Friday Reads 12.29.23
It’s Friday, the last one of 2023(!) and you know what that means. Let’s talk about what we’re reading!
I hope your holidays were wonderful, and this quiet week has found you replete with good cookies, warm fires, and delightful books to read. We were traveling (shocker, I know) so didn’t get a lot of down time, but we’re home now so I’m working on that this week, while doing my year-end roundup and some long overdo digital housekeeping.
My friend popped on the Edge last week with her recommendations and a link to her end of year books, and I was immediately pumped to share the whole list of every book I read this year (approximately 65) here. My enthusiasm dimmed in the light of the extra work building a list after the fact, and I’ve committed to trying this for next year, instead. A general book wrap up post seems smart, and since I’ve been trying to move away from Goodreads for book tracking, this seems like a wonderful place to start keeping lists. You know how much I love lists. I’m going to keep a draft post open this year and record them. Future JT thanks me for this.
I will leave you instead with a very enjoyable recommended read this week, the utterly delightful and inventive DIVINE RIVALS, with which I am entranced. How rare it is to find a story so unique, and so full of love, and danger, and courage. It feels like a World War II novel, but it’s fantasy, and I’ve not seen this combination play out before. I see what the fuss is all about, and I am here for it.
And because I can’t leave you without some sort of end of year list, these are the rest of my standouts for the year, the books I haven’t stopped thinking about, talking about, recommending, and/or rereading (ahem dragons and war colleges FTW)
NONE OF THIS IS TRUE - Lisa Jewell
ONE WOMAN SHOW - Christine Coulson
THE OTHER VALLEY - Scott Alexander Howard
THE FROZEN RIVER - Ariel Lawhon
THE FIVE SORROWFUL MYSTERIES OF ANDY AFRICA - Stephen Buoro
A FLICKER IN THE DARK - Stacy Willingham
AN EMBER IN THE ASHES - Sabaa Tahir
Some housekeeping notes: You will notice that The Creative Edge is now happily organized by topic! Finding a few thematic, overarching categories has always been a goal, and for the time being, Annual Reviews has made an appearance. My other website has become untenable for searching, and in putting together my 2023 Annual Review, I needed several previous pieces. I figure I’ll leave them up for January, then that category will disappear from navigation, easily found in searches. The 2023 Annual Review will be up next week, I think.
The rest encompass some of my favorite pieces that I’ve brought over, as well as the Creative Perfection series I did a few years ago, and of course, our ongoing 22 Steps Writing Series, which will pick up again with Step Four: Research, in the new year. All of these posts were here already, but not categorized or easily searchable. I hope this helps!
And for a tiny bit of BSP: the audiobook of THE WOLVES COME AT NIGHT released this week. Read by the indomitable Saskia Maarleveld, I can’t tell you how happy I am hearing Taylor come to life again. Enough to want more…
That’s it from me this week. How about you? What’s on your reading plate this weekend?
