This year I read 17 books. I've never kept track of them like this before, and so never had the concrete number. It's nice! I feel like I read less than I did when I was a kid, and while that's probably still true in that I used to fly through one-off YA books, it's worth the trade off for books that actually make you think. I don't have accurate numbers for the essays and arcticles - in November my sister asked me if i was counting acedemic papers or the current news, and I realised that I hadn't been. I'm still at odds on whether to do that in 2024. This website tends to include what I read for the love of literature. Political journalism and acedemica feels like it would muddy the waters. Maybe that's reason enough to include them.

Books stand out to me for a myriad of reasons, but for simplicities sake there is what personally connects with me and what is objectfully skilled writing. Make no mistake - the two usually overlap. It feels disloyal, almost to admit one book to the first category as though it's not skillful. With that Disclaimer: This year, the first category included "Dead Bright Things" by Ada Limon, "All I really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" by Robert Fulghum, and "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" by Gabrielle Zevin. The second category includes "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy.

Poetry is where things get more complicated. I read more poems than I realize. I see book dedications and greeting cards and blog entries and notes apps at parties. In truth I think everything is a poem. It's hard to credit everything to anyone, though, and so this website chronicles of the published. Without saying, I adore anything by Ada Limon. "The Long and Short of It" by Richard Siken is maybe my favourite prose in the world. I've been mouthing the first line of "Drift" by Brenda Shaunessy for months. "Running Orders" by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha provoked an immediate emotional response in me the way few poems can.

“What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello?"

This year I read about God and I read about science and I'm still trying to determine the difference between the two. Next year I want to read more still. I am trying to make peace with all sides of myself. I am trying to find the wonder in the certainty.