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?

Wonderful things 🥳:

1. My kid fell asleep before 9:30 for the first time this week. 😴
2. I ❤️ Tom Bombadil, Goldberry, & Andy Serkis singing as both of them. 📚
3. Tomorrow I get to watch Neverafter. 🧙‍♀️
4. My friend Little Willow rescued a kitty & sent me many pictures. 🐱

Finished reading: The Lives of Saints by Leigh Bardugo 📚

I love that Leigh Bardugo wrote this and The Language of Thorns to give us the immersion of reading the same stories that the characters in the Grishaverse read.

💬📚 “I don’t remember my own story… I remember only how I fell into books, never to rise from their pages, how I was never truly awake until I began to dream of other worlds.” Leigh Bardugo, The Lives of Saints ❤️ Saint of the Book

Finished reading: Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir 📚

I loved it so much. And I’m still pretty confused but that’s okay. 💀

💬📚 “We give the people we mother our bodies, and what they will recall is our presence and heat, our animal closeness.” Angela Garbes, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change

💬📚 “I don’t believe care work has to wreck us. This labor can be shared, social, collective—and transformative.” Angela Garbes, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change

💬📚 “Those who mother are the sanitation workers of bodies— handling the refuse, the filth and putrescence, living in the stink.” Angela Garbes, Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change

For Garbes, mothering is a type of care work not reserved exclusively for parents.

Want to read: Waterlog: A Swimmers Journey Through Britain by Roger Deakin 📚

Thanks for the rec, @agilelisa!