Exploring My Bookshelves: December (and Announcing Some Changes to Xingsings)

First off, I wanted to wish you all a very merry and safe Christmas! And for those of you that don’t really celebrate the holiday (like myself), happy Friday! (Oh and this is a scheduled post, even though I don’t celebrate Xmas we still close the family business; I’m visiting my birth town, Atlanta, today. 😀 )

Anyway, so I’m guessing when you read “Announcing Some Changes to Xingsings” you thought I was going to go self hosted (or something along the lines of that) right? Haha, sorry for the false alarm, but actually it’s some news regarding future memes, tags, and awards.

After giving it much thought, I think I’m going to become tag and award free starting from the beginning of 2016. I know several people have different interpretations of what this means. For me and how this will be applied to Xingsings is that I’ll still continue to complete the tags and awards that are in the draft queue. But I will no longer be doing tag and award posts that I’m tagged/nominated in 2016 and onwards. And for the remaining tags and awards I still plan to do, I will continue to tag my usual blogging buddies and five bloggers I want to get to know each time. And it’s up to them if they want to do them. However, if you’re tagged/nominated by me but have also become tag/award free please let me know so I don’t unintentionally spam you.

So does this mean you can still tag/nominate Xingsings for a tag/award? Sure! I mean I’m not going to go on a comment rage and demand you to unlink my blog or anything like that. It’s just likely I won’t be doing that tag/award in the future. So why am I okay with continued being tagged/nominated? Honestly, I recommend you guys to continue to link me (via my about page so pingbacks can work) so that I can see your posts. …because, well, you may have noticed… I don’t check my reader all that often. I miss a lot of the blogosphere’s posts. And though I’m cutting back on these types of posts on my blog, I still really enjoy reading these tag/award posts by others. And I’m going to be honest, tagging/nominating me also helps other readers/bloggers find their way to Xingsings. But I’m not going to feel left out or hold a grudge against you if you decide to leave me out. You make the call!

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I will no longer be doing Exploring My Bookshelves*. Mainly because most of you have already seen my shelves, and I’ve started to notice that a lot of the time I can’t find books to complete the featured challenges/topics. Plus, my schedule for the next coming semesters will be bit too hectic for me to take photos with good lighting (I’ll be home at weird hours of the day/night).

And how did I come to decision? Though, tags and awards (in fact, Exploring My Bookshelves was my favorite meme) are all fun most of them are quite repetitive, asking the usual questions like what my favorite book is (quite unfair!), who my fictional crush is, and other questions I’m sure you all could answer for me by now. Basically I feel like most tags/awards only have a couple questions in which I find are truly helping you guys to get to know me more while the majority only allows me to give you recycled answers.

Another reason why I want to cut back on tags, awards, and memes is because I want to try to go back to my word and produce more discussion posts. My first Summer Says post was back in July and my second was in October. The problem with creating these is for one, lack of inspiration, but two, due to scheduling. With my blog mostly comprised with memes, tags/awards, and book reviews it leaves me very little room to post much anything else (you see, I don’t like post daily… I rather have gaps between when I post things. And I have a complex with posting more than one post a day…).

So to sum everything up, this will be my last Exploring My Bookshelves post and I’m going to become award/tag free when 2016 starts (please read the above explanation what that means to me).

*Exploring My Bookshelves is a weekly bookish meme created by Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds and she cohosts it with Shannon at For the Love of Words. Even though it’s a Friday meme, it was adapted as a monthly one on here at Xingsings for the past year.

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Anyway, I’m going to go ahead and start this final (aww, this makes me feel so sad) Exploring My Bookshelves post by sharing how my bookshelves currently look:

See the shelf on the bottom left with the stickies? That’s my TBR for the remainder of December, January, and February. Pretty ambitious goals (for me), huh? 😉

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Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix | To Kill a Mockingbird | The 7 Professors of the Far North | My True Love Gave to Me

December 4, 2015: A Book That Mentions Final Exams

Well my first thought was The Report Card because I remember reading a ton of Andrew Clements’s books, which were all school themed, when I was in elementary school. But I don’t actually have that one on my shelf so I went with Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix because if I remember correctly, wizards and witches took their OWLs their fifth year. Funny thing about OWLs… our chemistry department at my university uses a sysetm also called OWLs for their homework. XD

December 11, 2015: A Pulitzer Prize Winner

I had a hard time with this one and was quite afraid I didn’t own any titles that won this precise award. I was going to give up and choose a random award winning book when I saw To Kill a Mockingbird, a classic I’m ashamed to admit I still haven’t read yet, on the Pulitzer Prize list!

December 18, 2015: A Winter Story

I actually read The 7 Professors of the Far North almost a decade ago and don’t remember much. But I do vaguely recall it was a story where the protagonist travels through blizzards and snow to solve the mysterious disappearance of these seven professors. So winter story: check!

December 25, 2015: A Christmas Story

I’ve been featuring this book quite  a lot lately, and decided to share it once again. My True Love Gave to Me has a diverse range of stories not exactly all centered around Christmas but other wintery holidays as well. I’m currently half way through and on Holly Black’s story. So far some stories were really cute and while others were meh. I’ll have a review for that one before the year’s end hopefully!

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So I hope you found my answers amusing or at least thought this post informative in regards to the changes that will soon set in place with Xingsings. Again, happy holidays, everyone! Until next time. (I’m hoping to squeeze in two more book reviews before the years end; might be a little too ambitious for me seeing as I haven’t finished both of those books, but we’ll see.) 🙂