I “borrowed” this first line meme from Kristen at BookNAround – it suggests that taking the first line of the first post of each month of the year will make an interesting portrait of your blogging year. I guess it depends on how you define “interesting,” but let me know if you can spot a theme here. I don’t see one, other than the fact that several of my “firsts” were Weekend Assignments. However, you may notice that I was providing disclosure statements about my review books before all that FTC business got started…

January: I’m not a stickler for reading the book before I see the movie adaptation. (At the movies: “Marley & Me”)

February: I’m substitute-teaching “guest-professoring” another Weekend Assignment for Karen. (Weekend Assignment #253: Roughing It)

March: Thanks to Anna Jarzab of Authors on the Web for providing an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of this book! (Book Talk: “True Colors,” by Kristin Hannah)

April: I’m the guest professor for the Weekend Assignment again this week, and when I gave Karen this topic suggestion, I already knew what my answer would be. (Wednesday’s Weekend Assignment: Best. Job. Ever.)

May: I try to mix nonfiction into my reading pretty regularly; in fact, I’m currently reading my third consecutive nonfiction book. (TBIF: Thank blog it’s Friday! 5/1/09)

June: I had heard of the annual Book Expo America conference and trade show before this year, but to my knowledge it was a book-industry thing not open to civilians. (It was not to BEA…but it was on Twitter!)

July: I already did the extra credit – that was yesterday’s post. (Weekend Assignment #273: Meaningful music(ians))

August: I know…you’re thinking, “Hasn’t she spent a whole week now talking about where she’s been?” (Where I’ve been, and where my books came from)

September: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the publisher via Trish at TLC Book Tours. (Book talk: “The Weight of Silence,” by Heather Gudenkauf)

October: Karen once worked for a travel agency, and travel is on her mind for this Weekend Assignment. (So far to go: a travel-themed Weekend Assignment (#286))

November: The Salon is on the short side this week – I think I’ve been in Readathon Recovery mode for most of it! (Sunday Salon 11/1 – “Did you change your clocks?” edition)

December: Welcome to a “less” edition of Ten Items or Less, bringing you tidbits and thoughts that don’t warrant a blog post of their own. (Tuesday’s special: Ten Items or Less – by the end of December, this would morph into the recurring feature Tuesday Tangents)

The only real “theme” I’ve been aware of in my blogging this year is that my content is becoming more focused on books and reading. Considering that I started blogging in the first place so that I could have a record of the books I read, I really can’t complain about that…and yet I’m going to, just a little bit. Despite the original inspiration, I’ve never really wanted this to be a single-topic blog.

While I feel very much at home in the book-blogging community, and with reading-related discussions – enough to self-identify as a “book blogger,” should anyone ask – there have always been, and will continue to be, posts here that have little or nothing to do with books. I’m still contributing to the LA Moms Blog and cross-posting content between this blog and that one, but the fact is that I have varied interests…and I only want to have one blog of my own, so it’s going to be a mixed-up place.

I published 318 posts here this year, counting this one. In September 2009, I hit the 1000-post milestone on this blog, and marked it with a roundup of my 10 most-popular (based on hits/visits) and 10 best-liked (personal favorite) posts from the preceding two and a half years. In that vein, here are 2009’s Top 5 most-visited posts (posted IN 2009, and NOT including giveaways), only one of which is book-related:

Getting back to the topic of “community” for a moment: I think it’s another theme. It’s one of the aspects of blogging that matters most to me, and it crosses between the virtual world and “real life.” It’s a big part of why I do my weekly link round-ups – to pass along interesting things to my readers, and to let the original writers know it made an impression by giving them some “link love.” For the last several months, I’ve been doing two round-ups most week – one drawn just from the book blogs I keep up with, and one from the variety of other blogs I read (I subscribe to a LOT of blogs). Community is one reason I’ve begun participating in reading challenges, and it’s the main reason I helped out with Weekly Geeks and Book Blogger Appreciation Week this year (and intend to be involved with both of them next year as well). Community is why I wanted to meet up with other Southern California book bloggers at the LA Times Festival of Books last April – and why I want to do that again in the spring of 2010. Community was one of my primary motives for going to the BlogHer’09 conference last July, and why I’ll be attending BlogHer’10 this coming August in New York City (where I hope book bloggers will be a bigger presence than we were last year – did you think I’d forgotten about that?)

Thanks for being part of my community this year, and for welcoming me as part of yours! Before we go off into the New Year, tell me about one of your highlights of 2009.