Re-Enchanted 2019

On By reenchantmentoftheworldIn miscellaneous, Ola, Piotrek, Two-shot

Another year is coming to an end, fifth year of our blogging adventure – hard to believe! Nice pretext for some stats, recapitulations, general musings. Something that can be written during the short brakes in cleaning and baking, and family reunions πŸ˜‰

Piotrek: It’s been a very interesting year, both for the Re-E, and in my reading life. My TV/movie watching patterns have changed, perhaps because now I have to negotiate such things… I even have a Christmas Tree at home, for the first time since I moved out of my parents’…

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I even like it πŸ™‚

Ola: It’s also pretty interesting overseas, with summer in full swing. Christmas on the beach is quite unusual, but very pleasant, and a deal more sporty than in wintry cold of Mitteleuropa πŸ˜‰ The Christmas tree this year is rather small, but pohutukawas are blooming, and the waves are good!

Whatipu
Whatipu beach

Now, some stats that WordPress gives us for the year (as of 12/28).Β  And we have to say, for our humble blog it’s been a very good year! So far, we had 8082 views from 3775 visitors, and published 47 posts (including this one). Against 5834 views and 2387 visitors from 2018, it’s a marked improvement πŸ™‚ We did not manage to post, on average, once a week, like then, but I’d say it’s still quite a nice output. We’re especially proud of August, the first month ever with over a thousand views. Yay us!!

Number of likes (974) and comments (whooping 1343!) also broke all previous records. Three most discussed posts were Bookish Heavenly Virtues (53 comments), Soldiers Live (52 comments) and Bookish Deadly Sins (50 comments), with many more not far behind. We are very proud of the first one, as it’s the very first tag of our own design πŸ™‚

Most views were from the US, our native Poland, and the UK, with Canada and New Zealand close behind. Thank you all!

We’ve also been gathering more followers, and are now hovering around the 200 mark.

What were the most popular posts? Ola’s The Dream Master’s review, by far, despite being quite old – online since September 2016. Its popularity is mostly owed to Google, as it pops up on the first page of search results, but you, our fellow bloggers, might want to check this one out, and leave a comment, because it’s definitely the final word on that book, nobody dared challenge Ola’s conclusions so far πŸ˜‰

Piotrek’s review of Naomi Novik’s In His Majesty’s Service is still in the top three, despite being an even older, 2015 posting. Then, the first text from 2019, our inaugrational Nostalgia post, Robin of Sherwood. A rather harsh view on this TV classic, but apparently quite a popular one πŸ™‚ All in all, the Nostalgia series we started this year was received quite warmly, and we managed to unearth a good few 80’s and 90’s classics, from Willow and Batman: TAS to old Star Wars and Star Trek, to the celebration of the late Sir Terry Pratchett’s genius. We’ll try to bring in a few more gems next year :).

We celebrated the Tove Trove event organized by Paula with a Moomins post , which turned out to be a sleeper hit with over a 100 visits – as was our contribution to Robertson Davies Reading Week organized by Lory, mainly the review of Fifth Business.

The most liked posts were this year’s reviews of Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons and, ironically enough, Ola’s only 2019 DNF, Charles A. Fletcher’s A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World.

As for LinkedIn visitors, our posts this year received anywhere from 20 (the most recent entries) to 180 views (the older ones, from about half a year ago – previous stats are sadly unavailable), but the most popular were the non-bookish ones, which confirms earlier trends: our review for Avengers: Endgame and the finale of the TV series Game of Thrones each got nearly 180 views.

All in all, there’s a marked improvement year to year, despite us having less time to devote to the endeavour, and it makes us very happy!

As for the analysis of our personal reading adventures this year, let’s just say that another post is coming soon πŸ˜‰

And finally, thank you all for your cherished company, wonderful discussions and plenty of inspirations! We’re much richer for it, even if our pockets are not πŸ˜€

PohutukawaCornwallis
Pohutukawa trees

43 thoughts on “Re-Enchanted 2019”

  3. Those are some great numbers and the upward tick of most stats is wonderful to see πŸ˜€

    I’ll be looking forward to your reading numbers and I hope ’20 is a good year for both your blog and books!

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    2. Thank you! πŸ˜€
      The reading numbers will be posted in the early days of 2020 as I’m currently on vacation with a very patchy connection πŸ˜‰
      Happy New Year to you too, and all the best in your personal and professional life!

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  4. A splendid year in books. Well done Ola and Piotrek. Also, thank you so much for the Tove Trove mention (I’m hoping to get this moving next year) – I’m delighted your Moomin post was such a hit! πŸ˜ƒ

    I would like to wish you both a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2020. See you in the New Year (and New Decade)! πŸ₯‚πŸ“šπŸ₯³

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    2. Thank you Paula, the pleasure was all ours 😊 Tove definitely deserves greater recognition and we’re happy we could be a part of this!

      Wishing you and your partner all the best in 2020! I hope you’ll leave all health problems behind you for good and you’ll enter the new decade with new energy! πŸΎπŸŽ‰

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    1. piotrek

      Thanks πŸ™‚ Ola will have to answer the LinkedIn question in detail, she links our posts there. Whoever sees them, WordPress does not catch that, as they’re seen within LinkedIn, if I understand the things correctly.

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    2. As Piotrek mentioned, you can post content on LinkedIn – I just paste the link to the posts, and LinkedIn does the rest πŸ˜‰ The stats between WP and LinkedIn don’t match, so I’m guessing it does something to open the post within LinkedIn.

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    2. Thank you! The pleasure is mutual, we’re very pleased to have found your blog as well – so many great recommendations my TBR is bursting at the seams! πŸ˜‰
      Happy New Year to you too, Mogsy!

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    2. Thanks, Zezee! 😊

      My tree is much smaller and has already been stripped of decorations as we started our vacation soon after the holidays, but I must admit, the tree is almost the only thing that reminds me of Christmas in the NZ summer weather πŸ˜‰ – the Christmas songs definitely sound weird when it’s 25 or 30 degrees Celsius outside!

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  8. Congratulations on these wonderful achievements. It was a truly fantastic year and I’m glad to have followed you guys in your praise and hate across all kinds of medium. I do hope you’re both enjoying your holiday as much as you can and are ready for the New Year! Got to admit that my reading has been shaped by your input throughout the year as well, so thank you for being a part of my life through this virtual world! πŸ˜€

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    1. piotrek

      Thanks! And thank you for all the inspiring posts on your blog, it’s one of the few I try to read regularly, even as the time I can dedicate to this pleasant task shrinks…

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    2. Thanks, Lashaan! 😊
      Hate is such a big word 😜 I prefer scorn myself 🀣
      You have influenced my reading choices this year as well, and I value our discussions across the globe, so a big thank you is definitely in order! πŸ˜€

      I’m looking forward to your reviews in the New Year!

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  10. buriedinprint

    Those Naomi Novik books are such fun, aren’t they? No wonder that post is still getting hits, all these years later (my posts on Alice Munro’s short stories are always in my top searches – also oldies but goodies). I’ll be reading for Tove Trove this year, too…I’ve just received my library hold…wheee!

    Enjoy your reading this year – and in the years ahead!

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. piotrek

      Thanks – and same wishes to you πŸ™‚

      I’m on the fence with Novi, I have to admit… great idea, engaging characters, but some oversimplifications that did not agree with me… but it was definitely worth reading πŸ™‚ Munro – I want to finally read this year, I bought an anthology when she got the Nobel Prize, and never got to it…

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      1. buriedinprint

        I’m decidedly on the other side of the fence then, as I fell hard for the characters in the first book, shortly after publication, and that carried me through. But I can see your point about the style of storytelling. The Munro anthologies are great and, if you enjoy her themes and the way she plays with structure, you can also chase down individual collections later on. I’ve still got several Nobel winners on my “someday” list too. So hard to fit in all the good stuff!

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  12. Happy New Year, Ola and Piotrek, and congratulations on your 2019 blogging words. It’s thrown up some interesting links, I look forward to tracking back through some of your previous posts, too. πŸ™‚

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  13. A bit late to the party here… but great post and i am happy you guys grew in the previous year. I love reading(when i get a chance) the stuff you come up with and that you, like Milou and I seem like such a cool couple to hang out with. Hope 2020 will be evenbeter

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    1. Thank you, Dave! 😊 Always great to see you here, and I’m glad you can find something interesting on our blog πŸ˜€
      Unlike you and Milou, we’re just a blogging couple of friends, but we do enjoy our blogging adventures together and we’re pretty happy other bloggers do, too!

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        1. No worries! It happens all the time, especially because my husband’s name is also Piotr and it can get confusing even for people who know all of us personally πŸ˜„
          On the other hand, I’ve been mistaken for a guy more times than I can count – mostly due to my Sam Vimes avatar and certain book choices πŸ˜…

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