I’m here! A day late again, but I made it!

Hello, hello, from the not-quite-as-cold beginning of February! Are you at least partially thawed out?

Phew, January was absolutely brutal in terms of cold! We had a snap here that was just days and days of temps in the single digits and even below zero a few times. Not gonna lie, that was rough. Being outside, even with a heavy down coat on, wool socks, boots, and two pairs of gloves, my fingers and toes started to burn and then go numb within minutes. If you live in a place where it’s like that for longer than a few weeks at a time, I bow down to your hardiness (and humbly beg you to teach me your ways, because I’m obviously doing this wrong). I usually enjoy the coziness of winter and being cuddled up with a few dozen blankets, but this year, I’ve felt a little stir crazy from time to time, not being able to get outside like I normally do. A walk this past weekend, in the balmy temperatures of the low 30’s, definitely helped!

I hope you’re doing well, staying safe and warm, and getting in some excellent reading for this start of the year. I’ve been pleased so far, and I’ve definitely had a little extra time to read, what with outside being canceled for a bit…

Anyway, let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in January 2024

1. Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones

2. Maximum Insecurity: A Doctor in the Supermax by William Wright

3. Raising Critical Thinkers by Julie Bogart

4. Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn’t Food by Chris Van Tulleken

5. Once We Were Home by Jennifer Rosner

6. Fred Rogers: The Last Interview and Other Conversations by Fred Rogers

7. Wasteland: The Secret World of Waste and the Urgent Search for a Cleaner Future by Oliver Franklin-Wallis

8. The $150,000 Rugelach by Allison and Wayne Marks

9. For the Love of Cod: A Father and Son’s Search for Norwegian Happiness by Eric Dregni

10. Sins of the Father: The Long Shadow of a Religious Cult by Fleur Beale

11. Survive and Thrive: How to Prepare for Any Disaster Without Ammo, Camo, or Eating Your Neighbor by Bill Fulton and Jeanne Devon

12. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: A Visual History by Tim Lybarger and Jenna McGuiggan

13. The Matchmaker’s Gift by Lynda Cohen Loigman

14. Waiting for the Apocalypse: A Memoir of Faith and Family by Veronica Chater

15. All the Fighting Parts by Hannah V. Sawyerr

16. Making Home: Adapting Our Homes and Our Lives to Settle in Place by Sharon Astyk

17. Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream by Alissa Quart

18. Growing Sustainable Together by Shannon Drescher Shea

19. Perfectly Good Food: A Totally Achievable Zero Waste Approach to Home Cooking by Margaret Li and Irene Li

20. We Sinners by Hanna Pylväinen

21. If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say by Leila Sales

22. Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto by Kate Sekules

Phew! That’s a lot of books. You might think I’ve done nothing but sit around and read, but I actually got a lot of other things done this month, too, so it’s just been a really productive month in general. Dreamland by Sam Quinones is an incredible look at the horror of the opioid epidemic, how it was foisted on Americans due to corporate greed, and the devastation it’s wrought on the US. For the Love of Cod was a perfect read for me these days; Eric Dregni took his son to visit family in Norway, and this is the delightful story of their visit. The Matchmaker’s Gift is an utterly charming novel of a Jewish grandmother and granddaughter and their matchmaking abilities; Waiting for the Apocalypse, about a traditional Catholic family who rejected the changes that came with Vatican II and the chaos that ensued in their family life afterwards, fascinated me. Bootstrapped, about all the ways America basically hates its people and refuses to care for them in the way a society should (and thus leaves it up to individuals to cope with the devastation that follows), both enraged me and made me feel a little better about how I’ve dealt with some of my own issues. 

But the book that affected me the most this month was, without a doubt, Ultra-Processed People. That book has entirely revamped the way I eat. I’m spending a little more time in the kitchen, but it’s worth it. This book truly, truly horrified me and made me take a good, hard look at what I’ve been putting into my body – and my diet was pretty clean (for what that word is worth) to begin with, but I’m a fairly obsessive label reader now. I’ve stopped eating store-bought bread. I’ve stopped eating store-bought cookies. I let some things slip by, but eesh, I don’t want a lot of the things the author talked about in my body, so… The good thing is, I’m eating better than ever in terms of both quality and taste, so, uh, yay for that? chomps on more kale

Six fiction, sixteen nonfiction. One came from my own shelves. EIGHTEEN were from my TBR!!! Speaking of which…

State of the Goodreads TBR

Oh my goodness, friends. Here we go!

Last month, we left off at 30. I think I ended up removing one or two books that just didn’t interest me any more, and then I read a whole bunch, and that leaves me at…

9!

9 books!!!!

So here’s how this is going to go. 

I have one on hold as an ebook. One, I’m reading right now. One is on hold via my library. One, I’m waiting for at a different library (but will put it on hold if it doesn’t come in soon). And three are on their way to me as interlibrary loan books. One doesn’t come out until later this year, and another will stay on my TBR because it’s something I eventually want to buy as a reference. 

And then that will be it!!! 

For far too long, my TBR has been far too big. I’d add something when it sparked my interest, but then I wouldn’t read it until ages later, maybe when the interest had petered out a bit. And I don’t want to do that anymore. If something interests me, I want to be able to read it NOW, and that’s what I plan on doing, along with reading all the amazing books I’ve stuffed my own shelves with over the years. And I was able to read a book from my own shelves this month (and finished another one yesterday and that one will be headed off to a new home in a Little Free Library soon!), and CAN YOU TELL HOW EXCITED I AM?????????

Never again will I allow my TBR to get so big.

Books I Acquired in January 2024

One really cold day, I was going a little stir-crazy in the house and poked at a local library’s website and discovered, to my delight, that they were having a book sale the next day! Not a huge stuff-everything-in-a-bag-for-$10 sale, but a sale nonetheless, so my daughter and I bundled up and headed over, and we came home with a few books! (The How Food Works came from Five Below; my younger daughter and I are really enjoying reading one set of pages each day and getting some interesting facts about food and the human body!)

Bookish Things I Did in January 2024

Besides a whooooooooooooole lot of reading and that book sale, I also attended a virtual book talk with Jennifer Rosner, author of Once We Were Home (which I also read this month), held by the Jewish Women’s Archive, who always do really great events. Hearing her perspectives on her novel and the research that went into was really interesting, and I deeply appreciate that there are still these virtual events out there!

Current Podcast Love

Doing my volunteer work and sometimes in the kitchen, I’m still making my way through Leaving Eden episodes, but at night, while I try to fall asleep, I’ve been listening to The Deck, a true crime podcast from the host of Crime Junkie. It’s all cold case files and unsolved mysteries, so there’s no resolution, but I really enjoy Ashley Flowers’s narration style, so this is a good one for me. 

Stephanie’s Read Harder Challenge

Still working my way through Norsk, Nordmenn, og Norge; I’m up to Chapter 15 (out of 28, and then there are a bunch of additional readings and grammar bits in the back, so I’ll absolutely go through those as well). I’m taking my time and making sure I memorize vocabulary and grammar rules before I move on, plus I’m also occasionally watching episodes of Karl Johan (and memorizing that vocabulary!), and translating stuff like song lyrics and learning grammar rules of things I learn on the internet, so I’m in no big hurry on this one. The ultimate goal is to finish this book at some point during this year (and then I have the follow-up waiting for me after that!).

Real Life Stuff

What a cold, gross month this was! Kid #2 actually got…two days? I think? off from school. One was because of the snow and cold; the other was because the roads were just so horrifically icy until about noon that day that the district, thankfully, didn’t want anyone to take the chance of being out there. We snuggled at home and stayed warm inside. I realize what an inconvenience snow days can be for a lot of parents, but for us, they’re just happy. : )

Because of winter break (which went on fairly late this year) and the extra snow days, I haven’t gotten as much writing done so far this year as I would like, but I’m still plugging away at it and did manage to pass the 50,000 mark in terms of word count, so yay for me there! It’s still really piecemeal; I’m writing everything entirely out of order and there will be so much editing to do, but that’s perfectly fine, because I’m a way better editor than I am writer, so it all works out, right?

I’ve also been doing my best to keep up my exercise routine. I’ve got an exercise bike in my bedroom that I ride for 30 minutes or so at a time; I used an Amazon gift card to get a stairstepper (instructions say it can only be used for 15 minutes at a time, but then needs a 30 minute rest, which is absolutely fine with me, because holy crap, does that thing make me sweaty and exhausted), so on days when I use that, I do two fifteen-minute sessions; I’ve also been doing some yoga and HASFit workouts on YouTube. I may not be Sports Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition material, but at least I’m doing something to take care of my body, right??? (And you’d think my back would be happier with all of this, but it’s still a grouchy asshole. Oh well. Some folks are just never happy…)

That’s about it. Lots and lots of reading this month, interspersed with working out, cooking, baking, darning a TON of socks, and doing my best to stay warm. Weird to think that I’m already ⅕ of the way through my Goodreads goal for the year!

I hope your start to 2024 has been happy, healthy, and productive, and that you’re staying warm and filling your brain with zillions of good books. Stay well, stay safe, stay kind, and I’ll see you next month. : )