Year It Was, What a Beer It Was, It Was

So I recently posted my annual update of my previous year in beer. I use the Untappd app to track and rate the beers that I have in a year. I have been using Untappd since early April in 2013 and have checked in a total of 3,479 unique beers since then.

When explaining Untappd to my friends, I usually describe it like Goodreads for beer.

You can read the FULL post on my Spirits Untapped blog, but here are a few interesting highlights that I have pulled out.

Unique Beer Check-ins: 829
Unique Countries: 7
Unique Venues: 118
Unique Brewery Beers: 407
Top Style: IPA
Top Venues Included: The Winking Judge (no surprise there, our favourite haunt and it was right downstairs from where I used to live), Arabella Beer Park (our new favourite local beer spot to hang out in the KW area)

My 2015 In Reading

Wow. So I only posted 3 articles to my blog in 2015. And I didn't even do the annual summation of the books I had read the year before either.

Hoping to kick-start this year into at least 12 posts -- let's see if I can do at least 1 post every month, shall we?
 

HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY OF MY PAST YEAR IN BOOKS

Here's a bit from my year in books as summarized by Goodreads.

• I read 41 books in 2015 (not counting the ones I had to read for work, ie, as an editor).
• The shortest book I read was 45 pages (Kevin J. Anderson's Million Dollar Productivity)
• The longest book I read was 495 pages (Stephen King's The Bazaar of Bad Dreams)
• The most popular book I read was The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins 
• (I'm most surprised that Harper Lee's Go Set A Watchman wasn't the most popular one)
•  I enjoyed at least three (perhaps four depending on how you classify them) romance novels in the past year. Two Marie Force novels, one straight out romance (Maid for Love), another romantic suspense (Fatal Affair), one Liliana Hart romantic comedy/suspense (Whiskey Rebellion) and Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project
• I only read 3 non-fiction books in the past year. Odd, I normally like to read more. In fact, I'm sure I read more - at least one or two other non-fiction books for writers. Perhaps I missed recording a few. Will have to go back and double check that.

I won't break the list down the way I have in years past -- simply, I'll list the books that I most enjoyed having read in the past year, linking to each one.  In no particular order, here at the books I loved the most from my 2015 reading:

Poles Apart - Terry Fallis

The Damned - Andrew Pyper

12 - Sean Platt & David Wright

Clockwork Lives - Kevin J. Anderson

Last Call - Sean Costello

The Martian - Andy Weir

The Crossing - Michael Connelly

The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

Fatal Affair - Marie Force

The Girl on the Train - Paula Hawkins

Three Ways To Get EVASION For FREE

My novella thriller EVASION has been continuing to receive positive feedback since it was featured on Wattpad in late May for a day.  It now has almost 82,000 reads, almost 1200 votes from readers and a demand to read the next book in the series.

I suppose this means that, for NaNoWriMo 2014, I'll have to write the sequel.....

If you're interested in reading it, there are currently 3 different ways you can read it for free.

FIRST WAY TO GET IT FREE (eBook)

•  Wattpad - you can read 100% of the book, 100% of the time, for free on Wattpad.  You can read it online or download the mobile Wattpad app.  All free.

SECOND WAY TO GET IT FREE (eBook)

• DIGITAL BOOK DAY - Monday July 14th will be Digital Book Day - produced by the wonderful "thrillers with heart" author CJ Lyons, it includes a giveaway of digital books in multiple genres from authors from around the world.  Please note that the links on this site will only be live for Monday July 14, 2014, so this is a limited time offer.

Digital Book Day

 THIRD WAY TO GET IT FREE (Print Book)

• Goodreads Giveaway - 10 copies of the print book (which retails for $14.95 US) will be available through this Goodreads promotion. It's a random draw from all entrants, but 10 chances to win! (The chance to enter, closes July 30, 2014) :)

So there - you now have 3 different ways of getting access to read EVASION for free. A couple of digital ways and one way to get it free in print. 

The book is currently available for sale on Amazon in print and eBook (regular price $4.99, but reduced to 99 cents at Amazon for Monday July 14th) and Kobo (where it's FREE on Monday July 14th) and Smashwords (other retailers coming soon)

If you do read it, I would greatly appreciate you reviewing the book on your favourite online review spot (most commonly, folks post reviews to Goodreads and Amazon)