And just like that, it’s the last month of the year! We’ve only gotten a dusting of snow that barely lasted for 24 hours, and the temperature has definitely plummeted (as I type this, it’s currently 15 degrees), so while the calendar may not say winter yet, winter has definitely arrived. 

It’s been a YEAR, friends. Lots of changes, tears, heavy introspection, a lot of difficult decisions about a path forward for myself personally, but…I think I’m figuring things out, and I’m cautiously optimistic about where things are headed, eventually. 

But we’ll get to more of that later on. For now, it’s all about the books.

Let’s get this recap started, shall we?

Books I Read in November 2024

1. Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune

2. Day After Night by Anita Diamant

3. The View from Saturday by EL Konigsburg (read out loud to my daughter)

4. Magical Meet Cute by Jean Meltzer

5. The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff (read out loud to my daughter)

6. The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

7. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson (read out loud to my daughter)

8. Forest Therapy: Seasonal Ways to Embrace Nature for a Happier You by Sarah Ivins

9. Behind the Bedroom Wall by Laura E Williams (read out loud to my daughter)

10. Edible: An Adventure Into the World of Eating Insects and the Last Great Hope to Save the Planet by Daniella Martin

11. The Underground Library by Jennifer Ryan

12. Good Night, Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian (read out loud to my daughter)

13. What Was the Holocaust by Gail Herman (read out loud to my daughter)

14. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach

15. They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms by Mike Hixenbaugh

It was a slow month for me personally, but my daughter and I have been absolutely blowing through books. Between work and the studying I’m doing in order to go back to school in the nearish future, my reading time has been cut down drastically, which is a bummer, but it’s also a good tradeoff, one I’m willing to make for now.

We weren’t the hugest fans of The View from Saturday; I don’t feel like that was EL Konigsburg’s best. But everything else we read together was great. Good Night, Mr. Tom was from my own childhood; Michelle Magorian’s Back Home is one of my favorite books of all time, and we’ll be tackling that soon. The Underground Library was great. Jennifer Ryan has become a favorite author of mine, and this was just a lovely book all around. And I cannot recommend They Came for the Schools strongly enough. The town Mike Hixenbaugh writes about, Southlake, Texas, reminds me so much of where we lived in Tennessee – the same damn fights over the same subjects, the same types of people falling for the same propaganda and lies in exactly the same way. If you want to see where this country is headed, you need to read this book and understand how little thought is put into the book bans (and the hatred) that are storming the country. 

Fifteen books this month; ten fiction, five nonfiction. Ten of these came from my own shelves! Despite working at the library, I’m doing a great job of sticking to my goal of reading down my own shelves! 

Bookish Things I Did in November 2024

…you know, I don’t know that I did anything bookish at all, other than go to work and shelve and help people get new library cards and find the materials they need, but that’s good, right? : )

State of the TBR

Still only two books on there! I’m waiting for #2 to come in; it’s been on order at work for like six weeks. *taptaptap* The other one, I’m still going through day by day as it’s intended.

I do have a list of books I’d like to read in my work notebook, however! I spend a lot of time on NoveList when I’m working the front desk (and if I have any down time while working the drive-up window), so I’ve been making a list of books I find on there that look interesting. They Came for the Schools was the first book I read from that list!

Books I Acquired in November 2024

Hmm. I did bring home a few gardening books from the thrift store, along with a copy of a survivalist handbook called When All Hell Breaks Loose. And I got a copy of The Complete Persepolis for my daughter to read when she’s a little older; that’s a really important book, and it’s already been banned in a bunch of places, so I’d like to have a copy for my own shelves.

I also picked up a second medical terminology book, but that’s probably not as fun for everyone else!

Current Podcast Love

I started a new one this month! After the election, a friend of mine posted about a podcast she’s enjoyed for a long time, Big Mad True Crime, and how the host was receiving a lot of blowback for posting about her disgust over the election results. Being also disgusted by the election results, I decided to check out the podcast, and it’s fabulous. I’m 80-ish episodes in and really enjoying it. If you’re into true crime and haven’t given Big Mad True Crime a listen, check it out!

Stephanie’s Read Harder Project

*laughs hysterically* WHO HAS TIME??? I’ve currently been reading about the components of blood; does that count?

Real Life Stuff

So yeah. This month.

Lots of doom scrolling this month, which didn’t help my reading stats, but seeing other people’s disgust with US election results made me feel a little more sane. I also did a bunch of stress-knitting, and now have a pair of wrist warmers for work when I work the drive through window, one for a garden friend, and am ⅔ of the way through a pair for my coworker, so there are upsides to all of this.

I’ve done my best to spend time outside as well, going for walks during the few times I’m available during daylight hours and continuing to volunteer my time and energy at the garden. The people there also help me feel sane, and the time outside restoring the garden’s ecosystem and chopping down invasive buckthorn has been wonderful.

I’m doing a lot of studying for eventually going back to school, so my mornings and afternoons are taken up with A&P, medical terminology, and a Universal Class course on medical coding (along with cooking, cleaning, and running errands), so I often feel like I’m cramming five million tasks in a slot designed for about four, so it’s a constant struggle to get all the things accomplished that I want, but I’m doing my best!

Work is AWESOME. I’m now regularly working the front desk, helping people check out, renew/replace their library cards, answering questions, directing patrons to where they can find certain things in the library, and all the other tasks that front desk work entails. I’m also just about to finish up my passport agent training, which is SCARY AS HECK, but I want to be as helpful as I can to my team and that involves being another employee with the skills necessary to do all the available jobs, so wish me luck as I prepare to take the final exam!

That’s about it. What’s coming up in December? Hanukkah, of course, which starts on December 25th this year (which is convenient; the library will be closed, so I can make my giant batch of latkes that night. Love those things, but they’re pretty kitchen-destroying). Winter break, which will be nice to have my younger daughter home more. My mom is coming up to visit our local zoo with us this upcoming weekend, so I’m really looking forward to that. 

Wishing you a joyful whatever-you-celebrate-at-this-time-of-year. Stay warm, do what you can to take care of yourself and the ones you love, and find some great books to escape into when this life gets to be too much. Stay strong out there, friends.