“She had six strong legs and it frightened me. She had insect eyes but I could still see that the look she gave him you give to me.”

I love Becky Chambers. Psalm for the Wild Built was one of my favorites from 2022.

Dutch House was one of my favorite reads from 2022.

I actually split between reading and listening to the audiobook. It was long either way! I didn’t care for it as much as I thought I would. The first part took me a while to get into, I loved the second part, but after

it was all downhill.

In very roughly descending order:

Auē by Becky Manawatu

Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson

Open Throat by Henry Hoke‬‬

Autumn by ‪Ali Smith‬

A Tale for the Time Being by ‪Ruth Ozeki‬

Home by ‪Toni Morrison‬

Gnomon by ‪Nick Harkaway

Space Opera by ‪Catherynne M. Valente‬

The Book of M by ‪Peng Shepherd‬

The Book of Strange New Things by ‪Michel Faber

The Overstory by ‪Richard Powers

The Door by ‪Magda Szabó‬

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by ‪Gabrielle Zevin‬

I hadn’t thought about it, but it sounds like a fun idea, so I’ve checked out The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers, a horror classic that’s been on my to-read list for a while: “a collection of spine-tingling horror stories that are woven together by a fictional play called The King in Yellow.”

Lou Reed - Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal

I left GoodReads because I try to have as little to do with Amazon as possible. I tried StoryGraph but never warmed up to it. I realize LibraryThing has some indirect Amazon ownership, but I found it an acceptable compromise.

I recently read How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu, which I really liked. It is science fictional, though, but maybe not…maybe more surreal. Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, David Markson. I started Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavić many years ago, got interrupted, and haven’t got back to it, but I definitely need to because it was so intriguing in form.

Lord of the Rings just about saved my life in high school. Possession by A.S. Byatt. Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, though I’ve yet to read the sequels. Atonement by Ian McEwan. Just about anything by Geoff Ryman, Ali Smith, José Saramago, or Sheri Holman.

These are some of my favorites poems/poets:

“Having It Out with Melancholy” by Jane Kenyon

“Keeping Things Whole” by Mark Strand

“The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver