Yesterday I went for a walk before work, at a spot I haven’t been to since school started back this fall. Within the first five minutes TWO owls flew through the woods, crossing my path about 20 feet away. It was spectacular. It was breathtaking. It was a gift. No owl pic, but from the same walk.
Finished reading: Congratulations, The Best Is Over! by R. Eric Thomas 📚 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Funny and reflective and real. Have not read his first yet ( Here For It) but I want to.
Finished reading: The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel 📚
Finished reading: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune 📚
Finished reading: Go as a River by Shelley Read 📚 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: The Celebrants by Steven Rowley 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Exactly the kind of light summer reading I love. Read this in one day. I loved The Guncle, and the author’s same wit meshed with heart was on display here.
Finished reading: Adrift by Lisa Brideau 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was a fun, swift read. Climate fiction, with a mystery edge. Takes place in a near future, and I always enjoy seeing where authors think we will be in ten or twenty more years ( it’s never good). This was a “ suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride” book, which I was in the mood for. Got this book in my adult summer reading program bag- my library offers about 20 slots for signing up to get a book chosen for you and crafts/treats, etc in the bag. They nailed my choice! 👏
Finished reading: Leave Only Footprints by Conor Knighton 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Loved it. Came in with high expectations, and they were met.
Finished reading: Fox and I by Catherine Raven 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: Foster by Claire Keegan 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Beautiful little novella.
Finished reading: If We’re Being Honest by Cat Shook 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
This guy won “Best Antennae” in the garden today. They are like crab or spider legs stuck onto his head.
These insects are sucking all the moisture out of the leaves of my butterfly bush, which is not cool. The pattern they leave behind, however, is.
Just realized that catmint is a very happy flower. Looks as excited about summer arriving as I am!
What is more daunting than a blank journal? A gorgeous blank journal with embroidered insects on the cover. Progress on my summer goal of writing more. Trying to change my idea that first you get a good idea and then you write, to first you write, and that’s how you discover your good idea. A work in progress for sure.
Finished reading: No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister 📚 Loved this novel in connected stories. Erica Bauermeister is a delight. Her books are well written, with sentences and ideas that make me pause, yet they feel somehow light at the same time. This one is a love note to books and readers. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for me.
Finished reading: Joy For Beginners by Erica Bauermeister 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed this one. It almost feels like connected short stories, one from each character in a group of friends. Well written but speedy to read. I especially liked that some of the characters were women past the age of young motherhood.
Finished reading: The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 This was a fun one that I had been looking forward to, and about maps, so that automatically bumps it up a star for me. There were some plot holes and some cliched moments and predictable dialog that got in my way, but overall I really enjoyed this book. My rating is not for the quality of the writing but instead for the level of fun reading experience.
May around here was for lady slippers and ferns unfurling. Now we are onto peonies and summer thunderstorms.
Finished reading: The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This book was a clever blend of cop noir and speculative fiction. It was totally creative, totally binge able, and totally unique. I’m not usually one for detective stories, but the idea of emotions being synthesized and weaponized in this alternate version of 2009 completely captured my attention.
Finished reading: You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Absolutely beautiful. Wise and moving. I want to mail this to friends who are going through or have gone through the dissolution of a marriage. When a poet writes a memoir, you know they will find language that connects and transcends. Highly recommend.
Finished reading: It. Goes. So. Fast. by Mary Louise Kelly 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 The “ mom” parts of this memoir I enjoyed very much; the political reporting not as much. Of course, I understand that each of us that mothers is not only a mother, and it is the other parts of our lives that complicate the job of caring for others. That is just why it was not quite a 4 star for me.
Finished reading: Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give by Ada Calhoun 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I enjoyed equally Ada’s words on the matters of love and marriage as those of others that she peppered throughout her essays. A quick read on a rainy day, but one that will stay on my shelf.
Finished reading: What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez by Claire Jimenez 📚 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 So good. One of those books that manages to be terribly funny and terribly sad all at once.
Finished reading: The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton 📚another cli fi. Love those survival stories, the thought exercise of “what if”. In this case, it’s the storms and the unraveling of Florida that takes center stage. I loved her first novel, Good Morning, Midnight. This one was great, too. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: The Midcoast by Adam White 📚Went to a literary festival and attended a session with the author ( and others who wrote about Maine). Really enjoyed this novel that takes place in coastal Maine, pulling into focus both the small town quaintness and the darker underbelly.
Finished reading: The Knowledge Gap by Natalie Wexler 📚Lots to ponder about our education system. Easy to read, and built on the Sold a Story podcast nicely. As a long time educator I am dismayed at how much of this was new to me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Earth Day walk yielded variations on a fiddlehead with trout lily accompaniment.
Finished reading: The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs 📚 A fun, literary mystery mathematical romp, but with darker streaks that surprised me. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: Messy Roots: A Graphic Memoir of a Wuhanese American by Laura Gao 📚I don’t usually read graphic novels ( unlike my son, who is a huge fan). This graphic memoir was good. I love memoir, and this one brought you inside the author’s search for identity. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire 📚Listened on audio. Quick listen. Was not quite what I was expecting, but mostly enjoyed. Darker than I anticipated.
Finished reading: Forager by Michelle Dowd 📚
Finished reading: As You Wish by Cary Elwes 📚 Listened on audio on a suggestion from a friend. I’m well acquainted with The Princess Bride, which made this great fun. Not the absolute best written book, but hearing from so many actors, in their own voices was a blast. Definitely need to rewatch after hearing making- of stories! ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Ready for the bees.
Finished reading: How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Novel in connected stories. Post pandemic ( not Covid- arctic plague). Such a creative mind. This falls on the unsettling side of post pandemic literature for me. So much loneliness, so much grief. Beautiful but sad.
Finished reading: We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman 📚SO good. Sad, funny, well-written. Loved it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Day 23: Chance: Our cat spends many minutes each day waiting by the kitchen island, on the off CHANCE that someone will cave in and give him treats. He doesn’t meow, just waits patiently. So of course we cave, perpetuating the cycle. Cats are masterminds.
Day 22: Insect: This was an impossible choice, as insects are one of my favorite things to photograph ( spiders, too). I like the colors in this one, and those antennae! 😍
Day 21: Tiny: I have always had a thing for tiny books. This one I’ve had since I was a child. It is the weird little story of a boy who finds a maggot in a trash can and keeps it until it becomes a fly. It is illustrated by Gorey. It is tiny. It is strange. It is wonderful.
Finished reading: The Quiet Zone by Stephen Kurczy 📚 Interesting portrayal of an area of West Virginia. ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Day 20: Houseplant: If you look closely you can see the water-stained name tag of this plant from when it was in my classroom. The kids voted on a name for all our plants. Brought it home Friday, March 13, 2020, the day school shut down, and it’s been here ever since.
Day 17: Early: When you are a cat, it’s always early.
Day 16: Road
This morning’s walk was all topographic ice and sunshine on pussy willows. Perfect March-in-Massachusetts combination. I couldn’t get enough of either.
Day 15: Patience: I am very lucky that my family possesses vast amounts of patience, because when we go for walks together they spend a lot of time waiting for me to take pictures of every bug I see. And sometimes they even point them out.
Finished reading: My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin 📚
Day 14: Horizon: I like to think of this shot as my “album cover”. Do I have an album? No. But if I did, this would be the cover.
Connection: Day 13: We have a special connection to Lost River Gorge and Boulder Caves in North Woodstock, NH. The whole family looks forward to a visit every year.
Shiny: Day 12. Early on in my macro lens exploration. Ice as mirror on a blue sky winter day.
Ritual: Day 10 photo challenge: My morning latte, prepared by my incredible husband, is a treasured ritual.
Day 9: Together I’ve welcomed milkweed into my front gardens, where it has spread willy nilly. I was so excited to come across these two monarch caterpillars together last summer. Finding one is always exciting. Finding two side by side was a gift.
Every morning WALK offers up a gift. One morning last week it was dewdrops by the zillions. Photo challenge day 8
Engineering Our family beach visits are often peppered with a little engineering.
Had a very fun morning walk today, playing with that gorgeous March light (and shadows)!
Finished reading: We are Unprepared by Meg Little Reilly 📚Was excited for a big storm / apocalypse book. Did not deliver. Not well written, way too many holes. Almost abandoned many times, but kept hoping it would get better, as the premise was good. Giving it ⭐️⭐️ for ideas more than anything else.
Absolutely beautiful, heart-thumping, fresh tracks ( mine with snowshoes) day!
Day 4: ZIP Snow gear drying out after our family’s skiing and snowshoeing adventures. Lots of ZIPpers here. Needed them to keep out all the powder and still falling snow! Gorgeous day.
Day 3: Solitude. I love being alone in nature. Give me an empty trail and I’m happy.
Finished reading: Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout 📚 Love the Lucy Barton books. Knew this was a pandemic book, but wasn’t prepared for how spot on it would be. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: The Wreckage of My Presence by Casey Wilson 📚Listened on audio after A Very Punchable Face. Terrific on audio. Funny and emotional. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler 📚Brilliant memoir essays blended with science.
Weather. I love capturing weather elements and residues, and snowflakes are one of my favorite captures.
secure #mbmar
Perfect temps for snowflake photography this morning.
Some beautiful ice from my woods wanders. Hoping to catch some good snowflake photos today!
Finished reading: Reckless Girls by Rachel Hawkins 📚Picked this up after I binged The White Lotus, looking for a similar dear decadence. Fit the bill. Perfect for a “read in one day on vacation” book. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: Enchantment by Katherine May 📚 Was gifted the ARC of this one. Loved this. Read it with pencil and book darts, marking many passages for their insight and ability to articulate that which I had not. Keeping on my shelf for reference and inspiration for a long, long time. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spied some spectacular ice on our walk today. Took the right angle to bring out the pattern. Puts me in mind of dragonfly wings.
Finished reading: The Anomaly by Hervé Le Tellier 📚Started this on my flight out to Denver, finished it on the flight back. Perfect plane reading! Loved it. The ending though…who else has read this?? I’m dying to discuss! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Finished reading: I Miss You When I Blink by Mary Laura Philpott 📚 Listened to this one on audio — so good! I love a good memoir in essays. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
When traveling, I always try to visit a local, independent bookstore. Boulder Bookstore did not disappoint! I only wish I had more time…and a bigger suitcase!
Finished reading: Voyage of the Narwhal: A Novel by Andrea Barrett 📚 Arctic exploration story, perfect for the deep cold of winter. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
More ice. Can’t get enough! Found a super clear piece today that i played around with. Love those stacks of river ice!
Gorgeous river ice, crackling, thudding, tinkling beneath our touch.
Library book sale book haul. 😍 Library sales rank very highly among my favorite things. So excited about many of these titles! Most were on my TBR, one I already read and loved, and a few were serendipitous finds that look terrific. And all for about the price of a trade paperback!
Finished reading: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi 📚
Finished reading: A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost 📚 Very funny. Not only about SNL, but definitely made me want to watch some old sketches. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
It never ceases to amaze me how such tiny twigs can cradle so much snow. I know, of course, how light snow like this is. Still looks like a magic act.
Finished reading: Less Is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer 📚 ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: Out There by Kate Folk 📚What a strange little story collection. Reminds me of Black Mirror. Unsettling, weird, and compelling.
A two hour school delay and a snowy walk on a trail I don’t get to frequent too often made for a perfect start to the day.
Finished reading: Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country by Louise Erdrich 📚⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
Finished reading: The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede 📚Listened on audio. The story of the events of 9/11 in Gander, Newfoundland, where many airborne planes were sent when US airspace shut down. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
We finally got some accumulating snow at home, so my son and I made a snow cat.
Finished reading: Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan 📚 This memoir in stories bounces from funny to devastating and back again. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Spent lots of time today putting together my 2023 calendar. I make one every year, using photos I took the year before. I match up photos to the month I took them. Very happy with how it came out! Next step is figuring out how many to order ( if any family and friends want one.) I made this year’s start Feb 2023 and go til January 2024. I find that the end of the year is so busy that I don’t get around to making it until January. Easy solution!
Another silver lining to being home with Covid: I got to try out my new macro lens when it started snowing!
Finished reading: The Book of Delights by Ross Gay 📚 Dipped in and out of this over the past year. Delightful, as one would expect.
Finished reading: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree 📚Got Covid. Bummer. Got to read most of this delightful book in one day. Silver lining. Last year when I had Covid the first time I read and loved A Psalm for the Wild-Built, which felt like “cozy sci fi” and also made that experience considerably more tolerable. This was as close to a repeat as possible, except I’d classify this book as “cozy fantasy”. Clearly I like my viruses with a side of cozy read. Give this one a go, but be prepared to crave coffee and baked goods something fierce. Loved it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saw this tiny icy island in the stream, and immediately thought it looked like Iceland.
My snowy hike in the mountains brought me to this snuggly fellow. I love porcupines! Felt so lucky to spy him. Watched him nibble branches for a long time. Also watched him nearly fall out of his tree, but he grabbed the branch at the last second and just ended up upside down.
Finished reading: The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson 📚 Read Nothing To See Here last year, and loved it. Wanted more Kevin Wilson, so I tried this one. Didn’t love it quite as much, but still liked it. Will be picking up his newest release, Now Is Not the Time to Panic, at some point.
This year was a great reading year for me! Not only did I read more books than I remember reading at any point in adulthood, but I really enjoyed the books I read. According to my year end stats on Storygraph, my average star rating (out of 5) was 3.91. I think a few things contributed to this success. First of all, I think I’ve gotten better and better at choosing books that are a good match for me. This is probably in part due to just reading more and fine-tuning my likes through a larger pool, but also due to the book podcasts I listen to, which have put a bunch of great books on my radar. Listening to the hosts discuss books has also helped me to articulate my own reading tastes more clearly. It should be no surprise then that knowing myself as a reader has helped me select books that will be a good fit. Secondly, I am prioritizing reading more than before. Stopping the Apple News scrolling and picking up a book instead has resulted in reading a lot more. As a literacy coach, I always read more in the summer, when I have more time. This past March I had Covid, and I did a lot of reading that week, too — maybe the most of any single week all year. And finally, this year I sacrificed some of my commute to listening to audiobooks instead of listening to podcasts. I’ve found that I really enjoy listening to middle grade on audio. I also enjoy funny essays this way. I did not record stats on how many audio reads I did this year, so the pictures below are incorrect (I must have accidentally selected the audio book for a few titles when tracking). Audio is definitely a smaller percentage of what I read, at about ten titles this year out of 82. But that’s ten titles more than I might have read otherwise! I wanted to try out making a Top Ten Book of 2022 list, but I just couldn’t decide. It would have been easier to make a top five list. I was pretty clear on about half of the list, but narrowing down my favorites to those last open spots proved too challenging. Interestingly, not all my five star books made it onto my Top Books of 2022 list, but some that didn’t get five stars at the time did. It’s always interesting to see what sticks with you over time. As I sorted through my top reads, I found myself assigning superlatives of a kind to some of the books. So I thought I’d share those first, and then list my Top Reads. Following the list are the pictures of all the books I read this year.
Top Overall Book: The Overstory by Richard Powers. I put off reading this for a few years because of its length (ever since 2020 I’ve felt timid about longer books) but I LOVED it. I put so many book darts on places where the writing was gorgeous or the idea was brain-rattling that I think the book now weighs a pound more.
Book I most wanted to crawl inside: Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. I didn’t know cozy sci-fi was a thing. This was a book I read during Covid, and it was definitely the highlight of that time. It is a little snack of a book — so short — and I wanted desperately for it to keep going. If I could have snapped my fingers and gone to this world I would have, in a heartbeat.
Best nonfiction nature writing: Wild Spectacle tied with Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, both by Janisse Ray (cheating, I know). I copied down so many quotes from these books. Simply beautiful writing that captures a sense of place and a sense of wonder about the natural world.
Best audio, which also happened to be best middle grade: Over Sea, Under Stone, by Susan Cooper. I knew of these books as a child, but I never read them. I wish I had, because child Jennifer would have loved them. I read the first three of the series this winter, and this one (the first in the series) was my favorite.
Best seasonal read: To the Bright Edge of the World, by Eowyn Ivey. Eowyn Ivey is the author of The Snow Child, an outstanding book I read a few years ago. This one also has a wintery setting. Between the snowy exploration and the otherworldly elements, this was a perfect winter read last year.
Best memoir: No Cure For Being Human, by Kate Bowler. This book is powerful and beautiful - a meditation on life and how we live it, prompted by a dreadful diagnosis.
And now my list of top reads, in no particular order:
Top Reads of 2022
I loved every single one of these reads, and feel so fortunate that their pages found their way into my hands (and ears) this year!
Soggy day here in Massachusetts. Wishing all this wet was snow. Where is winter? Can the West send some frozen stuff our way?
Long, dense nonfiction intimidates me because I never want to lose steam in my reading. If I think a book will make me slow down, I won’t pick it up. I’ve been wanting to read this one for a few years now, but always worried that it would take me so long to get through that my overall reading would take a hit. Decided to try this as a slow but steady read over a few months while I carry on with the rest of my reading as normal. I never read more than one book at a time, but I’m excited to try this out. If it works it could really shake up my fiction/nonfiction ratio— in a good way!
Love the way the ice accentuates both the form of the rocks and the space between them. From my morning walk today.
Finished reading: Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak 📚 Quick little fluffy read to start the year. Takes place over a week between Christmas and New Year’s. Mostly enjoyed it, but a few more serious elements to the story felt improperly light. Would give 3.5 ⭐️
One of my reading goals this year is to read more of the books I own. I have a terrible/wonderful habit of coming home from library book sales and used bookstores with an armful of books, and after rejoicing in the return of the library book sale after covid, my shelves are groaning. I’m a mood reader and don’t do well choosing my next read until it is actually time to start it. My hope is that by collecting some books I want to prioritize, and placing them in this cart parked directly opposite my reading chair, I will find myself reaching for these. Last year I read 82 books- a record in adulthood- so this collection still leaves lots of room for library holds, book club books, and general bookish serendipity. See any titles you recommend? 📚
Started our year with a family walk on the beach. Perfect launch to 2023. Bright sunshine and warm for January in Massachusetts. The sun gave everything a sparkle - let’s see if 2023 can retain some of that shine.
