#AMonthofFaves: The Top Ten Books That Blew My Mind This Year

I'll be hopping in and out of #AMonthofFaves this month with some book-related and not-so-book-related content. Today's prompt: The Top Ten Books That Blew Your Mind This Year.

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I've already written about my favorite non-fiction and fiction picks, but using some different criteria, here are the ten books that truly blew my mind this year (and the reasons they did so). Note: These are books read in 2015, not necessarily books published in 2015.

I Got You This Very Special Christmas Present

I got you this very special video for Christmas this year, and I promise it's worth 5 minutes of your time.

May all your Christmases be, um, slightly less stressful than this one.

(And yes, that's my sister. Isn't she great?)

On Christmas Eve, We Feast on Seven Fishes

It's Christmas Eve, which means you can bet your bottom dollar this post is pre-scheduled and is going live while I am elbow-deep in pounds of crab meat, salted cod, smoked salmon, octopus stew, and fish, fish, fish. It's the Feast of Seven Fishes for this Italian Family, and we'll be celebrating in style--with fish and with wine and with the company of good friends.

Bon Appetit, in writing about "How to Celebrate the Feast of Seven Fishes," acknowledges that there is no hard and fast way to go about this particularly Italian/Italian-American tradition:

What fish should be included and how they should be prepared can vary. Some people cook seven courses; some choose to make 12 (in deference to the 12 apostles). Some just put a bunch of seafood in a stew and call it good. Many families keep their own traditions, but everyone who celebrates can agree: Seafood should be prepared and consumed on Christmas Eve. Preferably with wine.

We adhere to a full seven(plus)-course meal (my father, and his mother, and probably her parents before that insist that one stew with seven fishes is cheating) in our family, and this year's menu promises not to disappoint:

#AMonthofFaves: Year-End Updates on Reading Challenges, Resolutions, and Goals

I've been hopping in and out of #AMonthofFaves this month with some book-related and not-so-book-related content. Today's prompt: Year-End Updates on Reading Challenges, Resolutions and Goals.

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This was both a wonderful year and a terrible year for reading challenges for me. In a landmark move, I fully completed my first ever reading challenge that requires a set number of books (Book Riot's 2015 Read Harder Challenge). In every other challenge, I failed miserably:

• Clean Your Reader (hosted by myself, even!): I read a mere 3 e-books over the course of a month.*
• 2015 TBR Challenge: Miserable fail. Though I read plenty of books that technically were on my TBR pile before 2015, only of them were on my official TBR challenge list.
• Classics Club: I read only two classics this year (and DNF-ed 2 more)

Picking the Best of the Best: Awesome 2015 Non-Fiction Books

Of the 137 books I picked up this year (inclusive of DNFs), 36 were non-fiction--not actually as many as I would have expected, given how many of those slim pickings were truly stand-outs. Perhaps I've just gotten better at picking what non-fiction will work for me? Regardless, here were a few of my favorites:

Week in Reading: December 21

IT'S CHRISTMAS WEEK, YA'LL. I'm counting down the days until I get to feast on seven fishes. It's a pretty quiet week at work (what with half of the people I communicate with regularly being out of the office all week), so I'm catching up on some work-related reading during the days and powering through January and February--yes, February!--releases at night.

For work, I've been slowly getting into Switch for a while now (it's the theme for an upcoming non-profit training day I'm helping with, so I want to get it read). I've also just picked up No Such Thing as a Free Gift, which promises to be interesting, and I'm hoping to get to Project Fatherhood this week or next (before it's due back to the library).

For review deadlines, I'm enjoying The Illegal so far--though it's set in a fictional country, it's got some striking parallels to the reality of the immigration debates across the world today. Timely and well-written: these are a few of my favorite things. On the February stack, I'm eying Young Blood, a novel of the Iraq War, and The Black Presidency: Barack Obama and the Politics of Race in America. So, yeah, some really light reading there.

On my headphones, I've got the tail end of Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson (it's good, ya'll, go listen to it), and Rules of Civility, a re-read of a book I remember loving but otherwise recall very little of.

And somewhere in there, I've still got to go see Star Wars.

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Psst... it's still not too late to join in on the 2016 Clean Your Reader Challenge! Starting in January, read the e-books you own but always forget to read. Easy peasy. Sign up here!

Reflecting on 2015: A Year of Too Much Yes

I opted out of New Years Resolutions last year in favor of focusing on One Little Word. The focus of my year was light, and I'd say I was moderately successful in reminding myself to be light, find light, embrace light throughout the year.

I unloaded a lot of physical stuff when we moved in January, and focused on not acquiring new things we don't need (or have a place for). I've placed my workspace in a spot with natural light--and I've made a valiant effort to get out into the sunlight on days when I am down, or when the hours of daylight are limited, or when I just need a break from the computer screen.

But in the world of personal and professional responsibilities, I have not been light. I have been heavy: heavy with to-do lists, heavy with competing deadlines, heavy with a lack of prioritization that leaves me anxious and sleepless and unable to efficiently handle my daily workload.