Happy New Year! I mean, I already set a goal and theme for the year back at Samhain, then had a feast on the winter solstice, so January first is more like “New Planner Day” for me as the calendar rolls around.

So Happy Planner Day!

I got two new planners this year, that live in different parts of my house. Ironically, I don’t actually use them to schedule appointments and chores. I use alarms and phone notifications for all that stuff. I use one to plan menus and make grocery lists, and one to keep track of stuff I’ve already done as a sort of mindfulness exercise/morale booster. I keep track of various health habits and write down my progress on books and craft projects. It’s fun and doesn’t take much time, and when I’m feeling down on myself I can look back and see that I am, in fact, a pretty organized person who gets a lot done.

This year I have a New Year’s resolution to go with my new planner. Back before Christmas I bought a few actual paper books, which reminded me that I love reading actual paper books. It also reminded me how many actual paper books I already have sitting around my house, waiting to be read. So I’ve gathered a nice stack of those lonely books and resolve to read them this year. I’m going to try not to buy any new books until these are finished, but I can’t really promise I’ll succeed at that.

Since I realized this back before Christmas, I’ve actually already started. I’ve already finished a couple of short ones–Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Bob Greene’s Homecoming.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek was very joyful and poetic, a meandering string of observations and musings on nature and life. I like that it’s so tightly focused on ordinary backyard insects and fish and trees; so much nature writing is so grand and far away, and this book wants us to be much more connected than that. It wants us to see the nature right in front of us and within us. At times it’s a bit too meandering and joyful for me, but I genuinely think that’s just a personality mismatch between me and Dillard, not a fault in the writing. This is a classic, lovely book, and one you don’t really have to read all the way through to enjoy.

Homecoming is a collection of letters written to the newspaper columnist Bob Greene, intending to answer the question “were Vietnam veterans really spit on by hippies when they returned from the war?” My son asked me the question months ago, and when I googled it I found this used book for sale cheap. Spoiler alert, this question is not resolved. Many letter writers have stories of being spit on, but many letter writers have different stories and a few claim there’s no way this ever happened. I’m not sure it matters anyway, not specifically. I’m not sure it matters whether every letter is true (some reviewers believe the letters, some completely disbelieve them). A lot of the letters, even if they’re remembered wrong or embellished, have an emotional resonance to them and I found the many different perspectives really interesting.

Now I’m nearly finished with Maria Bamford’s memoir/autobiography of mental illness and comedy, Sure, I’ll Join your Cult. I’ve been a fan for many years and I’m really enjoying this book. If you’re familiar with Bamford you’ll probably be as familiar as I am with parts of her story; it’s all collected here in a more serious and linear way (but still full of jokes!).

And I’d better wrap this up for today. To sum up, I’m working on my “to read” list this year so expect more reviews for a wide variety of books I found around my house. Until next time. -Corvus