This month marks ten years since I started Reading in Bed, with the less-than-SMART goal of reading the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Assigning no numerical goal or timeline, it was neither Specific nor Timely, but the blog was conceived as a way to Measure my progress. How Achievable or Realistic it was I will leave for you to judge.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what a “book blog” was. I didn’t know what an ARC was. I didn’t know about tags, or Top Ten Tuesday, or what “YA” meant. I was a reader without a community or a culture.

Forays into Bookstagram, Booktube, podcasting, and formal book reviewing were fun, but not my thing. I kept coming back to the blog. And so did some of you. Thank you so much. I’m not a stats person, but it’s nice to know someone’s reading.

If you’re new here, or just want to accompany me down memory lane, here’s a Reading in Bed starter pack, with your favs and mine.

Reading in Bed’s greatest hits

• Stoner by John Williams (review): Probably students looking to plagarize their essays
• Booktube: I have seen the future, and it has great hair: I wasn’t the only one curious about Booktube in 2014
• The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice (review): Probably people looking to illegally download this erotic classic
• The Fault in Our Stars: Use Your (Literary) Allusion (review): Definitely students looking to plagarize their essays
• What’s the Deal with Infinite Jest?: the eternal question

My favourite posts

• On Manifestos: I was angry in this one!
• Franzen Blaming: If you’re coming for JFranz, you better have receipts
• Michael Ondaatje Wins Macewan Book of the Year, Remains Sexy While Doing So: self-explanatory?
• Jonathan Frazen and Jennifer Weiner: The Shocking Truth Behind Their Bitter Feud: the closest I’ve come to a conspiracy theory
• Book-loving hedonists and alienated intellectuals: why readers need to settle down about reading: This still pretty much describes my perspective on literary and “bookish” culture
• Good Morning, Shopaholic: or, in defence of Sophie Kinsella
• War and Peace: Did you Get the Memo? or, Office Space as modern W&P adaptation
• Reading Dostoyevsky to own the libs: thought I better include something recent, and this was… something

No life lessons on this anniversary, but my thoughts from five years ago still stand.