My Best Bookish Events of 2013

Compared to last year, this year was quite calm in the awesome bookish events department. But I still have some good times to list.

1. When Kathy wondered about reading The Book Thief before the movie, Kami and I jumped on that and before we knew it, we were all hosting a read along! I felt like it was the most successful read along (where success means lots of participants that followed through with the reading and participated in questions and Tweet chats) I've hosted to date. Maybe the timing was perfect. Maybe it was the book. Maybe it was our enthusiasm. But whatever it was, it was an awesome fun experience. What read along should we host this year?

2. Remember that one time where Markus Zusak sent me a postcard? Yeah, that will stand out as a memorable moment for this year!

3. This was the year I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo and learned how hard (and fun) it is to write a book. Now, maybe this next year I'll learn about what comes next. If nothing else, participating in the process will be an interesting experiment.

4. It was yet again a fabulous for author signings. Here's a probably not-inclusive list of authors I saw this year: Brandon Sanderson (multiple times), Paul Harding, Terry Tempest Williams, Dan Wells, Lauren Oliver, Megan Whalen Turner, Claudia Gray, Brodi Ashton, Kirsten White, Kasie West, Michelle Argyle, Ally Condie, Marie Lu and more.

5. Going to Europe and seeing some famous historical and literary sites was a dream come true. I enjoyed sharing pictures in this post.

6. Book club continued strong this past year. We'll be celebrating our tenth anniversary coming up in May. Hopefully I'll come up with some way to mark that event. But meanwhile, last year, we had a meeting, in September I think it was, where we went wild. That was the most loud and raucous we've ever been at book club and I loved it. Here's hoping for more such meetings this year!

7. Making my 50 Bookish Things To Do List! Now, here's to accomplishing it in the next few years.

8. Hosting a crazy fun Utah Book Month, again. What fun we have doing this. I want to make our celebrations even better.

9. Being able to read and review many more new books this year was fun, and many of those for local Utah authors. I love it.

10. Attending another LTUE conference. Here's hoping I add to my conference attending experiences this year. We'll see.

Yep. It's been a great year. Can't wait to see what happens this next year.

What awesome bookish things happened to you this past year?