by Kat | Jan 1, 2025 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Happy New Year Gentle Unravelers!
As promised, this week is all about my reading last year. It was a good year… sort of. As I explained earlier as I was doing my year-end review of 2024… I discovered that I did not remember much about a lot of the books I read so I am not going to focus on the number of books I read last year… the number does not really matter because I honestly don’t remember much about most of them!
I think this is partially driven by my “Goodread” challenge, so you will note that I have not done that this year. I don’t need encouragement to read… and I most certainly don’t need to worry “will I hit my goal” either! This year my plan is to give myself some space between books… digestion space, as it were. I want more thinking time post-read so I am giving myself some space. So, no book goal… no race to the next book… and a more leisurely reading pace, I hope!
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I also have a nifty planner, thanks MDK and Felix Ford for the inspiration. This planner is going to provide a work space for several things this year… one of which will be for Book Notes! This also might help me write better book reviews which, imo, I am not the best at.
But what about last year? How did I end the year… what percolated to the top each month (and surprise, surprise… each month did have at least one book that lingered (and is lingering still!) So let’s get started:
January: the book that lingers still is Yangsze Choo’s The Fox Wife and I really loved it! I still think about it… I love it when a book lingers like that!
February: I have Read With Us to thank for this month’s best and very memorable book! Yes, it is Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.
March: had two outstanding books, Andri Snær Magnason’s On Time & Water and Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! On Time & Water really struck a chord with me. I began to think about time in a completely different way. It is a book that I want to read again… and yes it has lingered! Martyr! was just magnificent… the writing that Akbar used is something I still think about. And dear Cyrus… dear, dear Cyrus. I love it when a character takes up residence in your heart!
April: sometimes a retelling of a story changes everything and Percival Everett’s James changed everthing for me. It is surprising how much I needed an alternative to The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin.
May: found Erik Larson’s The Demon of Unrest as the best book of the month. This book absolutely has lingered and yes, it feels very relevant today!
June: the reading hit a sweet spot this month with Leo Vardiashvili’s Hard by a Great Forest, which is one of the books that ties for the Best of the Best of my reading. I love every bit of this beautiful story. Saba is another character who has found space in my heart.
July: sometimes a book is so fantastic it needs an immediate rereading! Carys Davies Clear was that book for me. Only 196 pages long, but those pages are just full of brilliance. The writing was sparse but the story is so deep. The other thing that was a win for me this month was my reread of Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow. Rereading a book does not always create the same feelings I had when I first read the book but, if anything, this reread was better than the first time I read it!
August: the best of reading apex entered this month with a whopping five books! Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods, Simon Van Booy’s Sipsworth, Brian Doyle’s One Long River of Song, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus, translated by Mark S. Burrows, and my reread of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (this time read by Meryl Streep!) This is absolutely my best reading month!! Summer reading for the freaking win!
September: the reading was still so very good with Susanna Kwan’s Awake in a Floating City (which is my runner up to best of the best!) and Marjan Kamali’s The Lion Women of Tehran, the book that shares Best of the Best with Hard By a Great Forest.
October: I returned to familiar author’s this month with Ali Smith’s Gliff and John Boyne’s All the Broken Places. Two of my favorite authors with two magnificent, compelling stories.
November: Reading was a challenge this month… or perhaps it is better to say that my focus was challenged. Puppy training and interrupted sleep made focusing a challenge but I found two books that held my focus (and made me think!) Ta-Nehisi Coates The Message, which I have not stopped thinking about and I will be doing a reread of it early this year. And Jane Cooper’s The Lost Flock…if you love sheep, wool, and Scotland this book hits all those points and more! (And I have added some yarns to my “knit before I can’t knit” list.)
December: found lots of best of books. I reread Margaret Renkl’s The Comfort of Crows this year… slowly… a week at a time and I loved it even more than the first time I read it. I also read a poem or two a day from Poetry of Presence II – I did not make it to the finish line though, so I will continue on where I left off! I really loved the expanded version of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry (she read the first iteration of The Serviceberry here.) The expanded version is so good (and if you listen to it, Robin reads it to you!) I also had an opportunity to read an advance copy of Billy Collins Water, Water: Poems. I finished it and immediately read it again… and then again… and I am now on my fourth reading!
There you have my Best of Reading for 2024. I highly recommend every book mentioned here!
Now, for a spot of New Year’s Day housekeeping! You will note that I also am not making any resolutions… nor am I setting any intentions this year. I will share my new word with you all on Friday (not making resolutions, setting intentions, or setting a book goal will make more sense then, I promise!) PLUS I will be including some information that I am hopeful that will inspire you to join me with your own word journey!
Now, what I am hoping you will do is share a book or two that you loved last year!
As always, if you wrote a post to share please leave your link below and thank you!
by Kat | Jan 2, 2024 | General, Looking Back
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons
It has been an excellent year of reading (again!) I truly do not understand how the non-reader gets through the day… happily that is something I will never have to experience because reading is essential to my day!
I am most profoundly grateful for my local library… most of what I have read, I read courtesy of my library. My reading life is all the more richer and fuller thanks to them! I love the people that work there… they are some of my favorite people on the planet! They were some of the first to welcome me to the area when I moved here 10 years ago!
It was a stellar reading year for me… I read a whopping 106 books! I read more this year than last year, but less than other years. But the most amazing statistics from the year show how really magnificent my reading was this year!
I doubled my Netgalley books this year… I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to read 26 ARC’s (advanced reader copies) and so many of these books (Netgalley books are flagged with **) made my “best books of the year” list!
I listen to books… a lot! Of the 106 books read, 54 of them were audiobooks and almost every single one was courtesy of my library!
There were 7 books that I did not finish this year… books that just weren’t for me. Years ago, I would have felt guilty to not finish a book… but “bailing” on a book was something that I embraced in my Year of Release… it was one of the best things ever.
I read LOTS of books that I gave a 5-star rating… of the 106 books… I gave 46 of them a 5-star rating.
So you might now be wondering how one chooses the best from that many “best” choices… well, I have some criteria for my Best Reading of 2023. The books on this list have stayed with me since I read them. They have delightfully lingered and for some of these books… they inspired me to read them more than once!
So here is my Best Reading of 2023 List… I highly recommend every book on this list! (They just might change your life!!) There are 11 books here with each book better than the one before it…. so when you get to the bottom, you have reached the best book of my year.
- Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro (I loved this book so much that I immediately re-read it.)
- The Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude and Inciting Joy by Ross Gay (I think a bit of Ross Gay every day is a very good idea! I will be reading more of him in 2024!)
- No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister ** (a book about the power of a book is one I have not stopped thinking about!)
- Sarah Winman… yes, just the author! I read 3 of her books this year and each one was tremendous, thought provoking, and each lingered in the most wonderful way!
- The Comfort of Crows by Margaret Renkl. ** This book is life changing… and I loved it so much that I am going to spend the entire year with it… in my backyard. Two weeks in and I am discovering new things already… I can’t wait to see where my backyard and Margaret take me!
- Above Ground by Clint Smith. A moving volume of poetry that took me back in time to when my children were small. I loved Clint, but these poems reminded me of a forgotten time!
- Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward. ** This book was so necessary in a time where the “whitewashing” of history is happening in real time. I have not stopped thinking about Annis and her journey.
- Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan. I would not have even known about this book were it not for the Read With Us book club… we read The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida and I needed to know more… so a bit of Googling led me to Brotherless Night. This story is one that has not left me, it reminds me that even the obscure story needs to be heard!
- My Friends by Hisham Matar. ** This was a Netgalley book that “picked me” … an editor emailed (I am sure a volume of readers) and suggested I might enjoy this book. I am so glad I followed her suggestion! This book would have been my top read (if I did not read Rilke and Tommy Orange!) This book opened my eyes, changed how I think about the displaced… refugees… those without a homeland. Thank you, Hisham for writing such a compelling, beautiful, heartbreaking story!
- Rilke… my goodness, I love Rilke so much. I read two Rilke books this year (a re-read of one by a different translator.) The more I read Rilke, the more I want to read more. There will be more Rilke in 2024 as well!
- This last book barely squeaked under the wire… Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange ** (it will be out next March) It has only been a few days but I have not stopped thinking about the Star Journey. This might be Tommy’s best book ever… at least until he writes another one! Ha!
There you have it… 11 books… roughly 10% of my reading year.
I will be back tomorrow with my Year of Unraveling review!
Photo by Anthony ????
by Kat | Jan 1, 2020 | General, Unraveled Wednesday
Happy New Year, dear Unravelers! I am sorry for the very heavy image laden post today, but there was a lot of reading in 2019!!
My year of knitting was so very good, but honestly… my year of reading might have been a bit better! I did not hit my reading goal, but I read some of the best books this year! Of the 148 books I read – I deemed 58 of them to be “five star” books. Of those 58, these have indelibly changed me: When All Is Said, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, Red at the Bone, Timbuktu, Just Mercy, The Heart’s Invisible Furies, Report from the Interior, The World That We Knew, The Nickel Boys, Grief is a Thing with Feathers, and The Dutch House. These eleven books are books I cannot stop thinking about. Every one of these books still calls to me and I look forward to reading them all again!
The other common theme my reading had this year was how many authors I discovered and then proceeded to try and read as many of their books as I could! John Boyne won the year with 6 novels (many 5-star and one very indelible read: The Heart’s Invisible Furies) Louise Erdrich came in second with 4 of her books on my list, including one indelible: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Nineteen authors all had multiple titles in my year of reading – I have learned that a good writer is sometimes a prolific writer!
2019 was the year of social justice or at least my efforts to learn more about how to be a good ally, an educated citizen, and not just a “watcher from the sidelines!” Nineteen of the books I read this year helped to educate me about many things from the Mueller Report, to White Privilege, to the Whistle-Blower Complaint and even a book about Global Warming. Being an informed ally is important to me but all this reading has shown me how much I still must learn, so you can expect to see more of this kind of reading in 2020.
My standby of a good mystery was reinforced with seventeen novels read in 2019 and most of these were parts of ongoing series with characters that I have come to know and love deeply. These books are the best therapy on earth for me! A few pages in and I am off on a journey to figure out who did it and how will it all come together!
And, finally I listened to 88 books this year – a significant number and I am so grateful to my library for having so many audio book choices!
And, in case you think I have done no knitting… I got a Sweater Quantity of yarn for Christmas from Steve and almost immediately cast on a Felix Cardigan – the body is almost done and sleeves are up next – this will be my first finish of 2020! I love the yarn color (Galaxy) it is black, but not quite with a purple-ish, teal-ish hue. I spent an hour after dinner last night learning the sewn tubular bind off – I think Steve has it memorized too from me saying it out loud over and over and over and over. Hahaha!
That is all I have for today! If you wrote a post to share today, please leave your link below and thank you!
