Woodland Goth: The Goblins of Labyrinth by Brian Froud 📚

Yep, I created a whole Woodland Goth bookshelf. Goblins of Labyrinth is a collectible. I don’t want it to get lost in my massive want-to-read list.

Currently reading: Rule of Wolves by Leigh Bardugo 📚

Kind of resent that I have to do anything besides read this book, even though I love a lot of the other stuff I do.

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“I am most interested in confessional writing when it allows us to move into the personal as a way to go beyond it. In all my work I invoke the personal as a prelude.” bell hooks, remembered rapture: the writer at work

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“I had been so well socialized by graduate school that I was torn between which writing path to pursue, agonizing over whether I could write from various standpoints in various genres.” bell hooks, remembered rapture: the writer at work

Finished reading: 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write by Sarah Ruhl 📚

Read this because it’s on Austin Kleon’s list of books about motherhood & art. But it held extra delight for me because it’s also about the theater.

“Perhaps having children makes one increasingly distrust the symbolic world. Because suddenly nothing is as important as the very real particular.” Sara Ruhl, 100 Essays I Don’t Have Time to Write

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Want to read: Screaming on the Inside by Jessica Grose 📚

Trying to figure out if I can make a crow cane head work on my adjustable cane so I can walk the streets of Amsterdam pretending it’s Ketterdam and I’m Kaz Brekker… 📚

My whole family and I are moving to Tom Bombadil’s house. He and Goldberry are such gracious hosts and we will be relaxed there. (Please note: we cannot actually do this.) 📚

Everybody is doing their year-end stuff, so I thought I’d do mine.

I read 46 books this year including comics/graphic novels and poetry. About 12 of those were graphic novels or poetry and another 2 or 3 were short story or novella collections. This puts me right about where my usual average for longer works is, around 30 books. I don’t set quantitative reading goals anymore besides reading one more book than I’ve read so far in a given year.

My reading this year was heavily influenced by the microgenres/aesthetics of cozy fantasy, adventurecore, and woodland goth.

I sought out cozy fantasy and adventurecore in particular because I wanted my reading to comfort me.

I joined the Atlas Obscura book club on Literati, because Austin Kleon stopped running his book club. I only finished two of the 5 books I got, but I look forward to finishing the ones I didn’t. I love the curation but the monthly format doesn’t really work for me and I wasn’t making the kinds of connections to other readers that I’d hoped to.

I started to list my favorite books I’ve read this year but the list got too long. I loved the Hildafolk series and The Bloody Chamber.

I began the year with the intention to get caught up on Leigh Bardugo’s backlist, and I only have one book to go, The Rule of Wolves. I started that this week, so I hope to finish before the year is out and be caught up just in time for the release of the new Alex Stern book.

I think that’s all I have to share about my reading this year. How did your reading year go?