Still a couple days left to read but I’m adding to best of list now,
The Garbage Poems by Anna Swanson, illustrated by April White (Brick Books, 2025) which gave so many aha moments on chronic illness and concussion, and consumer culture, and pure amazement at her rendering poems from trash container text.
and from backlist titles,
But Then I Thought by Kyla Houbolt (above/ground, 2023) which impels me to buy her book too. What a crisp, alert alive mind!
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit, 2017) which apparently people know about and love. Onto The Ministry for the Future next.
And for cozy reads, fluffy romance comedy, Christmas in the Scottish Highlands by Donna Ashcroft (Bookouture, 2021) which I encountered in a Little Free Library. She’s got something like 18 novels published. Such a fun one.
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I will probably update my year’s stats since I might still finish 2 more books before NYE.
I won’t make it through Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger (Annotated): or, an excursion through Ireland, in 1844 & 1845, for the purpose of personally investigating the condition of the poor by Asenath Nicholson. Although I did splurge on it, finally. (It dropped from twenty odd dollars for digital to six.) I had read the rather generous length of sample early in the year. Fascinating stuff.
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I don’t know that I got any usable photos from the PFYC reading, it being dark and me lurking at the back. But it was a cheerful night. It haunts me Michelle asking, (I paraphrase) do we not all write poetry from love? I and one other voice said yes. Did people in the front nod or is it a way minority position?
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