Author: Jaclyn

by

Reading Round-Up: January 2023

Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby. I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book. Here are my reads for January, 2023.

Christmas Days, by Jeanette Winterson – I had this on audio and saved it for almost a year, to listen around Christmas. It was a lovely festive listen – Winterson alternates between holiday-themed short stories and sharing recipes from her personal holiday traditions (along with stories from her life). As with most volumes of short stories, some were more of a success than others – I particularly enjoyed several spooky Christmas ghost stories – and I really liked the recipe interludes.

The Children of Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston – Tolly goes to live with his great-grandmother at the rambling old house long known as “Green Knowe” and encounters three ghostly – and very mischievous – former residents of the house. Their adventures over Christmas are sweet and just eerie enough to be delightfully spine-tingling. There is a little bit of a time-slip adjacent element, which I love.

The Office BFFs: Tales of The Office from Two Best Friends Who Were there, by Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey – I’ve had my eye on this for ages, and it was waiting under the Christmas tree courtesy of my mom. I loved The Office when it was airing, and I really enjoy reading the oral histories of the show that are starting to come out (last year I read and loved Brian Baumgartner’s – a.k.a. Kevin’s – Welcome to Dunder Mifflin). Kinsey and Fischer’s book is also written in that tag-team style, but reviews the history of the show from the vantage point of their friendship. Knowing about their offscreen sisterhood of the heart, it’s even funnier to watch Fischer’s Pam and Kinsey’s Angela bicker and snipe. If you are a fan, do check this one out.

The Windsor Diaries: 1940-45, by Alathea Fitzalan Howard – Howard was a young girl living with her grandfather and aunt in an estate on the grounds of Windsor Castle during the World War II years – so she regularly encountered two other young girls in the neighborhood – the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, who were sheltering at Windsor during the Blitz. Howard was a year old than Princess Elizabeth and several years older than Margaret, and she took dancing and drawing lessons and socialized regularly with the Princesses, even attending sleepovers with them at the Castle several times. Her diaries from those years made for fascinating reading about the Princesses’ daily lives. Prince Philip makes an appearance (fifteen-year-old Elizabeth confides in Alathea that he is “her boy”) and Alathea especially loved Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who was genuinely kind to her. I especially enjoyed reading diary entries where Alathea overthinks royal protocol – there are pages devoted to whether she should continue calling her friend “Lilibet” or whether, in their late teens, it would be more appropriate to switch over to “Princess Elizabeth” – and her somewhat snarky comments about the Princesses’ hair and clothes. Trigger warning, though – there are references to self-harm, so if that is the kind of thing that you cannot read about, skip this one.

Yours Cheerfully (The Emmy Lake Chronicles #2), by A.J. Pearce – After reading Dear Mrs. Bird in December, I couldn’t wait to find out what happens next to Emmy, Bunty, Charles, and all of their friends. Yours Cheerfully finds the staff of Woman’s Friend re-shuffling after Mrs. Bird sailed off into the sunset (with all the good grace of a warship). Meanwhile, the magazine responds to a government call to help the war effort by spotlighting female war workers with the goal of recruiting more women to work at factories. But as Emmy writes up her feel0good stories, she discovers that the women’s lives in the factories are much more complicated than she is allowed to write about. Emmy’s efforts to support her new friends just might land her – and Woman’s Friend – in a whole heap of government trouble. This was a fun and delightful read.

Dinner with Edward: A Story of an Unexpected Friendship, by Isabel Vincent – Isabel Vincent is a recent transplant to New York, struggling to get her arms around a new job as an investigative reporter at The New York Post and to navigate a floundering marriage, when she meets Edward. Edward is a friend’s nonagenarian father, recently widowed and struggling, himself, to find a reason to go on. Isabel’s friend Valerie asks Isabel to look in on her father and having dinner with him – “he’s quite a good cook” – and a beautiful friendship results. Edward cooks sumptuous dinners – sending me down goggle rabbit holes trying to find the exact recipe for his apricot souffle and cauliflower soup – and in the process, Isabel and Edward heal each other. It’s a beautiful read.

How Much of These Hills is Gold, by C Pam Zhang

How Much of These Hills is Gold, by C. Pam Zhang – Ba is dead; Ma is gone; Sam and Lucy are on the run. Pam Zhang’s new release re-imagines the American west as a land of giant tigers and massive buffalo skeletons. This is a sibling adventure story with a light magical realism element; it is gritty and dark. Definitely worth the hype, but darker than I like (the real world is plenty dark enough).

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Harry Potter #1), by J.K. Rowling – A re-read that needs no introduction from me at this point. The kids are on a major Harry Potter kick right now, and this has been Nugget’s and my bedtime reading. (We’re now on to the second one).

Philosophy for Polar Explorers, by Erling Kagge – This slim volume is a fast read but packed with wisdom. Kagge was the first person to complete the Three Poles Challenge – reaching both the North Pole and the South Pole and attaining the summit of Everest – and Philosophy for Polar Explorers collects his life lessons from those adventures. Nothing earth-shattering here, but nice to read and packed with cool photos..

Winter in the Air, and Other Stories, by Sylvia Townsend Warner – I bought this book entirely for the cover, and apparently I was not the only person who did so. (It is gorgeous.) Happily, it’s also an excellent read. I’ve noted in weekly reading recaps that there are only a small handful of writers who can hold my attention over an entire volume of short stories, and Sylvia Townsend Warner is one of that select group. As always, not every story was a favorite, but there are so many gems in here.

Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery – Another re-read and another read-aloud, and another one that needs no introduction for me. Over ,months now, Peanut and I have been slowly reading our way through Anne and enjoying ourselves hugely. Note for parents considering reading this one aloud – have plenty of tissues for that penultimate chapter. I sobbed my way through it as Peanut and Steve watched with concern. I knew it would be hard to read, but man. Anyway – now Peanut and I are checking our schedules to find time for her to watch the classic movie version with Meagan Followes. Am I way too excited to share that with her? Am I planning to make homemade raspberry cordial (non-alcoholic) to celebrate? Yes on both counts.

Smallbone Deceased (Inspector Hazelrigg #4), by Michael Gilbert – I love a mystery novel on audio, and this was a fun one. A body is discovered in a deed box within the office of a London solicitor, and the police have a puzzle on their hands. Who was Marcus Smallbone, and why was he killed, and what on earth was his corpse doing in a box on a law firm shelf? When the killer strikes a second time, the stakes go through the roof. While this wasn’t as wonderful as Death in Captivity, another novel by Gilbert and republished by British Library, it was a fun read and excellent on audio.

Whew! A busy month of reading and a great start to 2023. Two lovely read-alouds with two lovely kids: that’s got to be the highlight of the month. But as for the remainder of the month, there were so many other highlights – a fascinating historical diary… a beautiful collection of short stories… a riveting classic crime novel… and a fun and frothy look at one of my favorite television shows of all time. Ahead in February, I have lots of reading planned around the theme of my upcoming Antarctic adventure. Brrrrr!

What were your January reading highlights?

by

The Week in Pages: February 6, 2023

Good Monday morning to you, friends! How were your weekends, in reading and not-reading? As you can see, it was a bit of a slow reading weekend… and week… around here. Mid-week I finished up Scott’s Last Expedition – actually staying up late to finish it. It was an interesting read for sure, although more about weather and equipment than I wanted to read for 472 pages (makes sense though, as those were Captain Scott’s primary considerations throughout his expedition – and tragically, both failed him). After finishing with Scott and friends, I wanted to take another book off my pre-Antarctica pile, but something rather slimmer. So I picked up Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Three Letters From the Andes, which clocks in at a very manageable 103 (or thereabouts) pages of text. This is actually about a trip to Peru, so not the part of the Andes I’ll be seeing during the Patagonia leg of my trip – but still fun to read in advance of my first visit to South America. But I have been so busy and distracted that I just haven’t had time to sit down with it and I’m still just midway through after barely reading at all over the weekend. I’ll finish it tonight though, and then be on to whatever comes next – to be determined.

Another Sunday, another ski day! We have finally had some decently cold weather, so our home mountain was able to make snow and the conditions were good for the first time all winter. Nugget and I made the most of it, skiing 23 runs mostly on the back side of the mountain. Approximately 50% of them were on a trail that Nugget and his friends call “mogul jungle” and my legs are feeling it today.

What are you reading this week?

by

Dakotas Road Trip 2022: Coal Vein Nature Trail (Theodore Roosevelt National Park)

Our first stop on the Dakotas road trip agenda was Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Medora, North Dakota. Before the trip, I didn’t devote much thought to Theodore Roosevelt National Park – I expected it would be nice, and that I’d be glad to have visited, but beyond that I didn’t really consider. Just like with Joshua Tree, I ended up being surprised at how much I loved this park.

We stayed at a hotel in Medora, just outside of the park gates, and drove our rental car into the park each morning. TRNP is even more spread out than most national parks, so this was a perfect solution. On our first day in the park, we ignored the heavy cloud cover and chilly wind and made for our first stop: the Coal Vein Nature Trail. The coal vein is what it sounds like – a vein of coal running through this section of the park – and this vein is famous for having caught fire and burned continuously for twenty-six years. It’s not still burning, but I read that you can still smell it smouldering. (I couldn’t smell anything, though.)

The landscape was stunning! I would come to learn that there is a marked difference between North Dakota badlands and South Dakota badlands (which we would see later in the trip). The North Dakota version of the badlands was still green and verdant, with plenty of interesting plants to examine.

Like prickly pear cacti embedded right in the grass! Now there’s something you don’t see every day.

And there were plenty of varieties of juniper and sage – two of my favorite plants. I must have stopped ten times to sniff. And then ten more times to goggle at the gorgeous landscape spread out below us.

Strong start to the vacation! This first hike was one of my favorites of the entire week. But TRNP had plenty more riches in store for us.

Next week: the first day of our trip was a two-hike day as we explored another easy nature trail with stunning vistas.

by

2022 in Books: Superlatives

What disclaimers are there to give about this post, other than what I’ve already said time and time again? Yes, giving high school yearbook style superlative awards to the books I read is completely ridiculous, and obviously I’m going to do it anyway.

Brainiest. It’s all about the Little Grey Cells for this year’s valedictorian! I read several Hercule Poirot novels this year – and a roundup of all of his cases and appearances, which made the case for his status as the greatest detective of all time (move over, Sherlock). The yearbook committee tried to give this award to Miss Marple, but the great Belgian detective wouldn’t hear of it.

Best Looking. Apparently Sylvia Robson was quite the stunner; I can’t think how else to account for the fact that she had two dashing men falling at her feet throughout Sylvia’s Lovers. She wasn’t exactly an intellectual (although she showed remarkable determination at evading her cousin Philip’s attempts to teach her to read) nor was she a very nice person.

Best Friends. Emmy Lake and Bunty Tavistock are the real thing. Throughout Dear Mrs. Bird the two besties navigate small disagreements and huge, life-altering tragedies. Do they come out of it with their friendship intact? You’ll have to read the book to find out, but I can assure you that these two friends each have a heart of gold.

Class Clown. If William Brown is ever dragged through the door of a school, he will certainly be the class clown. Brimming with mischief, William and his friends are in and out of hilarious scrapes every few pages. They really should not be allowed to babysit.

Biggest Jock. It was not a very sporty class this year. Roald Dahl takes the award mainly because there were no other contenders. But it does take some athletic ability to squeeze into the cockpit of a Spitfire when you’re more than six feet tall, so I guess he deserves it.

Teacher’s Pet. Personally, I don’t see much about Professor William Crimsworth that is attractive – he’s uptight, naive, bigoted and a little smarmy. But Frances Henri, lace mender and star student of Mlle Reuter’s Brussels academy for young ladies, certainly begs to differ. Well, she can have him.

Biggest Nerd. Being a nerd doesn’t mean being a wimp, as the unnamed young narrator of The Historian proves when she geeks out on history in order to solve a centuries-old mystery, track down a notorious vampire, and find out what happened to her mother, all with the help of – what else? – books.

Most Creative. Susan Branch is where it’s at when it comes to creativity. Her gorgeously illustrated books are a joy to read – and in 2022 I loved learning about her journey to her little Martha’s Vineyard cottage and her first book deal.

Most Opinionated. J.B. Priestley is a self-confessed curmudgeon with opinions coming out of his ears on every subject. That’s why he wrote the completely delightful Delight, a collection of short essays about – no surprise here – things that delight him. Turns out I enjoy reading an opinionated person on the things that bring them joy even more than the things that amp up their curmudgeonly tendencies. (I have a co-worker who keeps a running list on his phone of “things that bring me joy.” I suspect he and Priestley would find a lot to agree on.)

Most Likely to End Up In Hollywood. We’re manifesting here, because struggling actress Franny Banks needs rather all the help she can get. But by the end of Someday, Someday, Maybe, things are looking up for young Franny’s career.

Biggest Loner. Can someone be a loner when they live with a parent? If so, Marion Sharpe certainly fits the bill, and she would have had an easier time of it in The Franchise Affair if she didn’t. As it was, Marion and her mother were easy targets for a scheming young woman to frame for kidnapping, and local solicitor Robert Blair had his work cut out for him to prove their innocence.

Biggest Rebel. Iris Origo may not have set out to be a rebel, but no aristocratic Anglo-American likes it when Nazis take over her farmhouse. Serving as an underground railway station for Jews, escaped Allied POWs, and Italian anti-Fascist partisans under said Nazis’ noses – not to mention spiriting sixty refugees to safety in Montepulciano under heavy fire – earns Origo the Biggest Rebel award and a giant gold star.

Prom King. There was an attempt to stuff the ballot box in favor of that young troublemaker William Brown, but I’m glad to report that justice prevailed and Lord Peter Wimsey was crowned Prom King.

Prom Queen. The voting wasn’t exactly fair this year, but no one else stands a chance when Aphrodite is on the ballot. But you know she’ll use her Prom Queen status for the good of humans everywhere, promoting love and kisses and slow dancing for the rest of the school year – and on into eternity.

Cutest Couple. All right, neither of them is much to look at, but when it comes to sheer adorableness this year’s couple has it. Jennifer and James – come on, they even have the name alliteration thing going – are charming, a little hapless, and easy to root for.

Most Likely to Succeed. This is a bit of a cheat, because I think being the youngest Inauguration poet in history means Amanda Gorman has already succeeded. But I also feel sure she has many, many more successes to come over a long career, and I for one cannot wait to read every one of her gorgeous poems.

That was ridiculous, as usual! I’ll never stop writing this bonkers silly post. What were your superlative reads of 2022?

by

The Week in Pages: January 30, 2023

Short reading recap for you this week, because I only finished one book – Smallbone Deceased, on audio. My assessment from last week stands: enjoyable, but not as good as Death in Captivity, another Michael Gilbert book published by British Library Crime Classics, which was one of the best books I read in 2022. I can report that I did not guess whodunit, but I did correctly suss out the group from whom the guilty party came. The mystery takes place in a law firm, and there is a clear division between the attorneys and the staff. In this case, I was pretty sure early on that the murderer hailed from one of these two groups – I won’t say which, for those who may want to read the book – and I was right. I suspected two people in particular and was leaning towards the one who seemed less likely to have committed the crime, just because this person seemed so unlikely. And there I was off base – the person I suspected a little bit more was not the killer, and my second choice was. How’s that for cryptic?

In print, I spent the entire week over Scott’s Last Expedition and I’m still not done. It’s a lot of details about weather and food arrangements at Scott’s winter base, and that makes it rather slow reading. Fascinating, but slow. Anyway, I’m about 2/3 of the way through now and another few evenings of dedicated reading should do it, so I expect I’ll finish this week. Once I do, I haven’t decided yet what’s next – possibly Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey, or The Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Joan Lindsay, both of which I’d like to read so that I can listen to podcast episodes discussing them without getting spoiled.

Another skiing picture for you – but look who joined us this time! Steve and Peanut came to the mountain, and Nugget was beside himself with excitement at showing them both around. Steve has never been a skier, but he has tried to learn a few times and I know he would really like to enjoy mountain fun with the kids. Nugget was gleefully “teaching Daddy the basics” while I skied Peanut down the bunny slope and he said Steve did a great job – LOL. While we would of course rather Daddy still be enjoying Sundays watching his Bills in the NFL playoffs, a ski day with the whole family was a small silver lining to their season ending.

What are you reading this week?

by

Dakotas Road Trip 2022: First Glimpses!

After spending what felt like most of our 2022 travel days underwater, Steve and I were craving a good hiking vacation. We planned a family trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, and were looking forward to that with great anticipation when news dropped of catastrophic floods that closed huge sections of Yellowstone – including the area where our hotel was. Of course, our first concerns were for the people and animals who lived in the park area and were impacted. But once the dust settled and the waters started to recede, we realized that our planned vacation was not going to happen, and we started looking around for an alternative. On the strength of a recommendation by a random mom at Goldfish Swim School, we decided on a quick shift in strategy and booked a rather last-minute trip to the Dakotas. (The last-minute nature would have an unforeseen effect: it turned out the Sturgis Bike Rally, which was not something I knew about, was going on while we were there. My takeaway – from now on, when booking a trip, I will check to see if there are any big events in the vicinity that might end up drawing unusually large crowds.)

We flew into Rapid City, but immediately turned northwards and headed to our first stop – Medora, North Dakota, home of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Settling in for three days of stunning vistas… and thousands of prairie dogs living in “Prairie Dog Metropolis.” Goodness, they were adorable.

It was a busy week – six national parks, countless trails, multiple atmospheric adventures – and I have so much to show you. So for the next few months, we’ll be road-tripping around the Dakotas together. Next week – first tracks in Theodore Roosevelt National Park!

by

2022 in Books: Top Ten

(^Blast from the past! My living room is a bit more crowded these days…)

This is always a hard post to write! Over the course of a year, I average more than one hundred books – actually, I can’t remember the last year when I read fewer than 100 – and many of them are very, very good. How to pick the top ten? It’s never an easy task. And then this year, I added to the difficulty and decided to actually rank my top ten in descending order. I could go on about what a challenge it was to narrow down all the great books I read in 2022, let alone rank them, but – well, it would just be complaining. Let’s get to the books.

10. Welcome to Dunder Mifflin: The Ultimate Oral History of The Office, by Brian Baumgartner and Ben Silverman. One of the first books I read in 2022 was also one of the best. Anyone who was a fan of The Office would love this, but for Dunder Mifflin super nerds, it’s an absolute must.

9. Call Us What We Carry: Poems, by Amanda Gorman. Amanda Gorman shot to national superstardom when she read her spectacular poem, The Hill We Climb, for President Joe Biden’s inauguration. That poem is in her first collection, Call Us What We Carry, but there is so much more. I am not exaggerating when I say that when I finished this book, I hugged it.

8. Death in Captivity, by Michael Gilbert. Considering how many mysteries I read, I am kind of surprised I don’t have more on my top books of the year list. So that goes to show how excellent Death in Captivity is. It has everything – a murder, of course, but also an adventure/escape plot, lots of humor, and a poignant look at a World War II POW camp. And I didn’t guess whodunit. Definitely will be re-visiting this one.

7. Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mitford. I’m fascinated by the Mitford sisters, and Jessica might be the most interesting one of them all – she certainly broke farther away from her family than any of the rest of them, even Nancy. Her memoir was riveting, and the writing was outstanding too (and so evocative – I loved her description of Nancy as looking like “an elegant pirate’s moll” and I’ll never be able to see Nancy any other way).

6. Four Hedges, by Clare Leighton. Leighton’s garden writing is beautiful, but what really sets this book apart is the stunning woodblock illustrations. I could stare at them for hours.

5. Just William, by Richmal Crompton. Sometimes you want to read a book and howl with laughter. Richmal Crompton’s collection of linked short stories about possibly the world’s most mischievous little boy, and the scrapes he and his friends get into, will be just the thing.

4. The Armourer’s House, by Rosemary Sutcliff. Manderley Press is a new small publisher that is reprinting classics that are especially evocative of a sense of place, and The Armourer’s House, the second volume brought out by the press, takes you right back to Tudor London. I am a big fan of Rosemary Sutcliff’s writing, and this was an especially good one. Just like her Dolphin Ring series (republished by Slightly Foxed, if you’re interested), The Armourer’s House puts you right in it. I would’ve liked it to have been three times as long.

3. Delight, by J.B. Priestley. This 75th anniversary edition of Priestley’s essays about things that delight him is a total joy to read. In addition to the writing – in essays like “Cosy Planning,” which had me nodding along – the book is beautiful and is a delight in and of itself.

2. War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943-1944, by Iris Origo. Iris Origo was a really exceptional person – an Anglo-American writer married to an Italian nobleman, she and her husband Antonio sheltered refugee children and Allied soldiers, and provided guidance and sustenance to a string of Jewish refugees, anti-Fascist partisan fighters, and escaped Allied POWs – at great personal risk to themselves. When Nazi soldiers took over their idyllic farm, Origo courageously led a string of sixty refugees, including elderly grandparents and tiny babies, through heavy fire to safety in Montepulciano. Her diaries are riveting reading, capturing what it was like to live through history and make some of it for yourself.

1. The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy. In a year of fantastic reads, this was the standout of all standouts. The Feast opens with a tragedy – a cliff has collapsed on a hotel in Cornwall, and everyone inside the hotel was killed. But not all of the guests were inside, and the plot rewinds to seven days before the disaster, when you see the ill-fated hotel guests arriving. The seven guests killed represent the seven deadly sins, so as the reader gets to know each of the guests and their foibles, it becomes a fascinating intellectual exercise to work out who the victims will be and who will survive (I guessed right on all counts). I was riveted from the very first page, and will read this again and again in coming years.

Whew! I can’t believe I actually did it – my top ten books of 2022, actually ranked in descending order. It was a wonderful year in reading – as they all are, of course. And now, one more lookback post for 2022 before it’s time to turn my readerly attention fully to 2023. Next week: the silliest post of the year, in which I give high school superlative awards to the books I read last year. It’s utterly ridiculous!

by

The Week in Pages: January 23, 2023

Morning, friends. It’s still morning here, although barely. I’m having one of those running around Mondays where I’m trying to juggle errands and appointments with work. But I have a minute to pop in here and tell you what I’ve been reading, and this will be a short post, because as you can see – it’s been a light reading week. I spent most of the week over Winter in the Air, a new collection of short stories by Sylvia Townsend Warner. They’re not all wintry-themed, and even the titular story isn’t as seasonal as the cover would imply. But I really enjoyed this volume; as I mentioned last week, Warner is one of the few writers who can hold my attention over an entire volume of short stories.

Anyway – it took me all week and I finally wrapped it up on Friday evening, and then turned to Scott’s Last Expedition, a collection of Robert Falcon Scott’s journals from his ill-fated final Antarctic voyage. I have a gorgeous Folio Society edition, but it weighs as much as a preschooler – so there have been some shiftings of reading position. (I tried out the dining room table and then moved back to the couch with the book propped up on a big pillow – that seems to be working.) What with one thing and another over the weekend – skiing on Saturday and rushing around trying to do house chores on the weekend – I didn’t have much time to devote to reading, so I’ve only just gotten Captain Scott and his crew out of the pack ice and on to their first sight of Antarctic land. (They have, however, done plenty of skiing. Antarctic skiing! Color me jealous.)

Finally, I forgot to mention last week, but – I’m also midway through Smallbone Deceased on audio. It’s good, and quite funny in parts, but I definitely don’t like it as much as I liked the last Michael Gilbert book I read (Death in Captivity, which was one of the best books I read in 2022). I’m not sure what my next audiobook will be; I do have a credit to spend, so I might use it on Peril in Paris, the latest in the Her Royal Spyness series, but that’s rather up in the air right now. I still have almost three-and-a-half hours to go in Smallbone, after all.

My friend Dorothy asked me if we are up at our local ski mountain every weekend because it seems like we’re always there. The answer is yes – we have been going up every weekend the mountain has been open, except when out of town. As you can see, Nugget is really benefiting from all the practice! We were there again on Saturday and skied blue square (intermediate) trails the entire day, and he did a great job at controlling his speed and avoiding other skiers. Of course now he’s pestering me to let him ski a black diamond (advanced) run. I’m holding firm because he is NOT ready. Send chocolate, friends.

What are you reading this week?

by

Date Night at The Office Experience

I was getting ready to start writing up my series of posts all about our summer vacation, and as I scrolled back through my photos I realized I never told you about what Steve and I did the night before vacation! Yes – I booked us a date night, possibly stupidly, but I didn’t even think about the early flight, just bought tickets for an evening the babysitter was available.

The Office Experience is just that – an experience – not really a show, but more of an interactive exhibit for Dunder Mifflin nerds. It travels around the country and was in Washington, D.C. over the summer. After seeing an ad on social media, I knew this was going to be a must-do for Steve and me.

When you first arrive, you line up and present your ticket and then receive an “Employee ID,” which gets you into the main exhibit. There were plenty of visual treats in store even while waiting in line and shuffling through the entrance and into the main exhibit – including big displays of the different departments at the office. As an employment lawyer, I naturally had to get a picture with Human Resources. Poor Toby!

Once you make it through the visitors’ briefing and the maze of displays, there is an exact replica of the set. This is the most exciting part of the experience, and definitely what I was most keen to see. I couldn’t believe I was standing in the Office bullpen!

We were encouraged to roam around and explore as much as we wanted – sitting at the characters’ desks, picking up their phones and opening their desk drawers. Naturally, I made a beeline for the desk occupied by my favorite character – prickly accountant Angela Martin. I loved all the details – the spreadsheet open on her computer (of course Angela was the only accountant actually doing any work), the cat trinkets, and the cat toy and jar of cat food in her drawer.

Save Bandit!

We explored the other characters’ workstations, too. Steve, of course, sat at Jim’s desk. Jim was writing an email to Pam!

Meredith was playing FreeCell. (Fun fact I learned from reading multiple books about The Office: in the early days, the cast had to be constantly in the background, pretending to be working, but the computers were not hooked up with internet. So they all played FreeCell all day.) And Steve also spent some time at his favorite character’s desk. Dwight’s stapler was in Jell-O again! Jim!

I also tried out the reception desk and answered the phone. (“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”) Every detail was spot-on. I especially loved the Post-It note stuck to Pam’s desk. “Michael touched me again. -Ryan.”

Steve and I re-enacted a Jim and Pam moment. Are we discussing yogurt or plotting a new way to prank Dwight?

We sat in the conference room for a Talking Head (the name given to the characters “interviews”).

It was all decorated for a party, courtesy of the Party-Planning Committee!

And of course we stopped by Michael’s office and sat in his chair. (The dancing hamsters worked!)

I loved how every detail was in place and just perfect. For instance – check out the Dunder Mifflin motto on the reams of paper. “Quabity First” – I snorted.

From the supply cabinet to Andy’s doodles – Go Big Red! – there was something to see and giggle at everywhere. It’s been a few years since the last time I re-watched the show, but all of the little details in the set jogged memory after memory.

At one of my old firms, a group of Office fans started a Finer Things Club! Sadly, they started it after I had already left, so I couldn’t join. But I sent a picture of myself at the club’s lunch table to my former colleague, who told me – giddy with excitement – that the Finger Things Club had tickets to The Office Experience for the following week!

We sat at Toby’s desk and spied on his email to David Wallace, and we attempted to play Chair Ball – I was not very good at it.

Steve spilled Kevin’s chili! What a mess!

More fun details! Angela and Dwight, immortalized in art… A movie poster for “Threat Level: Midnight” starring Michael Scarn… Pam and Jim’s wedding outfits with the aisle dance scene playing on a loop… it was all just perfect, and so well thought-out, and we had an absolute blast.

Totally worth a night out, even with an early flight the next day!

by

2022 in Books: By the Numbers

Well, January has rolled around again and it’s that time – time for a bookish look-back at 2022! I don’t do too many New Years-themed posts anymore – gone are the days of painstakingly going through the previous year’s resolutions and setting new goals, intentions and words for the upcoming year. But I do still enjoy looking back at the year in reading – and especially at this post, where I break down the year’s worth of books and totally nerd out on data. Let’s get to it, shall we?

First of all, let’s look at the big picture. According to Goodreads, I read 112 books in 2022, for a grand total of nearly 29,000 pages read. Yowsa! So… that’s not entirely accurate, for a couple of reasons. One, I got credit for one book I started at the tail end of 2021 and finished on New Year’s Day. Two, I was mid-way through two books at the end of 2022 and finished those on January 1, 2023, so they’ll count toward this year’s totals. And three, as always, I’m not precious about the edition I record on Goodreads, so some of the page counts might be inaccurate. But I think it all comes out in the wash, and this was a good year of reading indeed.

The longest book I read was The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, which clocks in at 704 pages. (That’s a doorstopper. I read it on my kindle.) And the shortest book – also a kindle book, interestingly – was The Wimsey Papers, by Dorothy L. Sayers – just a little collection of letters between Wimsey family members and friends during World War II; a great read if you’re a fan of the Lord Peter mysteries.

On average, according to Goodreads, my books were around 258 pages. I’d say that’s pretty standard.

The most popular book I read in 2022 was Chinua Achebe’s classic Things Fall Apart. I’m heartened to see how many other people shelved that one this year – gives me hope for humanity. But on the flip side, only eighteen other people shelved Diplomatic Passport – now that’s a travesty; y’all are missing out on a wonderful read. Go pick that one up immediately.

All right – time to get really nerdy. Who’s ready to dive into some data?

First of all, zooming in a little on the books I read this year, just over half – about 56% – were fiction. I’m usually around 50/50 fiction and non-fiction, so this is slightly more heavily weighted to the fiction side, but not by much. On the other side of the equation, I read eight volumes of poetry this year, which is a lot for me – but I think I can explain it. I usually have a poem-a-day anthology going, but this year I read my way through four seasonal anthologies – A Poem for Every Winter Day, and so forth. So that’s four titles where I’d normally have one. And finally, journals – which really probably belong in the non-fiction category but I’m not re-doing this chart – were a little light this year. I usually read each of the four quarterly issues of Slightly Foxed and possibly a few back issues, but I haven’t gotten to the winter issue yet.

Zooming in a bit more, this time on the fiction genres: 2022 was heavily weighted toward classics; my classics count was more than double the count of the next-biggest chunk (mysteries). And that’s not even accounting for the fact that many of the mysteries I read are classics in their own rights. I’ve always been a big classics reader, so this is no surprise. What is a bit of a surprise: I usually have at least a few good handfuls of other genres, but 2022 was very light on pretty much everything else – only two general fiction titles, two historical fiction, and three literary fiction – no sci-fi or fantasy at all. Perhaps it’s just that as life gets busier and more hectic, and the news on the front page gets worse, I tend to gravitate toward my comfort zone. I do like to challenge myself – don’t get me wrong – but some years I just want to read what I want to read, and that means more Bronte and less speculative fiction, ya know?

Non-fiction was a bit more varied, but with three major categories. I always read a lot in the books about books genre; my totals are creeping up year over year in the nature-and-gardens category, and I love a good memoir. This year, my biography and memoirs title is slightly inflated by diaries – I read at least three.

All right, let’s zoom back out to the total and look at the sex of the authors I was reading. No surprise here – I am heavily weighted towards female authors. This isn’t unusual at all, and I think if anything male authors might be better represented on 2022’s list than they were on previous years’ lists. (The guys probably have Stephen Moss to thank for that. I think I read four of his books in 2022?) I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not seeking out more non-binary authors; there might be some on here, and I just don’t know about it, but I definitely didn’t read any specifically last year. (Various authors accounts for collections in which both men and women were represented.)

As for the source of the book – i.e. where I got it from – this chart has flipped almost on its head from previous years! Starting in 2020, I really began to try to read more books from my own shelf (with an ultimate goal of reading every book I own – which is going to take me a few more years…). I did pick up a few books from the library, but the vast – vast – majority of my 2022 books came from my own shelves. (And by shelves, I mean not only my physical bookshelves but also the virtual shelves on my kindle and my Audible app.) Oh, and I did borrow two books last year, not from the library, so I have to give shouts to Steve for loaning me Invisible Man, and Peanut for letting me borrow and read Yummy: A History of Desserts. (Can I say, you guys? Borrowing a book from Peanut for the first time was a Bookish Mom Moment for me. Heart flutters.)

In 2023, I think I’ll see the library slice of this pie grow a little – largely because I have a list of books I want to read soon (for a reading challenge I have set myself) but don’t want to buy. But I’ll still mostly be working through my own shelves and I’m happy about that.

While we’re zoomed out, let’s discuss the format of the book. This is one area – perhaps the only area – where I definitely did diversify in 2022. While the bulk of my reading was still in physical book form, I hit ten eBooks and nine audiobooks, a definite change from years past. The eBook total was driven up by all of the traveling I did last year – between business trips and family travel I was on planes almost every month in 2022, and I prefer not to carry physical books with me. The audiobook total is new though, and represents a conscious effort I made to listen to more audiobooks in 2022. I cleared out my podcatcher and started alternating between listening to an audiobook and then going back to the podcatcher and listening to the episodes that had stacked up in the meantime, and, well – you can see the results. (Will this continue into 2023? I hope so, and I hope for even more audiobooks in next year’s version of this post. But I should note that Steve activated my Spotify account, so music is creeping back into my listening, too – not that I’m complaining.)

Finally, one more chart – always a fun one to look back on – settings! My 2022 books were heavily weighted toward England. I mean, WOW. Almost 60% in England alone, and the rest of the world has to duke it out for the remaining 40-ish%. Usually, England and the USA are roughly equal on my list, often trading back and forth, but there was no contest this year; I read six times as many books set in England as in my home country. In fact, the second largest category was books that had no setting (poetry, journals, and things like advice books or essays that were not geographically grounded in any country). Seven were set in continental Europe and/or Scotland; ten had more than one setting that was equally important to the narrative (like Patsy, where the action was divided 50/50 between the United States and Jamaica), and Africa, Asia and the Caribbean were not well-represented. (This is due largely to my reading so much from my own shelves, and the fact that most of the books I own happen to be classics of English literature. That’s a fault in my own shelves, but I am trying not to buy many new books until I’ve read more of the ones I already own, so it’s going to be the way things are for awhile yet. In the meantime, I often choose diverse authors and settings when I do go to the library, which I think I’ll do a bit more in 2023. So – no goals around this, but I’m tracking on it.)

Whew! That’s a lot of numbers and a lot of information. 2022 was a good year in reading, measured by the only stat that really counts – whether I enjoyed myself or not, and I certainly DID. What did your 2022 in books look like?

Next week, my top ten! Check in with me then.