This book list overview is very late - I got engaged in October of 2021 and in a lot of ways, life stilled as much as it picked up. In the chaos of the planning, I confess I lost my love of reading and writing there for a minute.

The Road is a deeply depressing book that still provides beacons of hope; the story bestows a heaviness that comes with a true understanding of brokenness. The burden is too much to bear.

I read Brian Moore’s essay “Going Home” earlier this year while finishing up my degree, and it’s been in the back of my mind since. I chose to annotate the essay for school because I think one day I’d like to emulate it and make the subject my old home in Kansas City, rather than Moore’s home in Connemara, Ireland.

Not having to read for school is wonderful.

I always forget this feeling until I have it again, and now that I’m finished with school for good (well, at least for the next few years...I’ve been floating the idea of seminary but I’m not fully sold just yet), the possibility of reading whatever I want, whenever I want, is both intoxicating and overwhelming. So. Much. To. Read.

A lot has happened in the last few weeks, so a little update seems to be in order.

For one, I finished my Master’s program and was fortunate enough to see all my classmates and fellow graduates in person one final time, as well as walk and celebrate in person. My loving parents joined me to celebrate, which was such a blessing. I hadn’t seen them since February (the cons of moving states away from family), so it was a welcome addition to the joy of graduating.

A Short Review/Annotation of Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott

The only other book I’ve read by Anne Lamott was Bird by Bird, which is wonderful, but I had no idea how powerful, thought-provoking, and wonderful her fiction writing was.

I’ve been wanting to start a series on my blog that will allow me to gush about my love for grammar for a while now, and I think I’ve finally figured out how I want to do it. (Particularly, so it’s not dull beyond belief for my readers...hopefully.) 

Andrew Klavan is one of my favorite authors, speakers, and political commentators. I listen to his podcast, aptly named The Andrew Klavan Show, weekly (I used to listen daily, but he’s slowly retiring, and has switched his show to once a week). I stumbled upon his young adult novels as a teenager (and I’ve just recently started them again!), when I found them on the shelves of the only Christian book store my mom would let me buy books from. Years later when I first started dating Tucker, he suggested Klavan’s podcast, and I’m ashamed to admit that it took me a few months to connect the podcast host to one of my favorite author’s as a teenager. I think it’s the way he spells his name (that’s a Klavan-inside-joke for fellow fans).

It’s been about a year since I’ve had a roommate, and I think I’ve discovered that living with someone else is better than living alone. At least for me.

I must confess, I’ve never seen any of The Fast and the Furious movies. I’m half convinced there’s actually only one movie, they’ve just shot it nine times, and I’m not really ready to watch the same story that many times in a row.

I’ve had quite a few unexpected phone calls and conversations these last few weeks, both with friends with whom I talk regularly and with friends I haven’t spoken to in years.

I was wonderfully surprised to hear from the friend I hadn’t spoken to in years, and I felt terrible that I hadn’t called sooner.

The women I work with (and I work with a lot of women) have planted a little garden outside our office building and she’s already yielding fruit. Well, she’s yielding vegetables and tomatoes to be exact.

As my favorite of the Chronicles of Narnia, A Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis provides more insight into writing from the perspective of a child without losing profundity and power that I hadn’t realized until reading it for the nth time late last year. Lewis is a master at this endeavor in general, writing for all audiences in a way that neither panders nor overreaches.

I recently read My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul. As the first official biblio-memoir that I’ve read, I must say I’m inspired but not impressed.

My sister recently won $2,600 in her first trip to a casino with her boyfriend and his mom. His mom had given her $200 to play with, consenting to the possibility that it could all be gone within the hour. Having never gambled myself, reading Dostoevsky’s novel The Gambler gave me new insight into something she told me about the experience.

I read 30 books in 2020, a large part in thanks to being quarantined for most of it, and here’s my list! Now I get to make a new one… :-)

A special thanks to all who helped me achieve this goal:

I’m only 9 books away from my 2020 goal of reading 30 books before the end of the year! I was going to write this little update when I had 10 left, because milestones make more sense in 5’s or 10’s, but I’m just an overachiever I guess (I’m not, that was sarcasm).

MFK Fisher’s Consider the Oyster is a collection of essays about, you guessed it, oysters. How to eat them, when to eat them, where to find them, what to eat them with - all things oyster, Fisher covers. The book as a whole wasn’t my favorite, especially because I am not a huge fan of oysters, but Fisher’s beautiful and surprising sentence structure kept me hooked.

I came across an old Word Document titled "Goals for Winter 2020" that I'd written over the summer. I’d written them in preparation for my last year of my MFA program...and oof did I forget about them.

I know of someone who writes a quarterly report of his life and emails it to 20 or so of his closest confidants at the start of every season. It’s thoroughly detailed, complete with spreadsheets and photos.