Tag Archives: Pandemic Fatigue

My Most Popular Posts of 2021

A drawing of a bar chart whose bars move up and down but mostly up.

Let’s pretend these are my proper analytics.

Every December I make a list of my most popular posts of the year. This is something I first began doing in 2017 with a roundup of my 10 most popular posts.

In 2018, I decided to double that number in response to my blogging friend Tom Williams doing the same thing. I continued that tradition in 2019 and 2020 and am back again today with this year’s entry.

This year’s list won’t be as accurate as it was for previous years because the Google Analytics on my site isn’t collecting information anymore and I’ve missed out on some data while trying to figure out why it stopped working.

What can you do? Nothing in life works perfectly all of the time, and I’m grateful for the information I do have about visitors to this site in 2021. Hopefully, my 2022 analytic information will be complete.

The other unusual thing about this year was that I blogged less often during it. I used to write posts on Mondays about fitness, speculative fiction, meditation, and other topics. This wasn’t something I had a lot of emotional energy for this year due to grief and other aspects of the pandemic, so most of my posts were of more structured topics like book reviews or responses to blog hops like Top Ten Tuesday (TTT) or the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge (WWBC). (Those acronyms are included below when applicable).

We will see if this changes next year.

With all of that being said, here are some of my personal favourite posts in no particular order:

. Search Engine Questions from 2020 

This is often my most amusing post of the year! People search for the oddest and funniest stuff online.

Man struggling to open a jar of pickles. The man is not wearing a shirt.  What I Read in 2020 

A Photo Essay Update on Damaged Toronto Trees 

How I Changed My Mind About Weightlifting 

My Interview at Ginger Nuts of Horror

My Goals for 2021 (WWBC)

What I Include In My Content Warnings and Why

 

 

And here are my 10 most popular posts of 2021 according to the data that Google Analytics was able to collect:

A cellphone. Someone has searched for Google Analytics in it’s browser. 10. My Greatest Weakness (WWBC)

9. Places in Books I’d Love to Live (TTT)

8. Colourful Book Covers (TTT)

7. Books That Made Me Laugh Out Loud (TTT)

6. Books I Loved That Made Me Want More of Them (TTT)

5. LGBT+ Book Quotes (TTT)

4. Bookish Gifs (TTT)

3. Books With Mountains on Their Covers (TTT)

2. Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean (TTT)

1. Books About Fresh Starts (TTT

 

I love that fact that Books About Fresh Starts was my most popular post of 2021.  May 2022 be a better year for us all!

 

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Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween Picture Books

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Candies made to look like a pumpkin and a ghost. Happy Halloween to those of you who celebrate it! If you live in a country where it is a big deal, I hope you find some amazing Halloween candy for sale on November 1.

I will be on the lookout for a bag or two of it myself in the near future. Do you think I’ll be successful?

As I’ve mentioned here before, Halloween is my favourite holiday of the year! Normally, I’d be sharing something like free horror stories, or spooky urban legends from Toronto, or free ghost stories.

This darn pandemic has sharply reduced my interest in anything that’s more than about 1% scary, however, so this year I’m going to stick to the light and fluffy side of this holiday by sharing some cute Halloween-themed picture books instead.

Hopefully, my response to this prompt next year will be closer to my usual patterns.

Behind the Mask by Yangsook Choi Book cover. Image on cover shows an Asian child wearing a mask.

1. Behind the Mask by Yangsook Choi

 

Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara Book cover. image on cover is a drawing of several ghosts flying out and around a house. There is a young girl and a cat standing in front of the house smiling slightly.

2. Ghosts in the House! by Kazuno Kohara

 

You Are My Pumpkin by Joyce Wan Book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a smiling pumpkin.

3. You Are My Pumpkin by Joyce Wan

 

The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman Book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a child drawing on a wall.

4. The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman

 

 

Halloween by Salina Yoon Book cover. Image on cover shows a pumpkin with the word Halloween carved as its mouth.

5. Halloween by Salina Yoon

 

Be Brave, Baby Rabbit by Lucy Bate book cover. Image on cover shows a drawing of two rabbits wearing costumes and going trick or treating.

6. Be Brave, Baby Rabbit by Lucy Bate

 

Mouse and Mole: A Perfect Halloween by Wong Herbert Yee Book cover. Image on cover shows forest mice dressed as ghosts and other spooky creatures going trick or treating in the woods.

7. Mouse and Mole: A Perfect Halloween by Wong Herbert Yee

 

Candy Corn! by Bea Sloboder Book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a bag filled with candy corn.

8. Candy Corn! by Bea Sloboder

 

Celie and the Harvest Fiddler by Valerie Flournoy Book cover. Image on cover is a drawing of a girl dancing in a field near a fence. A drawing of a man playing the fiddle is superimposed on top of her.

9. Celie and the Harvest Fiddler by Valerie Flournoy

 

Halloween ABC by Jannie Ho book cover. Image on cover shows various Halloween monsters sharing a bag of candy.

10. Halloween ABC by Jannie Ho

 

 

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Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Scariest Books I’ve Ever Read

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

Drawing of man wearing a business suit and lookign scared

The least scary horror image I could find.

I read a lot of horror before the Covid-19 pandemic began, but that changed as the reality of it sunk in.   Maybe someday I’ll be able to dive back into this genre again?

In the meantime, here are some of the scariest tales I’ve read and my (non-spoiler-y) reasons why I found them so frightening.

Cujo by Stephen King

Why It’s Scary: Rabies is a horribly real disease, and just about everything in this book could actually happen in real life. I was bitten without provocation by a (non-rabid) dog many years ago, so there’s also the added horror of knowing how unpredictable some animals can be.

 

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

Why It’s Scary: The link above will direct you to a free pdf of this tale. It started off so gently that I had no idea what was coming, but the ending made me shudder. I actively look for the good in everyone and assume the best of their intentions, but some can be persuaded to do terrible things under certain circumstances.

 

Annihilation (Southern Reach, #1) by Jeff VanderMeer

Why It’s Scary: These characters entered area X knowing that communication with the outside world would be severed and that the rules of physics and biology in that area were wildly unpredictable at best. I would be terrified to explore a place like that, but it did make for a fantastic book and film.

 

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Why It’s Scary: Not only is everything in this book entirely possible, similar things have happened to other school/mass shooters before. There’s something about realistic stories that makes them a thousand times more frightening.

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