My Top Books of 2017
As with every annual list, I only include books I've read for the first time, but they can be from any year. It wasn't a bad year for reading but I feel like I read less and less every year since leaving NYC. I guess all that time reading on the subway actually made a bigger dent in my To Read list than I gave it credit for. But like I said, 2017 wasn't so bad. Here are some of my favorites. What were yours?
2017: The Year of Finishing Something...Anything!
My 2017 writing life started by trying to revise a novel I had worked on for almost a decade, before deciding around March that it just wasn’t working. Plot holes kept shifting, twists I added to make the story unique only made other part of the story implausible, and I kept blending too many genres to the point where I didn’t know if the story was taking place in the past, present, or future, if it was a dystopian story or a noir or both or neither. I admit, I was making it too hard on myself, too complex, but I had lost the clear vision needed to simplify that story. I was in too deep and it just wasn’t working out. I love the characters so damn much, but I decided to stop for good (or...for now?) and pursue other projects I wanted to work on.
Ranked: Every Spoon Album
The idea of ranking one of my favorite band’s albums feels like an absurd task, given I love each of these in their own special way, but some still get heavier airplay then others in my headspace, so just know that the “listenability” factor is pretty heavy in my judgement. Anyway, this ranking covers only their studio albums, no EPs or extras, of which there are many. Okay, let’s get to it!