Thursday, February 6, 2020

Wrap-Up: January 2020

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January Snapshots



1. Now we’re all traumatized for life. Sorry about that. My bad. January started with the ads on my blog’s mobile site breaking. They weren’t hard to fix, but when I did it, all of my blocked ads became unblocked. Oops. I have a lot of blocked ads. For a few days, the blog was flooded with a Pandora’s Box of horrors. I apologize if you came here in January and witnessed any of the following:

  • A topless woman with an irreversible and life threateningly deep wedgie.
  • A medieval torture device meant to straighten the spines of elderly cartoon characters.
  • A colorful foot fungus slideshow.
  • A mysterious substance in some guy’s ear.
  • Donald Trump.


They’ve been re-blocked. I’ve (hopefully) managed to wrangle all the ad demons and stuff them back into their pit. Let me know if you see any ads on the site that make you vomit. I’ll get rid of them.


Basically what happened, but everyone was naked and covered in fungus. Or spray tanner.





2. Excellent! A chance to unleash my stupid. I signed up for Pondathon Readathon at the end of January. It’s a very complicated ‘thon, but it’s creative and fun. You can still sign up, if you want. I mostly signed up because I got to make a pond-themed avatar. I made a warrior fish with a magic dagger. If you’re fishing at the pond, you don’t want to catch this one. She’ll cut you. She already has badges for surviving two quests. She does look delicious, though. 














Wayward Googlers




Here are a few amusing Google searches that led people to Read All The Things! last month. I’m sorry to the unfortunate souls who ended up here instead of finding what they were Googling for.


More and betterer Black Friday sales.” I hate to tell you this, but you’re either really early or really late for Black Friday. You’re Googling in January. Black Friday is in November. You’ll have to wait a long time for your “betterer” sales.  
“+strabnngths and weaknes.” Good luck with that.












Books I Read



I finished 5 books in January, and I didn't hate any of them! Educated and Nevermoor are brilliant. 

Remember those months where I read 12+ books? Those were nice, but I don’t know if they’ll ever happen again. Being an adult is exhausting.




















Best Books Of January


















Most-Viewed January Posts


















January Bestsellers



Here are the books that people bought on Amazon or Book Depository last month after seeing them on Read All The Things! (Don’t worry, the link-tracking robots only tell me which books people are buying, not who is buying them. That would be creepy.)

















All The Things!



Number of unread books on my TBR shelf = 56 books

I’m currently reading = No True Believers by Rabiah York Lumbard













What did you do in January?









33 comments:

  1. I worked like crazy in January--three straight weeks without a day off (I don't recommend it). But I did read five books in January (three of which I put my reviews up last night). Sorry about your blog being hacked by ads. I'm glad I didn't see any of them, don't know which one would be worse, probably the latter, but I see too much of his reality show already.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I’ve worked 2 weeks without a day off and felt like I was dying. I don’t think I could handle 3. Hopefully you get some time to rest this month!

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  2. Oh my goodness, what a month! I'm glad you got everything straightened around. I've got Nevermoor sitting on my bookshelf and can't wait to get to it. Glad you enjoyed the book :)

    Happy reading!
    Megan | Ginger Mom & Company

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    Replies
    1. Nevermoor is awesome! I’ve been recommending it to everybody lately.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  3. I’m basically traumatized by Trump daily so a few more ads wouldn’t even have registered. Five books in January sounds totally good to me. I think I managed 7 but that was only because of audio books. #AllHailAudioBooks Where the Crawdads Sing is still on my radar. I might need to get on the never ending library list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The library list for Crawdads is so long! I found a used copy and bought it because the list was too long.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  4. As always, your blog makes me laugh. Sorry for the ad dilemma! Nice that people made purchases through your site, though!!

    Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I was super surprised that people actually bought the books I recommended. I didn’t have high hopes for the bookselling thing.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  5. Oh my, those ads sound rather horrifying, every single one of them! I liked the Rainbow Fish, we used it for school when I was teaching. I have thought about reading Educated and I see it was one of your faves.

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    Replies
    1. Rainbow Fish was one of my favorites as a kid. I liked the shiny pictures.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  6. Wait, are you currently reading an ARC? I am pretty sure that is an unreleased book you are reading. Wow. I hope it's a good one. I saw that you read Rainbow Fish, and all I could think of was how I watched an episode, when I was in Ireland, and it was odd seeing Rainbow Fish speak Gaelic. And look at that! That's pretty awesome that people bought books after seeing them here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yep, I read an ARC. They’re hard to resist when they show up in my mailbox. It’s always weird to watch shows in other languages. I watched a lot of Simpsons’ episodes in Spanish. It was strange to hear the characters with different voices.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  7. That's great that you enjoyed all your January reads!

    I'm all about "betterer" sales, I hope I can find some soon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When Black Friday rolls around, I’ll definitely be Googling for “betterer” sales.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  8. Betterer sales are the bestest kind of sales dammit! ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. ugh sorry to hear you had all those blog troubles! I LOVED Educated so much! I hope to get to "Where The Crawdads Sing" soon! Glad you had such good reads!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Educated was intense and fascinating. I think it’ll probably be one of my favorite books of the year.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  10. Yikes! I've never heard of that happening with blogger before.

    I feel like I got my reading blogging mojo back last month so that's a huge relief after months of barely trudging through. lol

    Karen @ For What It's worth

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Congrats on getting your mojo back! I’ve had so many problems with the ads. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  11. Nevermoor is such a great series. Happy you loved it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes! I ordered the second book, but it keeps getting delayed. I want it now. :(

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  12. Looks like you had a great month there. Yeah being an adult is such a struggle for sure, which is why I make sure to read every day even if its just half an hour but most days I get blessed with a few hours I can delve into a book

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I also read every day. Sometimes I only make it through one chapter before I fall asleep though.

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  13. Your Pondathon character is too cute!And omg The Rainbow Fish! I remeber loving that book when I was a kid. I probably still have it packed away somewhere. I also really should read Educated. I have heard such great things about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pondathon is an awesome readathon. All the characters are adorable. Rainbow Fish was one of my childhood favorites too!

      Aj @ Read All The Things!

      Delete
  14. I use two adblockers so luckily I never had to witness those terrible sights! Having to do stuff in the house always seems to get in the way of doing fun stuff! It's never ending at the moment!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Those folktales sound really good.
    https://wordsandpeace.com/2020/01/31/2020-january-wrap-up/

    ReplyDelete
  16. I read sooo many books in January, but it's way more than I normally do because I was one of the judges for the YA Fiction round of the Cybils. I don't think I'll have as many read in February. I want to try and focus on writing some more, but we'll see. lol

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

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  17. Hahaha, the last blocked ad is brilliant :)

    I really want to read Educated and Nevermoor, I'm glad you enjoyed them!
    Sadly I wasn't a fan of Where the Crawdads Sing, I really wanted to enjoy it more.

    Have a wonderful week!

    ReplyDelete
  18. It sounds like you had a great reading start to the year (blogging wise, that ad malarkey sounds like a pain in the butt!).

    I enjoyed both Educated & Nevermoor when I read them, I also have Where the Crawdads Sing on my TBR, so great to hear you enjoyed all those titles.

    Happy reading in February!

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  19. You had a great bookish start to the year! 👍✨

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  20. You are the second person to say Nevermoor was excellent. I have a copy here and now am promising myself to read it. And thank you as always for the laughter--your sense of humor is brilliant.

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