Happy Monday, y’all!  How were your weekends?  Who watched the Superbowl?  I mostly just read.  We had a fun weekend, though.  My mom is in town visiting for a week and the kids are over the moon.  Speaking of the moon, you can probably hear the excited screams even from up there.  Nana = rock star.  She arrived on Friday afternoon and so we’ve had an entire weekend of Nana fun, plus squeezing in our regularly planned activities.  On Saturday I took Peanut to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s – it. was. intense.  I came home with a sore throat from screaming things like “HOW WAS YOUR NEW YEAR’S?” and “LET’S HAVE COFFEE NEXT WEEK” at the other moms.  Peanut had a good time; she was apprehensive at first, as is her way, but she got into it by the end of the party and asked me if we could come back tomorrow.  (NO.)  On Sunday I had the First Down 5K on my calendar and my mom was up for an impromptu race (it was her second 5K!) so we had a good time taking walk breaks running.  I have a lot of work to do before I’ll be ready for the Parkway Classic this spring, though.  The rest of Sunday was spent hanging out, stapling my eyelids open so I could work while the kids napped, and reading my book (We Love You, Charlie Freeman) during the Superbowl.  And now we’re back to reality.  Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Reading.  After finishing The Making of a Marchioness last Monday night, I treated myself to one more comfort read – Pomfret Towers, which I enjoyed mightily – before turning back to my library stack.  Fortunately, I had plenty of good choices for Black History Month.  I started with one of Maya Angelou’s autobiographies – Mom & Me & Mom.  I’ve only read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and had no idea she was such a prolific memoirist.  Can’t wait to read more.  Mom was hauntingly lovely.  Then I switched over to a relatively new release, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, which I’d been saving for Black History Month.  Due to my hectic weekend, I’m not far into it yet, but I am liking the beginning very much.

Watching.  Something other than Rock the Park this week!  Well, first of all, there was the Superbowl.  I never really watch – just enjoy the anthems and halftime entertainment, and some of the more big-budget commercials.  Other than that – since my mom is in town, we’re re-watching The Crown so she can see it.  It’s very much her style of show (she’s a big Downton fan, too) but she doesn’t have Netflix at home.  And I’ve also seen a video about baby orangutans, and another about baby elephants playing in a nature preserve, more times than I can count this week.  Certain short people are really into the zoo these days.

Listening.  I have a little over an hour to go in the money management course I’ve been listening to on Audible.  Some parts of it are more helpful to me than other parts.  (For example, the part about whether it’s really a smart investment to obtain higher education?  After college and law school, I’m afraid that ship has sailed.)  But the retirement planning lecture, the lecture on mortgages, and the lectures on investment basics have all been really informative.  Still, I’m getting a bit sick of investment talk and ready to get back to Middlemarch and/or my podcatcher.

Making.  Nothing at all.  Well, I’ve made lots of work memos this week, and one very fiddly Excel spreadsheet.

Blogging.  Bookish week coming up for you!  On Wednesday I have my reading round-up for January (a bit late, but I had to squeeze those lists in last week) and on Friday, some recommendations for Black History Month reading.  Check back!

Loving.  Running a 5K (my first in awhile!) with my mom.  We were both untrained and slow, but it was fun.  We enjoyed the scenery (Washington Monument!) and griping about the wind and the distance, and seeing the kids waving us on gave us a good kick at the finish line.  I need to run more – I always miss it when I take a long break, and it’s so hard to pick it back up again.  Much better to just be in the habit!

Asking.  What are you reading/watching/loving this week?

Yay, book superlatives!  This is one of my favorite posts of the year to write.  Giving high school yearbook awards to the books I read over the course of the previous year just tickles me right in the funny bone.  Y’all know what this is about, so no more preface – let’s get down to it.

Brainiest.  This year’s valedictorian was… Marilynne Robinson, again!  One of the first books I read in 2016 was also one of the smartest.  I didn’t understand a word of When I Was a Child I Read Books, but I’m hoping my brain got bigger for reading it.

Best Looking.  Kathryn Aalto wins this category for The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh, which I devoured this summer.  Gorgeous pictures of the flora and fauna of Ashdown Forest, interspersed with E.H. Shepard’s illustrations from Winnie-the-Pooh – no one else could compete.

Best Friends.  Kamala and Bruno have the sweetest, most adorable, most supportive and nerdiest friendship in Jersey City.  (Of course Bruno has to go and complicate it.  Maybe next year they’ll move to the “Cutest Couple” category, but for now these BFFs get “Best Friends” honors.)

Class Clown.  The award goes to Mindy Kaling!  (Again?  Has she won before?  I can’t keep track.)  Why Not Me? got some mixed reviews, but for my part, I found it hilarious – especially Mindy’s reinvention of herself as a wannabe-party girl Latin teacher at a posh NYC prep school.  Who else but Mindy would construct an elaborate fantasy world in which her colleagues hate her?

Biggest Jock.  It was a decidedly un-athletic class this year, so the pickings were slim.  Biggest Jock has to go, for lack of anyone more muscley, to Robert Langdon, whose daily swimming habit saves his life when he gets dropped from a papal helicopter into the river in Rome during one of the climactic scenes of Angels and Demons.  Swimming.  It saves symbologists.

Teacher’s Pet.  Elena gets the title, for her determination to succeed in school just so she can have one area of life where she is more brilliant than her brilliant friend Lila.

Biggest Nerd.  Kamala again, because how can I not give “Biggest Nerd” to the teen superhero who geeks out at meeting Wolverine, star of her most up-voted fanfic?

Most Creative.  One of my favorite books of the year, To the Bright Edge of the World takes the award for “Most Creative.”  I wouldn’t want to meet that raven man in a dark alley.

Most Opinionated.  I read a lot of fantastic books on important issues this year, so this was a tough category to decide – but it has to go to Jesmyn Ward for her roundup of essays on the African-American experience.  Not an easy read, but easily one of the most important books of the early 21st century.

Most Likely to End Up in Hollywood.  The Regional Office is Under Attack! was written as if it was just begging to be made into an action film.  It was nowhere near my favorite book of the year, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it ended up on the big screen.

Biggest Rebel.  The ten dollar founding father without a father gets the title this year – how could he not?  2016 continued my obsession with all things Hamilton, including Hamilton: the Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s libretto of the Broadway musical that is changing the face (literally) of theatre.

Biggest Loner.  She never actually got to be alone, between the prison and the insane asylum, but Grace Marks was definitely That Weird Kid.

Cutest Couple.  In a stunning upset, Marko and Alana win this one!  They’re not exactly the popular kids (every bounty hunter in the galaxy is out to kill them) but every so often there’s a surprise in yearbook voting.

Most Likely to Succeed.  When the stakes are high enough, failure is not an option.  So say The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu, and you should listen to them.

Way too much fun!  Who were the valedictorians, prom queens and quarterbacks of your reading list last year?

Well, here we are marking yet another shift on the calendar.  Although 2016 was a lousy year in many ways (and I’m not minimizing that at all!) I did have a darn decent year in reading.  There were some major bookish highlights (there always are!) and no real low points to speak of (nothing I hated, no reading slumps).  Rather than stretch this out into two posts, as I used to do, I’m curtailing the New Year’s content this year and giving you just one big monster of a post (to be followed by Book Superlatives, because I can’t not do those.)  Before I dive into the details, there were a few over-arching themes I noticed in my reading life this year:

• I continued to be a heavy library user (read on!) and 2016 also marked the transition to a new library system.  When I started the year, we were living in Buffalo and I was making good use of the Buffalo and Erie County library system.  In July, we moved back to the Washington, D.C. area and I immediately got myself an Alexandria library card and started giving it a workout.
• 2016 also saw me returning – very slowly – to audiobooks.  Back in 2013, when I was driving myself to work in D.C., I used to listen to audiobooks quite frequently – always on CDs that I checked out of the Fairfax County library system.  In 2016, I took the plunge and joined Audible.  I’ve only listened to a couple of selections, and only completed one book.  (My first download was a full-cast dramatization of all six of Jane Austen’s novels.  I listened to that in its entirety but didn’t count it as a book in my tallies.)  I listened to The Murder at the Vicarage via Audible, got about halfway through Middlemarch (35 hours!) and downloaded a few more.  I’m hoping to have more listening time in 2017 as I’ve ruthlessly culled my podcast subscriptions to just a few that I really, really enjoy.
• I continued to read and enjoy exploring in the world of comics!  In 2016 I read through the entire trade oeuvres of Saga and Ms. Marvel and made good progress on Fables.  I found quite a few comics under the Christmas tree, so I can’t wait to dig into even more in the coming year.

Okay, enough with the preamble.  Let’s talk statistics, shall we?

By the Numbers

Starting with the basics: I read 101 books in 2016!  That’s one more than my official Goodreads goal of 100, but three fewer than my sort-of not-really would-be-nice goal of 104 (two per week).  Still, in a year during which I moved twice, had two kids ages four and under at home, spent several months traveling for job interviews, and finally started a new job, I think 101 is darn good.

My longest book was The Romanovs: 1613-1918, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which clocked in at a doorstopping 745 pages.  My shortest book was almost 700 fewer pages, but packed just as large of a punch – We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, was a slim 49 pages and every single word in those 49 pages was thoughtful, well-reasoned and persuasive.

Pass the Pie, Please

At the end of the year, I love to sit down and look back on who, what, where and how I read.  Combing through my end-of-year statistics and creating the charts is time-consuming, but it’s always worth doing (for me, at least) – both as a record for myself and as a way to inform my reading goals, if I’m making any, for the upcoming year.

Fiction/Non-Fiction

Starting with one of the easiest!  I’ve always been a big fiction reader, and 2016 was no exception.  Of the 101 books I read last year, 77 were fiction.  Even for me, that’s a lot.  There’s not much to say about this one.  I’m comfortable with my general practice of reading whatever I please (or whatever is popping up in my library holds queue) and if that means I’m reading mostly fiction, I’m A-Okay with it.

Format of Book

2016 was notable because I expanded my book formats a fair amount.  I’m usually at or close to 100% paper books, and in 2016 I was much more varied.  A few thoughts:

• I still read mostly paper books – 73 out of 100 were either paperbacks or hardbacks.
• In 2015, I started reading comics.  Last year, when I reviewed my reading stats for 2015, I considered “comics” a genre – even though I knew it was really a format.  This year, I’ve corrected that error.  And I note that of the 101 books I read, 19 were in the form of comics.  I am a trade paperback reader, so these are all collections of between four and six issues.
• I also started reading ebooks again.  Last spring, I realized that I could download classics for free, via iBooks, and read them on my phone, and I read several books that way.  Shortly thereafter, I discovered that reading books on my phone gives me migraines – oops.  Fortunately, around the same time, I got a (free!) kindle paperwhite – so the book downloading continued and I got some use out of my kindle.  Only eight books out of 101, but a good start!
• Finally, in 2016 I joined Audible and rekindled my love affair with listening to books.  Back in 2013, when I was commuting by car but Steve and I had stopped carpooling, I listened to audiobooks – on CDs, checked out of the Fairfax County library system – on my commute.  I got out of the habit when we moved to Buffalo, but picked it back up again last year.  So, why only one audiobook on there, when I’ve been an Audible member for months?  Well, my first download was a full-cast dramatization of all six Jane Austen novels, which I didn’t count as a “book” in my totals.  Then I listened to – and did complete – Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage, so that’s the one audiobook you see.  My next choice was Middlemarch (after I returned a couple of audiobooks after listening to about half the content because I didn’t care for them and didn’t want to own them) and it’s taking awhile.  It’s 35 hours long and it turns out that Nugget doesn’t like George Eliot.  I know, he’s crazy.  Finally, podcasts took up an inordinate amount of my earbud time last year, which also held my audiobook stats down.  I’ve recently gone through a ruthless purge of my podcatcher, so I’m hoping that will mean more time on Audible in 2017.

Source of Book

Anyone surprised to see the giant slice of this pie chart devoted to the library?  I’m a heavy public library user, and 74 out of 101 books is actually pretty low for me.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, and foremost, I moved library systems mid-year, so there was a chunk of a few weeks when I was between libraries and had no choice but to read my own books.  (I was also on vacation at the time, and most of my paper books were packed away, so I relied heavily on my kindle during that time.)  Second, I did venture into new territory, reading several ebooks on my phone (three, to be precise) and on my kindle (five).  And then there was that one lonely audiobook.  I’m always talking a big game about reading more from my own shelves, but – I’ve got to be honest – I don’t see these proportions changing much in coming years.  I just love my public library way too much.

Fiction Genres

Diving a bit more into the weeds, I went through my list and broke both fiction and non-fiction down into genres.  Above you can see my fiction chart.  First – a word about methodology.  These genre assignments are totally subjective; they’re just my gut reactions about which books belong where.  If you looked at my list, you might break it down completely differently.  But this list represents my best estimation of the fiction genres I read this year.

• Holy cats!  Get a load of that sci-fi/fantasy category!  I’ve never been a big SF/F genre reader, but I guess this year that genre really pulled me in.  The reason?  Comics.  I classified Saga and Ms. Marvel as science fiction, and Fables as fantasy.  That, right there, covers almost the entire 24 books (although there were a few others – Kindred, the N.K. Jemisins, The Invasion of the Tearling…).  Upon reflecting, I thought perhaps I should have actually broken the genre out into separate categories for science fiction and fantasy – but I didn’t.  Oh, well.  Maybe next year, although to be honest I think this year will be an outlier in the SF/F genre.
• Classics and literary fiction are always heavy hitters for me.  I was delighted to have read so many classics this year – 17 of them!  Mid-century British middlebrow helped the numbers out a fair amount.  Barbara Pym, E.M. Delafield, Dorothy Whipple, Angela Thirkell – more, please!  And 2016 will stand out for classics as the year I first read Trollope.  I’m now an unabashedly enthusiastic Trollope fangirl.
• Lots of genre this year.  I’m always surprised not to see more mysteries on the list, but seven is respectable.  And nine historical fiction novels!  (Plus one of the books I classified as short stories – A Tyranny of Petticoats – could have fit in the hi-fi genre, too.  See what I mean about it being subjective?)

Non-Fiction Genres

Pretty typical grouping here.  I can always be counted on for a big chunk of history and current events, and memoir – as usual – was my other big category.  New this year – essays!  I can’t believe I read four books of essays.  Hope to keep that up in 2017.  And I’d love to read more nature writing, as well.

Settings

I’m always interested to see where I’m reading.  Again, a quick word on methodology – this isn’t an exact science.  I classified Fables, for instance, as being set in a “fictional world,” even though most of the action takes place in Fabletown, a magic secret apartment building in Manhattan – because the plot revolves around the Fables’ exile from their (fictional) fairy-tale world, the Homelands.  Wherever possible, I did try to assign a setting, and I picked the setting that seemed most important to the plot or the characters’ identity, even where it wasn’t where the bulk of the action took place.  You might have classified things differently, but these are the settings that seemed right to me, and well, it’s my chart.

• This chart covers both fiction and non-fiction, which is why there’s a category for “no setting.”  The books in that category were mostly parenting and organizational manuals.
• As usual, the vast majority of my reading “took place” in the United Kingdom and the United States – 62 out of 101 books in those two categories alone.  Even in a year when I was making a conscious effort to read diversely, I seem to gravitate toward familiar geographical settings.  Something to be aware of (I was already aware).
• Curious about the one book that took place on “the High Seas”?  It was Every Man for Himself, Beryl Bainbridge’s modern classic that takes place on the Titanic.  Shiver.

Diverse Voices

I’m prouder of this pie chart than any other.  Back in January, I set a goal to read at least 33% of my books from diverse voices – whether that meant racial diversity or other underrepresented groups (Muslims, LGBT folks).  At the end of the year, I found that 41 out of my 101 books were from underrepresented voices – that’s 40.5%!  I am pleased, delighted, proud, and galvanized to keep that trend going into 2017.  Some thoughts:

• Comics really helped my total.  I counted not only writers, but illustrators, as in my opinion they drive the creative process of generating a comic just as much as the writers do.  As a result, I was able to count all six volumes of Saga toward my diverse voices totals.  And G. Willow Wilson (Muslim), writer of the five volumes of Ms. Marvel that I read, helped the total too.
• Without comics, I’m not sure I would have met my goal of 33% representation – as hard as I was trying.  I tend to gravitate toward classics, and there are not many classic works by writers of color – because of historic and institutionalized racism.  I know that there are well-documented and serious problems with representation in comics (especially by women) and I do not want to minimize that at all.  But the fact is, it’s easier to read diverse voices when reading comics, because you can pick up a series like Ms. Marvel and knock off five volumes in five days.  (I know, because I did that.)
• Getting to 40.5% representation took hard, sincere and determined work on my part.  I’m not saying that to congratulate myself; rather, I’m trying to point out a major flaw in publishing and advertising institutions.  I was constantly on the lookout for books by writers of color, making notes during podcasts and scanning internet lists for more titles to seek out.  Had I not made it a priority to find these books and chase them down, they would not have found me.  This is a problem with the system.
• In addition to the 41 books represented in the chart, two of the “non-diverse” books were actually well-written and thoughtful examinations of topics affecting people of color.  Both The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (about a group of heroic African librarians who saved thousands of priceless manuscripts from al Qaeda) and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (about an African-American cancer patient whose cells were harvested from her without her knowledge and used to create billions of dollars in scientific advances) were written by white writers.  Both were good, important, worthwhile books, but I didn’t count them as “diverse,” because although they touched on that experience they were not written from within the communities on which they focused.

Diversity in My Booklist

Last pie chart!  Diving just a bit more into the weeds, a quick look at the different voices who made up that 41 number I’m so proud of.

• No big surprise – almost half of my 41 diverse titles were by African and African Diaspora authors.  (A quick note on terminology: I did some research on the proper terms to use here and there is no universal agreement.  I settled on African Diaspora because that is the term used by the African Union to identify people of African descent who live outside of the continent, wherever they happen to live.  The African Diaspora in my booklist is mostly African-American, although there was one author resident in Europe – the U.K., specifically.  If I give offense by use of the term, please accept my apology and know that it is unintentional – the result of my best efforts to find the right terminology – and if you know of a more appropriate phrase or term, I always want to learn.)
• I wish there had been more LGBTQ+ representation.  (There’s more than it looks like, because one author got placed in the “multiple” category for being both LGBT and Asian.)  There would have been, had I found the time for a Lumberjanes re-read.  In 2017!

Top Ten: Favorite Books Of The Year

Still with me?  I have one last item for you.  I usually break this out into a separate post, but, well, the New Year’s content is already stretching into the third week in January.  Quite frankly, I don’t want to spend the entire month on 2016 recaps and 2017 plans, so I’m combining what usually makes up two posts into one big monster (as noted above).  So, without further preamble, and in no particular order, my ten favorite books of 2016:

• To the Bright Edge of the World, by Eowyn Ivey.
• Love Wins, by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell.
• Greenbanks, by Dorothy Whipple.

• Hamilton: The Revolution, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter.
• March: Book Two, by Representative John Lewis.
• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope.

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot.
• We Should All Be Feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee.
• The Summer Before the War, by Helen Simonson.

Tough choices, as always!  It was a great year in reading.  If you’ve made it this far, fist bumps to you.  And now – onward and upward!

What was the best thing you read in 2016?

Well, here we are at the start of the ride again!  How was your weekend?  We had a good one over here – not a lot of fun, per se, but we checked a few items off of our to-do lists, which always feels nice.  On Friday I worked from home because we had an appointment in the morning, and I got a surprising amount of work done.  I usually find the office less distracting and preferable for work, but I guess last week was the exception.  The weekend was devoted to chores, errands, and more chores and errands (and squeezing in a bit more lawyer work – I got up early on Sunday morning and churned out a project while the rest of the house slept, and then greeted them all with breakfast cooking and extreme smug).  Nugget and I made a massive Target run on Saturday while Steve and Peanut worked at home on assembling Peanut’s new bookshelf, and then I got home and blew through her room like a tornado of cleaning.  I love how it turned out – the room looks so much lighter and brighter with the new white shelf than it did with the old pallet shelf (which we inherited from the previous tenants of our townhouse).  And, bonus, the new shelf is a lot sturdier – in that it doesn’t appear likely to fall down at any given moment.  We didn’t get through the entire to-do list – our Christmas tree is still up and we desperately need to make a Goodwill run, but the kids’ rooms are clean for once, and that alone feels like a huge victory.  Every single item I check off the (miles long) to-do list brings me closer to the day when I can sit outside with a cup of tea and a book for an entire nap and feel zero guilt about it.  Won’t that be nice?

Reading.  Pretty productive reading week.  I’m not necessarily trying to read as many books this year as I did last year, but you’d hardly know that from my pace lately.  I finished The Wangs vs. the World on Wednesday and Mr. Churchill’s Secretary on Friday.  (The first in a new-to-me mystery series, and I really enjoyed it.)  Now fortified with light reads, I’m working my way through The Underground Railroad, one of the big buzz books of 2016.  It’s pretty brutal and extremely hard to read, but I have a feeling that I will be glad I read it; it’s certainly a Very Important Book That People Should Read.

Watching.  Still totally obsessed with Rock the Park.  Steve and I are watching an episode or two a night (they’re only twenty minutes long, so it’s not a huge time commitment).  We just finished watching the episode in which the hosts visit Joshua Tree National Park – which is one of the places on our list to (hopefully) visit this year.  So I was particularly excited to see that episode, and it got me pumped to visit the park myself.  (Jack and Colton did some rock climbing in that episode, which I’d love to do but probably won’t.  I took rock climbing in college and really loved it, but Steve is not a huge fan of heights.)

Listening.  Currently in my earbuds is the first 2017 episode of Sorta Awesome – “Is tech taking over your life?”  Ummmmm, YES.  Other great recent listens included the latest episode of Tea or Books, in which Simon and Rachel debated “lists: yes or no?” and two R.C. Sherriff novels – Greengates and The Fortnight in September.  I have The Fortnight in September and have been itching to read it; they made me even itchier.  And of course, Hamiltunes – always Hamiltunes.  Nugget now sings along with “My Shot,” and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever heard.

Making.  Gigantic piles of toys in my upstairs hallway.  Part of the weekend project involved a massive purging of the toys in Peanut’s room.  She helped me choose which books from her shelf should go to Nugget’s room (of course, anyone is welcome to read any book they find, no matter what room it’s in – house rules!).  But the toys are a bit trickier.  I’ve kept all of her favorite toys in her room and I think she’s really going to prefer having less stuff, once she gets used to it – this way, she can actually find her best lovies and favorite puzzles without having to dig through piles of junk.  (I’m also hoping this means fewer trips up to her room to locate a beloved stuffed friend in the midst of a tantrum.  If the room is always clean, we’ll always know where Corduroy is…)  But with all the excess piled in the hallway, of course she wants it ALL back in her room.  The next thing I’ve got to make for this project is… some decisions about where the cleared-out toys are going to go.

Blogging.  It’s New Year’s!  (Well, okay, that was last week.  But I’m just getting around to posting my resolution recaps and my goals for next year.  It’s going to be a very New Yearsy kind of week around here.  As always, I have high hopes for a great year ahead – so check back!

Asking.  What’s the best thing you read last week?

How is everyone settling into 2017?  I am apparently just as frazzled and discombobulated as ever, because I accidentally scheduled both my regular Monday post and my December reading roundup – which was supposed to go live on Wednesday – on Monday the 2nd.  Oops!  Off to a great start, right?  So instead of changing the reading roundup post back to “scheduled” status, I decided to just pop in with an unplanned post – unplanned, but something I always meant to do at some point in January – a post about the kids’ Christmas book haul!  Santa always brings lots of books to our house – for the whole family.  But as excited as I always am to open my own bookish gifts, I think my favorite part of Christmas is choosing – that is, helping Santa choose – the kids’ books.

Advent (and post-Christmas) Books

Adding to our family Christmas library is one of my beloved Advent traditions.  When Peanut was very small and we had no Christmas library to speak of, I went a little crazy buying piles of picture books and board books.  Needless to say, we have a pretty extensive holiday library now, so I’m adding to it at a much slower rate – one book per kid, each year.  This year, they received:

• Apple Tree Christmas, by Trinka Hakes Noble (for Peanut)
• Little Blue Truck’s Christmas, by Alice Schertle (for Nugget)

In addition to the Advent books, I couldn’t resist adding a new book celebrating winter, just a few days after Christmas.  Peanut has a book called Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt, and we both love reading it together – the text is practically poetry and the illustrations are stunning.  On a whim, I checked on Amazon to see if the author had any other (similar) books and saw that she has also written a winter book.  Despite the piles of books under the tree, I knew that I the kids should have it.  So I immediately ordered:

• Over and Under the Snow, by Kate Messner

Peanut’s Haul (From Santa)

I’ve had to break Peanut’s book haul into two groups, because it was too big to fit in one picture.  Anyone surprised by that?  No?  Anyway, she did very well.  Santa had a blast choosing her books and I think he picked very well:

• The Book With No Pictures, by B.J. Novak
• Little Women: A Playtime Primer (Babylit), by Jennifer Adams
• Book Speak: Poems About Books, by Laura Purdie Salas
• Katie in London (Katie Books), by James Mayhew
• Going West (My First Little House Books), by Laura Ingalls Wilder
• Adventures in Brambly Hedge (Brambly Hedge Box Sets), by Jill Barklem

Peanut’s Haul (From Relatives)

Peanut also was spoiled by her friends and relatives, receiving:

• Professor Astro Cat’s Frontier’s of Space, by Dominic Walliman (from Aunt Rebecca)
• Every Day Birds, by Amy Vanderwater (from Grandpa and Grandma Lynn)
• Drum Dream Girl, by Margarita Engle (from Grandma)
• Star Wars (Search and Find), (from Nana and Grandad)
• The Story of Peppa Pig, (from Nana and Grandad)
• Hermione Granger Character Guide, (from Nana and Grandad)
• Harry Potter Character Guide, (from Nana and Grandad)

Nugget’s Haul

Nugget’s books being smaller, somehow I was able to cram them all into one picture.  As you can see, he also did well.  From Santa, Nugget received:

• A Stick is an Excellent Thing: Poems Celebrating Outdoor Play, by Marilyn Singer
• A Day at the Fire Station, by Richard Scarry
• Busy Busy Town, by Richard Scarry
• Jamberry, by Bruce Degen
• The Odyssey: A Monsters Primer (Babylit), by Jennifer Adams

He was spoiled by friends and relatives, too:

• Steam Train, Dream Train, by Sherri Duskey Rinker (from Grandma)
• The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats (from Aunt Rebecca)
• The Little Engine That Could, by Watty Piper (from Nana and Grandad)
• Thomas the Train Engine Hidden Surprises (from Nana and Grandad)

I feel like I must be leaving something out.  The Christmas books have already been scattered around the house, so I probably did forget something when I was gathering them up.  Sorry to anyone whose book I left out – we appreciated it, you can trust me on that one!  There can never be too many books in this house.

Did Santa leave any books under your tree?

Happy New Year, my friends!  I know we’re all excited for a clean slate and a brand new page on the calendar.  I ended the year in a burst of productivity – spending chunks of the long weekend making major unpacking progress in our bedroom (one of the two rooms in the house – the dining room being the other – that are still in really rough shape) and on our 2016 family yearbook.  I always mean to get ahead of that project early in the year, and I never do – oh, well.  It’s a good winter afternoon activity.  We squeezed in fun as well: a few walks to the waterfront, a morning petting the farm animals at Mount Vernon, and our traditional New Year’s Eve fondue.  For the last weekend of the year, it was a good mix of family fun and actually checking things off of my to-do list (which you know I love to do).  So, pretty darn good.

Reading.  Not the most productive reading weekend, although I did almost completely catch up on my bookish podcasts (more on that to come).  I ended up abandoning Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, because it just wasn’t doing it for me.  (Don’t know if it’s the book, me, or my kid – but the method wasn’t for us.)  Toward the end of the week, I read Princesses Behaving Badly, which was a lot of fun and such a different approach to history.  Being in the trenches of the Princess Wars myself, I liked reading about some non-Disney royalty.  Next I picked up The Wangs vs. the World, which I’m enjoying but which is slow going because I keep putting it down to work on house chores.  That’s not the fault of the book – that one’s on me.  It’s due back to the library tomorrow, so I’ll have to get a move on.  Next up, I think, will be The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead.

Watching.  Steve and I fired up a new show on New Year’s Eve and we are now totally obsessed.  After hearing Rebecca mention “Rock the Park” on the All the Books! podcast, I knew we had to check it out.  We are loving it, cracking jokes about the hosts and drinking in the gorgeous scenery.  So far, we’ve watched the episodes on Katmai, Glacier Bay (my favorite thus far), North Cascades and Olympic.  Of course, it’s giving us serious travel itches, but we have at least three national parks on our 2017 agenda, so we’ll get the chance to rock some parks this year.

Listening.  As I mentioned above, I’ve almost completely cleaned out my podcatcher, thanks to all the time spent on unpacking this weekend.  Best episode I’ve listened to recently has to have been the “Drunk Booksellers” episode featuring Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness of “Books on the Nightstand” fame.  I’m cranking through episodes and looking forward to dropping back in on my Audible app – I’ve got several credits to spend and still about twenty hours of Middlemarch to listen to.  My earbuds are busy.

Making.  Lots and lots and lots of unpacking progress!  At the beginning of the weekend, the three large windows in my bedroom were almost completely blocked by boxes.  Now 1.5 of them are free and there is so much more light in there – it feels great to have some sunlight streaming in!  I’m on a roll and can barely convince myself to stop and get my other house projects done.

Blogging.  I might be excited for a fresh slate and a new year, but this week on the blog I’m still stuck in the past.  Two recaps coming for you – December’s reading on Wednesday, and my traditional look back at 2016 on Friday.  January’s always packed with new year’s content – including a review of goals from the previous year, setting goals and picking a word for the upcoming year, and my three-part year in reading series.  I have some more good content planned as well, so do keep checking in.

Asking.  Did you have a good New Year’s?

I’m on record as being a huge Harry Potter nerd, and also as wishing and scheming up a four-book series focusing on the founders of Hogwarts (one book for each founder).  Please, Jo?  It’s a good idea!  It’s a way better idea than that ridiculous play (which I will totally see when it eventually comes to New York or DC).  I feel like there is so much story to be told in the founding of Hogwarts.  Was Salazar Slytherin a straight-up baddie, or was he a more complex character?  What exactly went down when Slytherin and Gryffindor had their famous falling out?  How did Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw figure into the whole thing?  What were the reverberations down the centuries?  And was there a romance between Gryffindor and Ravenclaw (as I’ve always hoped there was)?  I mean, the whole thing is awash in potential.

So I was delighted to find that there are others who share my belief that the founders’ story is begging to be told.  Recently I was catching up on some back episodes of the MuggleCast podcast (I’m working my way though my poor neglected podcatcher) and in episode 300, the MuggleCast crew was discussing additional opportunities they saw for Jo to expand the wizarding world canon, and the founders came up – as I knew they would.  The MuggleCasters thought a limited TV series would be a good vehicle for telling their story and landed on Netflix as a possible candidate to work up such a project.  (They also considered HBO.  Personally, I think Netflix would be a better choice, although HBO certainly has the resources.  But the stuff Netflix has been doing recently is just gold, so they’d be my pick for sure.)  Anyway, I’m completely on board with a limited TV series, or a run of films, focusing on the founders – but first I want my founders books.  (I’m thinking that 700-850 pages per founders novel would be a nice sweet spot, although I could go up to 1,000 or 1,200 or so.  I think that’s reasonable.  Right?)

However, in the event that Jo finishes my book series and they start turning it into a television or film production, clearly we would need to cast the founders.  I’ve been giving this some thought and here’s the cast I like:

Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor

Richard Madden as Godric Gryffindor – This was the MuggleCast suggestion, and I’m sticking with it because I think it’s perfect.  And not just because Richard Madden is nice to look at (even though he is).  I loved him as headstrong, swashbuckling Robb Stark in Game of Thrones (and secretly preferred Robb to Jon Snow even though I know that Jon Snow is everyone else’s favorite).  I could see Richard Madden playing a Gryffindor who is very, very set on doing right by the wizarding community, but who gets a bit sidetracked and distracted by adventures from time to time, and who also digs in and refuses to consider other points of view.  Perhaps that’s what leads to the famous break with Slytherin?  I’d like to see how Madden would play that.

Fair Ravenclaw, from glen

Michelle Dockery as Rowena Ravenclaw – This is the most important piece of casting, in my opinion.  As a proud Ravenclaw, I would be very, very committed to getting the right actress to play the founder of my house, and I can’t think of anyone better than Michelle Dockery.  Ravenclaws are known for being bookish and cerebral, and valuing logic and intellect almost above all else.  Dockery’s cool demeanor makes her the perfect Ravenclaw from my standpoint.  Plus, and this is key, she is LADY MARY YOU GUYS and OMG I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LADY MARY.

Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley bluff

Claire Foy as Helga Hufflepuff – I actually had a hard time dream-casting Hufflepuff.  The ideal Hufflepuff is someone who can play kind, inclusive, warm and generous with a core of steel.  My first thought went to Laura Carmichael, but I just couldn’t bring myself to dream-cast all Downton Abbey residents (keep reading) in every part except for Gryffindor, so I started thinking of other British actresses I like who might make a good Hufflepuff – and that was when I hit on the perfect name.  I only recently became aware of Claire Foy after watching her completely steal the show as Anne Boleyn in the BBC production of Wolf Hall (which, if you haven’t seen it yet, RUN and buy the BluRay – it’s amazing).  Now Steve and I are watching her dominate another cast as Queen Elizabeth II in Netflix’s The Crown.  It’s hard to imagine two English queens more different than Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth II, but Claire Foy plays each of them perfectly and I seriously cannot get enough of her.  My only concern with casting her as Hufflepuff would be whether it would be fair to the rest of the cast, because Claire Foy’s awesomeness will not be denied and I would absolutely expect her to run away with this production, too.

Shrewd Slytherin, from fen

Allen Leech as Salazar Slytherin – This was a really tough casting call, you guys.  Before casting Slytherin I would have to know the answer to an important preliminary question, which I posed above: is Slytherin pure evil, a straight-up baddie, or is there more to him than that?  If Slytherin is a complex character, with his faults but not completely to blame for the break with Gryffindor and the other founders (i.e. if Gryffindor played a role in that falling-out), if he’s a more human character than just an evil, wizard-supremacist precursor to Voldemort, then I would want Allen Leech any day of the week and twice on Sunday.  But if he’s just pure evil, then I wouldn’t want to see my beloved Tom Branson in that role.  (Lady Sybil would never fall for a pre-Voldemort!)  I think Allen Leech could play a really interesting complex, brooding Slytherin, though.  So I’m casting him tentatively, but reserving the right to revise my casting decision if Jo makes him a more simple character (which I will leave to her discretion).  (I’m including his picture here because I like looking at it, so there.)  All other casting decisions are, however, set in stone.

Call me, Warner Brothers!

What do you think of my dream-casting choices for this film event that is not planned,  based on a series of books that is not contemplated?