. That "running out of steam" leads into the next section.
Wordpress.com continues its death spiral. Don't get me wrong, I don't think WP is going to go out of business in the next couple of years, but when it comes to the free bloggers, we have been shoved down into the manure and spat upon. Every problem in the support forums is met with "Upgrade to the Business Plan" and then the business plan people get the shaft as well with no 24hr / 7 days a week support. I have seen more business plan people begging for help in the free support forums. That is shameful on WP's part and it shows that their goal is short term profit over long term sustainability as a company. I have actually stopped visiting the support forums because it just depresses me to see so many pleas for help being ignored or how many things are being broken in the background as WP messes around with stuff that nobody wants or asked for.
I'm staying on WP ONLY because of the notification system. Given how much I comment, I can't manually keep track of them all and so the notification system on WP is a real blessing.
After I accidentally nuked my blogger site, I have just continued to use it as a current back up option. I currently copy/paste all my posts over there, but I have not started the monumental job of copying all my old posts (2000-2022) back. At this point, I doubt I will.
Calibre is the reason I have no desire to do all that hard work at Blogspot. I have all my book reviews in this free program and they are backed up on an external harddrive and a thumbdrive and on dropbox. While my non-review posts aren't here, I don't particularly care. I am a book blogger first and foremost and my book reviews are the basis of my blogging.
THE BOOKS:
Best Book of the Year
The Finality Problem, the last book in the Warlock Holmes fantasy parody. It ended with the apparent death of Warlock Holmes and to be honest, if that was the final book in the series, I'm ok with that. I loved the series overall and I think this book was a great wrap up.
Worst Book of the Year
Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko. The less I say, the better.
PLANS FOR 2026
Blog:
Same old, same old. I do need to change something up, because by the end of 2025 I was just about burned out in the writing department. My energy has tanked and so has any creativity. I've got no plans for any "series" of non-review posts because I just can't think of any.
Personal
Survive. Take things a week or a month at a time and just roll with whatever comes my way.
TOP 5:
Book Review Posts
A Close Fight, the 11th volume of the Demon Slayer manga was my top viewed book review this year. One of the reasons I'll never understand other people is because something like this gets the top spot. It wasn't bad, but it was only a 3star read.
Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel. I enjoyed it but it wasn't earth shattering.
Acia by Turgenev. This is why I am reading these Russian classics. I am being exposed to a mindset that I could never imagine on my own, not in a million years.
A Rainbow to Heaven. This was my most shameful book review of the year. I was hosting a Barbara Cartland readalong and ended up dnf'ing the book after the third chapter. I was so embarrassed! Still am in fact. But I am using this as a learning experience. Read the bleeding book BEFORE choosing it as a group read, sigh.
After Dark, a Silver John novel. The covers for the Silver John books were just fantastic. I read this series based on my memories of the covers as a teenager.
Non-Review Posts
Bookstooge's Criteria (for choosing who I follow)
Update. The start of two months of double vision due to an eye nerve palsy.
Sunshine Blogger Award 2025 Edition
12 Years and Counting. Been on Wordpress for 12 years now.
PSA: Blogging and Personality. Who we are affects our style of blogging.
Bonus+
Plagiarism, a guest post by Mrs Bookstooge.
Commentors + Runner Up
3) Riders of Skaith - Is the Correct Answer!
4) Nancy McKeand - Pen & Paper is her new jam
5) Brian - Gurglings of a Putrid Stream, but he's really an ok guy, honest!
Bonus+
Movies
The Fifth Element was the only actual movie I reviewed this year. I did watch and review a bunch of anime, but really, that is different. Plus, it was a whole bunch of one series, so who wants to see 4 covers of the same series right in a row?
Art
Hill Giant, a magic the gathering card.
Ironclaw Orcs. Yep, you guessed it, a magic card!
Grizzly Bear. Yet another magic card.
Hall of Shame (5 least viewed posts)
Gloom. A magic the gathering card post. These posts are always under-performers in terms of views but considering how many memories of my teen years are tied up into them, I'm doing these just for me.
Star's End, the final book in Starfisher trilogy by Glen Cook. I was not impressed with this series and I'm glad this wasn't my first exposure to Cook. Or it would have been my last.
B is for Burglar. One of those horrible Kinsey Milhone books by Sue Grafton. I truly regret dipping my toes into this series.
Ghost Ship. Another magic the gathering card.
Demon Slayer #13 manga. This is where my interest in this manga began to really wane. I only lasted two more volumes before giving up.
