Briefly | My first week of unemployment has been… surprisingly great. I knew having some time off from the regular grind of work was going to feel good, but I don’t think I registered how hard I’d been working to hold all my shit together until I didn’t have to do it anymore. I’ve been taking long walks, spending time with friends and family, catching up on television, and, of course, reading. I know this honeymoon period will wear off eventually, but for now I’m feeling really good.

Reading | It feels like I have a lot of books in progress right now… I’m partially through Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker (nonfiction on the world of elite wine snobs), The Mothers by Brit Bennett (fiction about an unplanned pregnancy and the aftermath of that decision), Dark Money by Jane Mayer (nonfiction on the impact of ultra-wealthy conservative spending in politics) and Constructive Wallowing by Tina Gilbertson (self help on the importance of feeling rather than managing bad feelings). I’d like to settle in and finish a couple of those this week.

Listening | I am still on a hardcore podcast kick. My favorite, at the moment, is Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, a chapter-by-chapter re-read of the Harry Potter series as “instructive and inspirational texts” that can teach us about our own lives. It is delightful.

Watching | My biggest unemployment temptation is watching television constantly, which I am actively trying to avoid. I did fly through all eight episodes of Legion, a David Hawley-created series looking at David Haller and the X-Men, which was fun if also not quite as innovative as it pretended to be. Up next is probably Big Little Lies from HBO.

Hating | One thing I am still too lazy to do is cook dinner. I need some simple recipes I can put together without turning our kitchen into a disaster so I stop eating frozen meals multiple times a day… all that sodium can’t be good.

Loving | Last week I joined the 100 Day Project, an effort to do something creative every day between April 4 and July 12. I am doing 100 Days of Books over on Instagram with the hashtag #100DaysofBooksByKim. Flexing my writing muscles and getting creative with book photography has been so much fun.

Anticipating | I got invited to join a book club! This particular club meets about once a month to read through the New York Times top 10 books of the previous year (here’s the 2016 list). The next three books on the calendar are Dark Money by Jane Mayer, The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead, and Evicted by Matthew Desmond. Imagine me making that heart-eye emoji face right now because that’s exactly how I feel.

Promoting | I’m continuing to enjoy writing my nonfiction newsletter for Book Riot. At the end of March, I did a big round up of popular nonfiction that’s finally out in paperback… a labor of love if there ever was one. You can read the archives of True Story here, and sign up for all of Book Riot’s newsletters here.

So, that’s my first week of April. I anticipate the second week will be filled with more reading, walking, watching, and cleaning… my parents are getting ready to sell their house and have already made it clear they expect their unemployed daughter to help get things ready to go. Happy reading!

Hello? Is this thing still on?

The last couple of months have been strange. They felt full, but looking back I can’t really pin down what they were filled with. I’d been feeling worn out, physically and emotionally exhausted, but couldn’t seem to admit that to myself or to really figure out what to do about it.

Then, two weeks ago, the company I worked for decided to eliminate my position for boring and corporate reasons – budget issues that resulted in restructuring. Blech.

Getting laid off through no fault of your own looks better on paper, but hearing it and living it out doesn’t hurt any less. I cried myself to sleep several times over the last couple of weeks, including Friday night after my last day at the company. I spent the weekend doing things that made me happy, trying not to think about all of the adulting that comes next.

Then I woke up this morning feeling… calm. The break I needed but couldn’t admit to needing is here. I have savings and unemployment and some odd jobs to keep me afloat. I have a supportive family and caring friends. And now I have space… to think, to regroup, to refocus, to figure out what my life is like after two big, scary, painful losses. A friend suggested calling this period a sabbatical — a rest from work, or a break — which actually sounds just about perfect.

As all of this was happening, I was reminded of a project I saw last spring that piqued my curiosity. The 100 Day Project is a free, global art initiative where people around the world commit to doing something creative every day for 100 days (April 4 through July 12). I’m not really an artist, so I wouldn’t have immediately pegged this as something I would be interested in trying. But last year a blogger I follow participated via writing and photography… both things I like and want to make more time to do.

After some hemming and hawing and brainstorming, I finally settled on what I think will be a good project for this season of my life: 100 Days of Books. For the next 100 days, I am going to try and post a photo of a book I’ve read, along with a brief review, over on Instagram (@kimthedork). This gets me back in the habit of writing reviews, gives me a chance to work on my book photography, starts creating a sort of routine, and should be both portable and inexpensive. Winning all around.

Truth be told, I am not great at following through on long-term projects like this, but I’m starting out optimistic, full of ideas, and with a lot more time on my hands than I might normally have, so… here’s to a giving it a shot.

Briefly | I was planning to do a January reading wrap up post this week, but when I sat down to write it I realized I only finished two books last month – A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab in print and Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick in audio. It’s not the most auspicious way to start off my 2017 reading life, but I guess that means things can only improve from here.

Reading | One of my goals for February is to read for 30 minutes every day. The two books I’m jumping between right now are The Power of Meaning by Emily Esfahani Smith (a look at the four pillars of leading a meaningful life) and A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab (the second book in the Shades of Magic trilogy). They’re both comfort reads, in different ways, which feels exactly right for this strange season of life.

Listening | The last couple of months have been all about podcasts. I recently discovered another NPR gem, Hidden Brain, about many of the unseen forces that shape our lives. A November 2015 episode called “Lonely Hearts” hit me right in the feels this week.

Watching | I’m really enjoying PBS’s new Masterpiece show on Queen Victoria, and I’m excited that The Magicians came back on SyFy last week. And although it was kind of twisty and dark, I really liked the ending of the first season of The Good Place, which wrapped up a couple of weeks ago (and is coming back for another season!).

Cooking | Over the weekend, I made this creamy bacon bow-tie pasta with Brussels sprouts recipe that Meg (Write Meg) recommended on her blog. It was excellent – so delicious and simple that I may just buy the cookbook it came from.

Missing | I’ve been in my new, long-term living situation since October, but I still haven’t gotten around to getting a new library card. I miss browsing at the library a lot, so I’m hoping to remedy that situation this month.

Hating | I can’t even really think of where to start on this one. The current political situation is bananas and infuriating and I can’t imagine trying to sustain this level of outrage for the next four years. That’s really all I can muster up about that. I put the cartoon from Poorly Drawn Lines at the top of this post in my daily to do list notebook last August as a joke… it’s not really so funny anymore!

Loving | Losing the boyfriend the way I did has radically changed my perspective on the world, in both bad and good ways. One of the good things has been more gratitude for the people in my life who have stepped up in ways I couldn’t have imagined. I’m trying to find ways to recognize, reciprocate and remain grateful for that.

Bragging | The newspaper I worked for until last August earned a first place general excellence award in our state’s annual community newspaper contest. Awards don’t always mean much, but it felt really good to have the work during my last year at the paper – a year that was challenging in a whole host of ways – recognized as being really good.

Promoting | The second edition of the nonfiction newsletter I’m writing for Book Riot, True Story, went out on Friday. If you haven’t signed up, you can do that at this link. And if you missed it, you can read the first edition, a big juicy list of 15 of my favorite fun and fascinating nonfiction books, at this link.

And that’s all I’ve got for now. Happy February, and happy reading! What are you excited about diving into right now?

Welcome to 2017! Like many people, I am happy to be leaving the dumpster fire of 2016 behind and moving ahead to a new year which, I hope, will not be as terrible.

I thought about just jumping back into blogging in the new year, but decided I didn’t want to move on to new things until I had a brief chance to recap some old things. I want to have a record of what I read last year, a place where I could at least look back and know what words I filled my brain and my heart with during this awful, dark time.

So, without further ado, here’s my list of the books I’ve read since August when my world got turned upside down:

1. Funny Girl by Nick Hornby
2. A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir
3. The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer
4. Black Man in a White Coat by Damon Tweedy
5. The Fate of the Tearling by Erika Johansen
6. Self-Inflicted Wounds by Aisha Tyler
7. Redshirts by John Scalzi
8. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
9. Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake
10. Her Halloween Treat by Tiffany Riez
11. The Wangs Versus the World by Jade Cheng
12. Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Raculla
13. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell
14. Victoria by Julia Baird
15. American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
16. Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley
17. It’s Ok to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) by Nora McInerny Purmort
18. The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy

Looking back on that list, it seems clear that my reading since August had been… Sporadic? Comforting? Disjointed? Easy? Probably a little bit of all of those things.

I don’t remember much about many of these books. I read them in a haze, or listened to them during my multi-hour commutes, or picked in and out of them over several weeks (or, in the case of Victoria, months) until I could jot them down on a page in my notebook. Finishing a book has felt a bit like finding my way back to myself and the person I used to be, even if I also know I don’t ever really get to be that person again.

It’s probably not surprising that I turned to young adult books over the last few months. There’s something comforting about teenage problems and something optimistic about first love that I found soothing. I remember relying heavily on YA audio books to get through some long drives, and other big YA titles to serve as distractions when I needed them – highlights were Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir, and Carry On by Rainbow Rowell.

Another trend was audiobooks by funny ladies. In August, September and October I was commuting about 50 miles to work each direction, necessitating lots of audiobooks and podcasts. The best books on audio tended to be essay collections narrated by funny women, I think because they felt like podcasts and could hold my wandering attention. Self-Inflicted Wounds by Aisha Tyler was excellent, and I did a deep dive into You Must Remember This, a podcast on Old Hollywood by Karina Longworth.  

Looking at the list, I’m a little surprised that I managed to also read some actual adult fiction. Nothing deep, but a few titles that felt like they were leading me back to the stories I tend to love. Funny Girl by Nick Hornby was a perfect distraction, and American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld scratched a political itch I didn’t know I had.

And finally, I read a bunch of books about grief and recovery and death and how you move on from the loss of your partner when you’re young. Some were more obvious – It’s Ok to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) by Nora McInerny Purmort basically felt like it was putting my heart and mind on the page. But others, like Victoria by Julia Baird and Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley and The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy, came at it in slightly different directions. I’d recommend them all, though for slightly different reasons.

I’m not sure what my reading in 2017 is going to look like. I don’t have any goals or specific plans, other than trying to focus on reading what I want and rediscovering the things that I love. I still don’t know where the blog fits into all of that, but I’m hoping it starts to feel like a necessary part of my life once again soon.

But enough about me, how are you? What was the best book you read last year? What books are you anticipating for this year? This disconnected blogger desperately wants to hear!

And a Bonus Announcement!

Sign up for our new nonfiction newsletter TRUE STORY (written by @kimthedork!) & be entered to win this haul: https://t.co/ExlJuLTaJH pic.twitter.com/zgTK5QmKah

— Book Riot (@BookRiot) 9 January 2017

In case you missed the news, I’m going to be slightly expanding my role at Book Riot. I’ll be editing and writing a twice-monthly nonfiction newsletter, True Story, beginning on Jan. 20. If you follow this link to sign up you’ll be entered in a giveaway for some pretty exciting nonfiction titles. I hope you’ll invite me to your inbox.