The Wrap Up

This has been an . . . interesting . . . year, dominated by three things: the knee surgeries that had Sammy, our Great Pyrenees, laid up for the first part of the year; storm damage to our roof in March that led to a three-month struggle with the insurance company before we were able to get it replaced; and finally Livia’s cancer diagnosis in July, followed by surgery, radiation treatments, and many, many doctor visits. Yet we’ve come through all of them. Sammy doesn’t get around as well as he once did, but other than that he’s doing fine. We have a really nice new roof. And Livia’s radiation treatments will be wrapping up soon. In the midst of all this, we decided to get in better shape and have been walking, walking, walking, around five miles a day for me and more than that for her. I really miss it now when things interfere with us getting our steps in. So in some ways, it’s been a good year.

I can’t say I’m sad to see it end, though.

Moving on to the usual items in this year-end post:

WRITING

As I mentioned yesterday, I wrote a million words—barely—again this year, for the 15th consecutive year. That works out to nine-and-a-half novels and one short story. It’s a very nice achievement, and I’m proud of it, but I’ll be fine with it if I actually manage to cut back next year, as I’ve been threatening to for some time now. There are a lot of other things I need to do, and want to do, that I haven’t been able to because writing that much sucks up so much time.

READING

I read 107 books this year, the second-lowest total since I started keeping records of what I read in 1980. But a lot of them were pretty darned good books. Here are the ten I liked the most, in the order in which I read them:

BUZ SAWYER, VOLUME 1: THE WAR IN THE PACIFIC, Roy Crane
THE OFFICE, Fredric Brown
MADBALL, Fredric Brown
CONAN AND THE LIVING PLAGUE, John C. Hocking
ROBERT E. HOWARD: A LITERARY BIOGRAPHY, David C. Smith
THE STRANGEST SIN, Orrie Hitt
GAMBLING MAN, Clifton Adams
TOUGH AS NAILS: THE COMPLETE CASES OF DONOHUE, Frederick Nebel
SLUGFEST: INSIDE THE EPIC, 50-YEAR BATTLE BETWEEN MARVEL AND D.C., Reed Tucker
BURNED WITH THE COYOTE BRAND, Dan Cushman 

I don’t claim these are “bests”, but they are my favorites from my reading this year.

THE STATE OF THE BLOG

Readership here still isn’t what it once was . . . but what is? It’s enough for me that most of you seem to be enjoying it, I’m still having fun, and so it goes. Thanks to all of you who drop in. I’ll be here.