Today, The Literate Housewife Review officially turns 3 years old. I cannot believe it’s been that long or how far this blog has come.
It began its days as “52 Books or Bust” on Blogger, reflecting my New Year’s Resolution in 2007. At the end of 2008, I’d decided to move to WordPress and I knew I needed to change my name. I read more than 52 books that first year and it didn’t at all reflect where I hoped this blog would go. It was my husband who came up with the ‘Literate Housewife” moniker and it fit like a glove. After my 2009 recap yesterday, the rest is history.
I’m looking forward to what 2010 will bring. I can tell from over the past month that balance is going to play a key role. My home and work life have only gotten busier, leaving me less time to think about blogging, let alone writing. I need to be as deliberate about what I post as I am about what I’ll be reading. As the book blogging community has evolved and changed over these past three years, so will the Literate Housewife. I still find the joy and challenges that go along with being a book blogger all extremely exciting.
In honor of my 3rd blogivesary, there are some prizes. What celebration would be complete without that? I have three prizes:
Grand Prize: A silver 1GB iPod Shuffle ~ perfect for listening to tunes or a great audio book.
Second Prize: A 3 Book Grab Bag ~ you’ll have to wait until your package arrives to find out what’s inside.
Third Prize: 40 Coraline bookmarks to the local library of your choice + a Coraline bookmark for you along with one surprise book from my bookshelves.
To enter the contest, please leave a comment here and let me know how long you’ve been reading The Literate Housewife Review. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been reading for 1 minute or 3 years. I’m just curious like that.
The contest is open until 11:59 pm EST on February 16th. I’ll announce the winners on February 17th.
Good luck!
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I think I have been a Blogline subscriber for about 6 months-please enter me in your great contest and congrats on your blogaversary
Congratulations, Jennifer!! You were the very first book blogger I followed when I started my blog last January, so I consider you my role model!! I hope the next three years beings you many more wonderful things! All the best –Beth
Happy Blogiverary. I can’t remember how long I’ve been readin, probably about a year. I enjoy it, keep up the great work.
Congratulations on three years! Your blog was the first book blog I ever discovered, back in the summer of 2009, and was a big inspiration when it came to my decision to start my own blog, so thank you! You have a lot to be proud of–your blog is phenomenal.
Wow three years! How exciting! I have been blogging since June of 2009 and I believe I discovered you around the fall of 2009. I enjoy reading your posts!
Happy blogiversary! Having just past 2 years myself, 3 seems like an incredibly long time… congratulations!
I’ve been reading since… shoot, I don’t know. Sometime not that long after I started my own blog, so… maybe early spring 2008?
Happy Blogiversary to you!!!
Congrats on your blogiversary/birthday! I love looking back at what I have done over the past year, and to see how I have changed or grown.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to many more wondeful posts form you in the future.
I think I’ve been reading your blog for a little over 6 months. I discoverd you from someone else’s blog.
Thank you for the contest
Happy Blogiversary! I’ve been reading for about a month. I found your blog through one of the other book blogs I read. Thanks for your great reviews!
Although I am 70 years old, I’ve only had a computer for just under 3 years. Soon after becoming semi-competent using this wonderful machine, I discovered reading blogs and forums. Besides reading books, following blogs such as yours, is a favorite activity. Congratulations on your anniversary.
Congrats on 3 years! I think I only found you a couple of months ago, but have enjoyed reading your posts.
Well, not even thirty seconds. But I like it already.
Congrats! I’ve been reading for about 8 months and love your reviews!
Congrats! I have been reading your blog for about 2 years. Maybe a little less.
Congratulations on your anniversary!
I’ve been reading your blog for more than a year now and enjoy it very much!
Gosh, I can’t remember. I read you every day and it’s hard to remember when you weren’t on my ‘to read’ list. I think two years at this point. Congrats on year number 3!
Congratulations on 3 years! I posted my 100th post today. I started reading your blog right around the time I started mine!
Happy Blogiversary!
I have been following you and reading your blog for 6 – 7 months!
delilah0180(at)yahoo(dot)com
Happy Blogiversary!
I’ve been reading your blog for about a month now. Yeah, I’m new to the game, but I love your blog!
michellemsherman(at)gmail(dot)com
Hello dear LiterateHouseWife, and congratulations on your very special anniversary!
I believe I have started reading your blog about a month ago – I cannot trace back the day I subscribed to the RSS feed.
I want to share my own 2009 recap, with 62 books. Nothing compared to you, but my best record so far. And I have already read 6 books this January!
here is my blogpost on that:
at http://rocksandwords.blogspot.com/2010/01/about-62-books-i-read-in-2009.html
About the 62 books I read in 2009
My friend Trisha wrote a fantastic blog post on the books she read in 2009. See for yourself: http://lookinginalltherightplaces.blogspot.com/2010/01/years-worth-of-reading-2009.html?spref=fb
So it gave me the idea to try and do something similar: here it is, with some different categories sometime.
Books read in 2009: 62. This is an average of 5.16/month, my highest number of books read in a year since 2001.
Among these 62, 16 were Audiobooks: I try to paint my rocks (www.rocksbyemmanuelle.com) every morning, and I discovered that I could listen to books at the same time! It took me a while to dare the plunge, as I first could not consider an Audiobook as a real book, shame on me again, but my library (http://www.elmhurstpubliclibrary.org/) has an amazing collection of audiobooks and MP3. I have never been disappointed: the readers are excellent, and I even listened to several books read by the author himself/herself.
I also listen to audiobooks when I do my ironing!
Books started and abandoned: I don’t keep track of those usually, and actually there are very few – still under St Benedict’s injunction to read a book from A to Z, so when I start, I always have a hard time to stop, unless it’s a real bore, or totally against my deep principles, or I just don’t get it, or so very poorly written that I really think I’m losing my time, and as I would need at least 3 lives to read all I want to read, better stick to the best!
But I do remember I had to stop Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle, to my total shame, because I really wanted to discover the baroque style. It was a bit too confusing for me.
As for Joyce Carol Oates, I tried several books of hers, as she was invited by Elmhurst Public Library for the Elmhurst Read Program, but I just couldn’t go further than a few pages – I did read We Were the Mulvaneys in 2008.
Fiction/Non-Fiction ratio: 39/23
I’m surprised, I thought I had read many more Fiction books than Non-Fiction.
Male/Female authors ratio: 26/18
Books by the same author:20! wow! When I love a writer I keep going back to him/her
Ellis Peters: the last 7 books of the Brother Cadfael series – and I was so disappointed when I reached the last one and there was no more to come!
David Sedaris: 5. The funniest writer, even better if you are French/American. This year I read/listened to When You are Engulfed in Flames, Naked, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Live at Carnegie Hall, Holidays on Ice
Archimandrite Vasileios: 5, that I had to review for a monastic spirituality periodical to which I regularly have to send reviews. These were 5 short books on spiritual matters related to monastic life written by a very famous Elder of Mount Athos
Sigrid Undset: 3, the 3 books constituting Kristin Lavransdatter.
Re-Reads: 3, all books I had read in French only, a looooooooooooong time ago, and that I listened to this time in English:
Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick – as you see, I try to go back to the big classics I read in French a long time ago – these audiobooks were AWESOME
Oldest: I had to research to fill this one in!: Wuthering Heights (1847)
Newest: The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver, probably my favorite female writer. Just published a few months ago (2009).
Best title: Born on a Blue Day, by Daniel Tammet. The subtitle tells you about the book: “Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant”. VERY interesting
In translation: 9
5 from the Greek, by Archimandrite Vasileios
3 from the Norwegian, by Sigrid Undset
1 from the French: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie – yes, he DOES write in French
Set in other countries: 20
6 in Greece
5 in Africa (Darfur, Egypt, and others)
4 in GB
3 in Norway
1 in Romania: B. Cooke, Royal Monastic: Princess Ileana of Romania. This is the life of the last princess of Romania who founded monasteries, became a nun and founded Transfiguration Monastery, a famous Orthodox monastery in Elwood City, PA
1 in Burma: a fascinating book by Emma Larkin, Finding George Orwell in Burma
1 in India and US: The Namesake, by Lahiri
1 in China: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
1 in Mexico: Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen, by Christopher McDougall
1 in Ireland, a very thorough study on the legend of Saint Brendan
1 only in France – I am not chauvinistic! This was Rachi’s Daughters – Book 1: Joheved, by Maggie Anton – set in the Middle Ages
Set in the Middle-Ages: 13 – yes this is my favorite period
Favorite: this is soooo difficult to choose!
my favorite audiobook: The Positronic Man, by Asimov
my favorite Fiction book: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
my favorite Non Fiction books: here I just can’t choose. By alphabetical order:
– Finding George Orwell in Burma by Emma Larkin
– Life List: a woman’s quest for the world’s most amazing birds, by Olivia Gentile – that’s the biography of bird enthusiast Phoebe Snetsinger
– Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II by Robert Kurson. About John Chatterton and Rich Kohler, two deep-sea wreck divers who in 1991 dove to a mysterious wreck lying at the perilous depth of 230 feet, off the coast of New Jersey, and found out it was a German U-boat. They spend years to identify what U-boat in was. The author will come in 2010 to Elmhurst, for the program Elmhurst reads
Shortest: Grendel, by John Gardner
Funniest: Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
Best spiritual reading: B. Cooke, Royal Monastic: Princess Ileana of Romania
And finally:
books from my personal bookshelf: 1
books received for review: 9
books from Elmhurst Public Library: 52! Am I supporting enough my library?
I hope you enjoyed this post and I encourage you to do the same: it’s fun and you may find some surprises.
I started listing the books I read every year many years ago, but at some important transition in my life, I stupidly got rid of the list!!
I restarted listing my reads in March 2001, when I arrived in the US. Between March 2001-2009, I read: 433 books, which is an average of 48.1/year, but actually 4.08/month (as I started counting only starting in March 2001).
Looking forward to reading many more of your reviews and get many good ideas of books to read from them.
Emma
Happy Blogiversary! I’ve been reading your blog now for the past year and a half, and I love stopping by to read your posts!
Happy 3 Anniversary! Hope you have many more years of blogging ahead and you ENJOY doing it too!
I think I started reading your blog in 2008.. then I went on a break for 6 months and then i was back in 2009.. yah I think so.. but can’t be sure though
Congratulations! That is a fantastic achievement! I have been following your blog for just under a year and have enjoyed reading it. I look forward to following your blog for many years to come!
Congratulations Jennifer!!!! 3 years of awesome blogging – you have been an inspiration for a lot of us, myself included! You were one of the first blogs I started following – I think that was about almost 2 years ago – WOW!
Raising my glass to many more years of success!
Happy Blogiversary (a few days late)!
WOW! Congratulations on your 3 year Blogiversary! I’ve been reading your blog since I started blogging in Sept 2007. Yours was one of the first blogs I subscribed to, and you were one of my earliest readers too! You’ve done an impressive job with your blog and I’ll always be a big fan!
Woo Hoo! Here’s to many more happy blogging years!
Congratulations on three years!!! I’d loveto win – who wouldn’t? I think I’ve been reading your blog about 9 months?
Jennifer, my blogiversary is this month also, although I’ve been doing it for two years and didn’t really start focusing on books until early last year. That was about the same time I discovered your blog, too. I really enjoy it, and also being a member of your bookmark it club. Congratulations on your 3-year blogiversary!
I honestly don’t know how long I’ve been reading…so I checked and your first comment was on my blog July 2008 so that’s probably how I found you!
Congrats on your blogoversary!
Congratulations!
I’ve been checking in on your blog for almost two years now…when I think back, I’m pretty sure I found you thru a link at Becky’s Book Reviews or maybe Maw Books..I kind of stumbled on a bunch of good ones at once! Enjoy the celebration!
I’ve been reading your blog around four months and I just keep coming back for more.
wow! happy blogoversary! i’ve been reading since last march (when is started my book blog) and enjoy it here. cheers to 3 more years!
About six months~and enjoying it
Happy Birthday…congrats on 3 years! I have to say I am a new reader to your blog..just in the last few months. Your blog name caught my attention as I am a former librarian turned Stay at Home Mom in this last year. Literate Housewife indeed! Love it!
Congratulations on three years! I just passed that milestone myself in October.
I have no idea how long I’ve been reading/lurking. More than a year, less than three?
Hey! I just happened upon “A Literate Housewife” a couple of weeks ago when I was determinedly searching for an order to read Pilippa Gregory’s Tudor series. I was so excited about the list I found on your blog I spent hours reading, exploring, and squealing with pleasure at the jewel I had found! I instantly forwarded the link to my sister-who in turn spent hours perusing as well. At my book club last night, we pulled up your site to share with all our book-devouring friends! We are ecstatic to have yet another amazing place to find suggestions for our book club reads each month!
Thank you for your thoughts!
Congrats! I have been reading your blog for 6 months!
Wow, 3 years! Congratulations! I need to go back and check the date I started my blog, my 2 year anniversary has to be coming up any day now. I know I missed it last year. I’ve been reading your blog for just over two years, since shortly before I started mine (and, you know, you were the inspiration for that!).
Happy blogiversary! I have just arrived via another blog!
Wow! You give new meaning to the term “voracious reader!” Just got a link to your blog via you know via via.
Good luck to you in your 4th year!
Three years is a long time. Congrats! I don’t need to be entered in the giveaway, and I cannot even begin to pinpoint when I began reading your blog…must be more than a year now!
Wow, I just realized I haven’t read your blog in about a week! I almost missed your blogiversary! Congrats!
I have been reading your blog for about a year now, maybe a little longer.
Great prizes!!!
[...] my 3rd blogiversary on the 17th. Thank you so much to everyone’s well wishes. The giveaway, including a 1g iPod Shuffle and books is still [...]
Three years! Congrats! I’m relatively new to the book blogging community, and I hope that my blog is still going strong in 2 1/2 years.
I’m not exactly sure when I discovered your blog– maybe 2 months ago? I love the title you chose– I’m a housewife as well.
Thanks for the contest, and for the chance to enter!
Laura Hartness
The Calico Critic
Happy blogiversary! I’ve been enjoying your blog since… whenever The Other Boleyn Girl movie came out, because I remember finding your site and commenting on the differences between the movie and the book, which still remains one of my favorites to this day (the book, I mean). Since then, I’ve been checking back every few days for a while, and your reviews have influenced my birthday and Christmas wish lists for at least two years now.
Congrats on your third year, and here’s to hoping for more than three more!
P.S. I really really want to hear what you thought of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire because I read those just before Christmas this year and they have officially become my favorite series. You know how those crazy teenagers scream about RPattz or Taylor Lautner? Well, I’m one of those rare teenagers who scream for Peeta Mellark (not Gale. Maybe for Katniss, but not for me. I prefer charming, sweet, strong guys who bake for me).
Congratulations on your anniversary. I am also fairly new to this book blogging community and have been reading your blog for about six months only. I like the reviews and I also like that its a mixed genre o books offered. Thank you for your generous gifts in celebration of your anniversary. Its much appreciated.
Hi there! I’m new around here – have been reading for about a week, but I’m liking what I see!
Just stopping by to wish you a Happy Blogiversary! I don’t need to be entered to win
I’ve been reading you since last year (but I forget how many months already).
Happy Blogiversary!! I must have been reading your blog for at least two years now. I started reading it when I was living in Okinawa and now we are fellow Virginians. I love the look, “feel” and posts that you have created and look forward to many more years with The Literate Housewife.
planetbooksworldwide@gmail.com
Happy Blogiversary! I have been reading your blog for almost a year now. This is a great giveaway. Please enter me. Thanks!
ayancey(at)dishmail(dot)net