Thanks to all who entered my 500th post celebration giveaway. I loved reading all of your "bookish" resolutions, especially since they echo so many of mine! I really do need to select more books from the public library and my own personal library, instead of buying them - it's hard to resist, though :) Good luck with all of your resolutions.

The desk really is beautiful, isn't it? I love it. If you live in the Phoenix area, check out Stone Creek's showroom. They do beautiful, custom work. You can also search Craigslist for "Stone Creek" - you just might get lucky!

Thanks for the recommendations on The Book Depository. I had never heard of this until a couple of you suggested I check it out. I'll look into using it in the future. I chose to use Amazon this time, because I'm enrolled in the Prime Shipping thingie, so I get free, 2-day shipping on all my purchases from Amazon. I also have an Amazon credit card (the only one we use), so I get reward points when I buy from them. I'm not sure how the Amazon associate thing works - I should probably investigate that.

ANYWAY, onto the real business - our winner. *Drumroll* Congratulations to:


She wins a book of her choice from Amazon. Beth, if you would please email me (blogginboutbooksATgmailDOTCOM), we can talk about the details. Congratulations, again!

The rest of you, please hang in there. I'll be having more giveaways all through the year, as well as reviews, author interviews, chat, and lots more.

Have a wonderful and prosperous New Year, everybody!

Wow! Another year down ... Book blogging has continued to be tons of fun for me. I love reading books, writing reviews, exploring your blogs, reading comments, writing comments - everything. Thanks for hanging out with me this year. I hope you keep coming back throughout 2010 and beyond!

Here's how my reading year played out (according to a highly-respected statistician me):

Total books read: 140 (25 more than last year)

Of those:

104 were fiction; 36 were non-fiction

71 were adult books; 36 were middle grade/children's books; and 33 were YA (I don't count picture books as part of my yearly total)

106 were written by women; 30 were written by men; 2 were written by a male/male team; 1 was written by a male/female team; and 1 was written by various authors

124 were written by Americans, 11 of whom are African-American, 1 of whom is Indian-American; and 1 of whom is Chinese-American.

5 were written by Canadian authors; 5 by English authors; 3 by Irish authors; 1 by a German author; and 1 by a Jamaican-born author.

10 of the books were written by LDS authors.

71 of the books I read were review books (51%); 47 came from the library (34%); and 22 came off my personal bookshelves (16%).

The books I listed as favorites are:

The Tale of Desperaux by Kate DiCamillo
In Their Own Voices by Rita J. Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda
Second Chance Pass by Robyn Carr
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
Nefertiti by Michelle Moran
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
The Likeness by Tana French
The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender
Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Honolulu by Alan Brennert
Schooled by Gordon Korman
Paradise Valley by Robyn Carr
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
While I'm Falling by Laura Moriarty
The Name of This Book Is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
If You're Reading This, It's Too Late by Pseudonymous Bosch
Savvy by Ingrid Law
I'll Never Be French (No Matter What I Do) by Mark Greenside
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff
Willow Run by Patricia Reilly Giff
The Body Finder by Kimbery Derting
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
Marley & Me by John Grogan
The Book of Story Book Beginnings by Kristin Kladstrup
Invisible i by Melissa Kantor
How to Write A Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey

My conclusion? My reading is not nearly as impressive as I think it is :) I feel like I spent every second of my spare time reading, but I only finished 140 books. Hmm ... and I didn't read as diversely as I wanted to. I guess it's not surprising that most of the books I read are by white American women - since that's what I am - but I feel as if I should be branching out just a little.

How did your reading go this year?

I've asked you all to tell me your bookish resolutions for 2010; here are mine:

- Mail out books to the winners of past contests. I'm doing this today since my husband has the day off. Yay!

- Read more. I'd really like to get up to 200 books a year. Do you think I can? I don't know. We'll see.

- Go easy on the challenges. Once again, I failed all the challenges I signed up for this year. It was only 1, but still ... This year, I'm only going to allow myself to sign up for challenges with no deadlines. Those are the only kind I seem to complete :) I also need to work on my own, personal challenge, My Light and Fluffy Fluke-a-Thon.

- Host an event. Again, this will just be a personal thing, but I'm pretty excited about it. My plan is to celebrate Black History Month (February) in a big way. I've discovered several new African-American authors this year, and I'm hoping to find lots more. Since adopting my daughter (who is bi-racial), studying black heritage/culture has become important to me. It may not be possible to post a review every day in February, but I'm sure as heck going to try. If I come up with some good giveaways, we'll do that, too. Sounds fun, right?

In order to be reviewed during Black History Month, a book needs to be either: 1.) written by an author who is Black or bi-racial; 2.) about a Black person/have a Black main character; or 3.) about a subject relevant to Black history, heritage or culture. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them. I'm going to list "proposed" books on BBB's companion blog, More Bloggin' 'bout Books, so you can see what I've got in mind.

- Interact more with my readers, blogging friends. My Google feeder is so overloaded that I may never catch up, but I'm going to try.

- Keep on having fun.

To support herself, Goldy takes on cleaning jobs. And amateur sleuthing. Fortunately, suspects in Korman's case are not hard to find. The real question is who doesn't want to kill the philandering OB/Gyn? There are his two ex-daughters-in-law (one of whom is Goldy), his alcoholic wife, a host of clients, and at least one person obsessed with making him pay for the mistakes of his past. While trying to ferret out information from the residents of Aspen Meadows, Goldy realizes that her two "roommates" know a lot more than they are saying. Exactly how she's going to get her moody preteen son and her lazy, young renter to spill their guts is a mystery in and of itself.

Goldy's renegade investigation is gaining her a great deal of attention. Detective Tom Schulz obviously finds her appealing, while the killer just wants to shut her up. Can she get to the bottom of the crimes before she finds herself in a shallow grave?

Probably because I read it over a period of 6 months or so, Catering to Nobody seemed really disjointed to me. I enjoyed the characters, especially the sassy Goldy, but I found the plot pretty predictable. Writing wise, I'd call Diane Mott Davidson average. The book includes seven recipes, none of which look that great to me. All in all, I found the book disappointing and probably will not pick up any of the other titles in the series.

I feel as if I've already lowered my standards pretty far, and yet I'm still disappointed in this genre. Will I ever find the perfect culinary mystery series? Or should I just give up and admit the genre's not for me? Thoughts?

Grade: C

If this were a movie, it would be rated: PG for language and references to adult situations

To the FTC, with love: Bought this mass market paperback from Border's. Wish I could say it was worth the money.