Ready

It is tempting to keep pretending that the year is only just starting. Yet it is much like on a work floor with colleagues trying to avoid wishing each other happy new year: how about we all agree that by the time we don’t want to kiss and smile and wish each other best and tell each other how much champagne we had (too much / not enough*), we also stop making lists and resolutions and to-do lists and try to get things done? Okay then.

One of the things that is on my list for 2017 – the list I made before the year started because yay me and also I hate kissing people for new year’s except my man – is reading. I have been neglecting my reading list and honestly, I need the input. This year fo sho am I going to finish NaNoWriMo** and how can one write well when one doesn’t read (well). When a friend posted the PopSugar Reading Challenge 2017 on social media, I just had to join. First book: about food. Hamburgers in Paradise: digging in!

And so I need books this year: fun books, good books, terrific books. I do not need books that make me sad or angry; I am a very empathic reader and misery in books makes me miserable in real life. It is not worth it, everybody around me suffers when the main character in my book suffers. Recommendations welcome: I loved The Goblin Emperor, I adore anything by Neil Gaiman, I intend to read Caitlin Moran, I get tired of classic fantasy, most Dutch writers make me want to throw stuff at the wall (not good), and I don’t do biographies.

*Strike through what is not applicable
**Unless I am busy with the well-paying, happy-making job of my dreams