Throwback Thursday: My First Year Revisited

In trying to come up with some new ideas for the blog, I thought it might be fun to go back to 2008, my first year of blogging, to see what I was reading back then. Though I started my blog in January of that year, it wasn't until April that I really started focusing primarily on books. It was the best path I've ever taken. So lets take a look back and see what was on my nightstand in April of 2008.

Reading these old reviews now shows me how my writing in these posts has changed over time. I was so green back then! But hey, you have to be able to laugh at yourself sometimes, right?! I posted three book reviews that month and judging by my choices, (these were not review copies), it is clear that I had eclectic taste from the start.  The three reviews were from three different genres. Two were novels, one non-fiction. One of the novels was Southern Chick-Lit, the other was darker fiction, which I still love reading. Give me dark and haunting any day and I'm happy!

I'm not at all surprised that one of my first reviews was from Mary Kay Andrews, a writer I adore! DEEP DISH, a new book of hers at the time, had just come out and I gobbled it up immediately.  Her breezy prose and wit along with the quirky, southern charm of her characters was what drew me to her from her first book, SAVANNAH BLUES.  It was fun going back and reading that review again.

THE LOVELY BONES by Alice Sebold was a difficult one to get through, but that's not to say I didn't love the book. The subject matter was disturbing but I do enjoy going to that darker side as well.  A few years after reading this book, I did watch the movie and I must say, I thought it was fantastic. Very true to the book and the cast was awesome! Rarely do I ever enjoy the movie as well as the book, but this was the exception for me.

The non-fiction book I reviewed that month contained a subject matter that, at that time, had not made it into main-stream, but now dominates our news media outlets daily. The book is INFIDEL by Ayaan Kirsi Ali. After seeing her in an interview on CNN, I was completely impressed by what she had been through, both as a Muslim child growing up in Somalia and as an adult living in refugee camps and later as a member of Dutch Parliament, living with the threat of being murdered because of her outspoken views against the Muslim religion. It was a fascinating read and one I will never forget.

Do you ever go back to see where you were in years past and what types of books had your attention back then? Once each month I'll be revisiting posts from my first year of blogging and sharing them with you. I hope you'll enjoy my trip down memory lane as much as I think I will. Thanks for stopping by!