just finished: um. nothing. But I did start reading Bridget Jones’ Diary again, because: almost January 1.

currently reading: There are a couple of good books coming out Tuesday, which I’ve gotten a jump on. Ellie Alexander is back to baking, with Bake, Borrow, and Steal. Juliet and Torte are tasked with building a legendary dessert table for the debut of a lost Shakespeare manuscript that has been traveling from museum to museum, and it’s on its way to Ashland. But when it gets stolen, Jules has to figure out what happened because that is the kind of person she is. And Darby Kane’s The Replacement Wife is a domestic thriller where a woman is convinced that her brother-in-law is a killer. His wife died several years ago. His fiancée went missing seven months ago. Now he has a new girlfriend, and Elisa is beside herself. She thinks he killed his missing fiancée and is desperate to prove it. I’m only about a quarter of the way in so far, but it’s chilling! I can’t wait to see how it ends. And in my determination to listen to books on CD in my car, I grabbed for Boomsday by Christopher Buckley. It’s read by Janeane Garofalo, who I adore, which makes it that much more special. I have read this one, and it’s a lot of fun, about the younger generation rising up to try to get to Boomers to kill themselves at 70 so as not to be a burden to the government or younger workers. I love how Buckley can take a completely irrational idea and run with it to show off how weirdly crazy things are.

up next: Ready to take on January books, including When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord (Tweet Cute, You Have a Match), Reckless Girls from Rachel Hawkins (The Wife Upstairs), and At the End of Everything by Marieke Nijkamp (This Is Where it Ends, Even if We Break). And my new Christmas cookbooks, of course!

I have set myself some reading goals for 2021. Some of those goals are about how many books I want to read (I set my Goodreads goal for 225), or listen to (60 audiobooks). But other goals are to finally read classics that I missed when I was younger (Little Women, Jane Eyre), to read a Shakespeare play (Othello or King Lear, because I am less familiar with those), and to read Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, because while I’ve read many of his books through the years, I have not ready any of his set in Botswana. I will try to check in quarterly and see how far I’ve gotten.

tl;dr: I failed. Life got in the way of some of my reading this year, and I leaned heavily on comfort books. But it was a great book year, and I can try again in 2022! Technically I have another week and could push to get some of these done. But I’d rather give myself a break this week and try again next year. Happy book year!

Here’s my full list:

1. Read 150 books through NetGalley. (I got one! 155/150)

2. Read 50 books from Edelweiss. (13/50)

3. Read 50 publisher arcs/Goodreads giveaways. (38/50)

4. Listen to 60 audio books. (18/60)

5. Read the following books: Little Women (nope)

6. Jane Eyre (nope)

7. Howard’s End (nope)

8. Othello or King Lear (nope)

9. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency (nope)

10. Cause Celeb (nope)

11. The Buried Giant or Never Let Me Go (nope)

12. Fever Pitch (nope)