Annus difficilis

Books

As a mood reader, I typically don’t know what I am going to read next. As a book-buyer, I am often excited by a title at the book store, will sometimes buy it, but may not get to reading it until years later. I am sometimes reading up to three books at a time: a novel, a book of poetry, and some form of non-fiction. This year, though, I wanted to give my undivided attention to one book at a time (for the most part). I do have magazines and literary journals scattered about, so I am still reading many genres at once.

This year, I have read more fiction than expected. It has been a startling and personally difficult year. My reading of more fiction, I believe, has less to do with escapism and more to do with diving deeper into being a human.

This past summer, I cracked open a 666-page book called The Morning Star. Some may already know that the devil, Lucifer, is often referred to as the morning star. This book is the first in a series by Norwegian writer Karl Ove Knausgaard. I often describe Knausgaard to others like one might describe the comedian Jerry Seinfeld: he writes about a lot of nothing. Knausgaard is well-known for writing gorgeously about the boring intricacies of life. His writing spends a lot of time waiting in the check-out lines in grocery stores. Preparing food. Gutting fish. Thinking about errands. Smoking cigarettes. Wondering what harm one more drink will do. In this series—which he continues to write—a miraculous star suddenly appears in the sky. Sinister and mysterious things start to happen. People stop dying. Interwoven in all these novels are elements of philosophy, religion, cryogenics, death metal, Jungian psychology, Satanism, and more. I read the first three novels in this series and am awaiting the translation of the fourth book to be released in January. The fourth book is inspired by The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, which I read in college, but would like to re-read beforehand. For those who love to read books in order to go down rabbit holes and learn new things, Knausgaard is a wonderful author to follow.

Why do I buy books rather than go to the library? Well, I do go to the library from time to time and hope to increase my patronage in the future, but I’m a marginalian. I underline, highlight, tab, and have a conversation with the books I read. I put my favorite books on a special shelf and daily I revisit that shelf and flip through a book that calls out to me. Your friend Sarah has a poor memory. There is nothing quite like the feeling of revisiting an idea or passage or word or piece of information that I forgot resonated with me. It’s like reading through a journal.

Novels I’ve read the past year:

· The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey—It is partly memoir, as well. It consists of two novellas, back-to-back and upside down. You can read the book forwards or backwards (hence the möbius).

· Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky

· On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle—An introspective look at a woman’s experience of the Groundhog Day phenomenon. And I don’t mean the holiday. She experiences the same day over and over. Time becomes a landscape in which she becomes intimately familiar. This book is part of a septology (series of seven books), all of them published at the same time last year. I do note care for that marketing strategy when they all could have been one book.

· Frederick by Leo Lionni—This book was gifted to me by my friend Denice

· Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell—Sometimes I like a read it before you see the film book. This is a novel about the Black Plague’s shroud over William Shakespeare’s (who goes unnamed in the book) family.

Book of poetry I read

I read less poetry this year which I hope to remedy next year. But I did write more poems this year than over the past several years combined.

· The Way Winter Works by Harry Humes—I started a months-long poetry project based off a poem from this book. I hope to do the same again this year with a different poem.

· Ridge Music by Harry Humes

· Appalachia by Charles Wright

· Mornings Like This by Annie Dillard

· Temporary Skin by Romana Iorga

· Space, in Chains by Laura Kasischke

· Forest of Noise by Mosab Abu Toha

· The Haiku Anthology edited by Cor van den Heuvel

· Ditch Memory by Todd Davis

Non-fiction books I read:

· Night Magic: Adventures Among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leigh Ann Henion

· How to Love a Forest by Ethan Tapper—I had the opportunity to join Ethan Tapper and others for a short walk in the woods of Shavers Creek this past year. Fun fact: the mountain property that he writes about is adjacent to a lodge I stayed at in Vermont. As I read his descriptions of the mountain, I found it to be very familiar. How surprised I was when I looked at a map!

· The Universe in Verse by Maria Popova

· When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

· The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

· The Measure of a Man by Martin Luther King, Jr.

· The Body is a Doorway by Sophie Strand

Words

I live by them. You live by them. I love by them. You love by them. The list is ongoing and exhaustive. This is not a list of every word or phrase I learned or fell in love with this past year but as a logophile, I wanted to share the ones I physically documented.

· Eustatheia: the teachings of philosopher Epictetus

· Ouroboros: A circular symbol depicting a snake or dragon swallowing its tail. Embelm of wholeness or infinity.

· Pollyanna: A person who sees the best in things. Based off novel by Eleanor H. Porter and became a 1960s Disney movie. Being a Pollyanna can be problematic (toxic positivity)

· Sky Island: High-elevation, cold-weather habitats of coniferous forest. High peak habitats.

· Anthesis: The process of a flower bud opening

· Polyphony: More than one melody

· Sehnsucht: German for inconsolable longing from sehnen (the yearning) and such (obsession or addiction). C.S. Lewis called it the “inconsolable longing”.

· Aphercotropism: The response an organism has as it grows to overcome an obstacle in its way.

· Transpiration: The collective moisture and emitted isoprene that hover over forests like the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains.

· Eucatastrophe: A sudden, favorable turn of events in a story that saves the protagonist from a terrible fate. Coined by J.R.R. Tolkien.

· Bardo: Buddhist term for the liminal realm between death and rebirth

· Endling: The last of a species

· Stodgy: Doughy, carby (thanks to The Great British Baking Show)

· Claggy: Sticky (The Great British Baking Show)

· Dyed in the wool: having strong opinions that likely will not change

· Man alive: an expression of surprise

· Annus mirabilis: Latin for “wonderful year”

· Massif: large block of mountains; bulky, solid

· Milvine: behaving like a kite

· Incunabulum: an early printed book, especially printed before 1501

· Foxfire: from faux fire; any mushroom that glows

· Manhattan: from “manhatta” meaning a peninsula island enclosed by active, changing, playful waters. Found in Whitman’s writings.

· Melancholy: from “melaina kole” black bile

· Neologism: a newly coined word or expression

· Sacrifice: from “sacer-ficere” which means “to make sacred”

· Senescence: the process of aging and death. Also, the process of leaves changing colors

· Columbarium: Places where urns are kept. Funerary walls and structures that are kind of like giant shadow boxes.

· Endosymbiosis: When cells from one organism become the cells of another organism

· Utopia: literally means “no place”

· Chatoyancy: An optical effect that makes a material’s surface appear three-dimensional and is commonly seen in gemstones and wood.

Magazines & Journals

I currently have a stack of magazines about 5 feet tall. I haven’t gotten around to reading a lot of them but for next year, I separated them into seasons and I will read them through the seasons at my leisure. I’ve read bits and pieces of the following magazines this past year. This is not a list of every magazine I’ve browsed.

· Emergence Magazine

· Womankind

· Adbusters

· Bella Grace

· Poetry Journal

· The New Yorker

· Orion

Podcasts

I spent about 208 hours just commuting to work this past year. That is almost 9 days’ worth of time. I listen to a lot of podcasts. At 5:00 in the morning, your friend Sarah is driving up the interstate sometimes wanting to learn new things, sometimes wanting to laugh, sometimes wanting something thoughtful, and sometimes just for the comfort of hearing women talk even though I don’t care about what they have to say. I can be an anxious person and how I start my morning can dictate how I feel the rest of the day. Here are the podcasts I’ve listened to this past year.

· To the Best of Our Knowledge

o This has been a wonderful show out of Wisconsin Public Radio and unfortunately the show came to an end due to budget cuts. Over the past several years, this podcast was the balm I needed first thing in the morning. Anne Strainchamps’ soothing voice, compassion, and knowledge was such a gift. But not all is lost because Anne Strainchamps and her husband Steve Paulson have created “Wonder Cabinet” which will continue to carry the torch.

· Happier with Gretchen Rubin

o I’m not big on self-help but there’s something about Gretchen Rubin and her sister Elizabeth Craft’s mom-voices first thing in the morning.

· Radiolab (WNYC Studios)

· TED Radio Hour (NPR)

· Everything is Alive

o Oh wow, these episodes were a treat. The host interviews animals and objects about what it is like to be them. Voice actors do a fantastic job at helping us listeners understand the umwelt of everything from a can of cola to kangaroos.

· Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

o I only listened to her interview with Fran Lebowitz

· Critics at Large (The New Yorker)

o Of all the podcasts, this is the one I look forward to most. The three cultural critics talk about everything from film to books to current events to trends. Every Friday morning, I look forward to hearing their voices.

· Wild Card

o This is a game/interview show where the host uses a card game to ask guests questions. Sometimes it’s kind of awkward. It’s not my favorite podcast. I listened to only a few episodes (Jeff Goldblum, Elizabeth Olsen, John Green).

· Radio Atlantic

· Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman by Tortoise Media (only the first episode)

· Discovery (BBC)

· The Verb (BBC)

· In Our Time (BBC)

o Gosh, I love the British accents first thing in the morning.

· -Ologies

· For the Wild

· Garrison Keillor’s Podcast

o Funny storyteller with a great voice

· Telepathy Tapes

· Living Planet

· Where Shall We Meet?

· The Orgasm Cult (BBC)

· Emergence Magazine

o If you love anything from Terry Tempest Williams, Robert Macfarlane, Robin Wall Kimmerer, or anything from the brilliant Sheldrake family

· Sex, Birth, Trauma

· LRB Bookshop

· For the Femmes

· Debutiful

· Contemplify

· Weirdos Book Club

· New Yorker Radio Hour

· The Gray Area with Sean Illing

· City Arts & Lectures

· Green Dreamer

· Living Myth

· Sidedoor

· This American Life

· The Daily Stoic

o Over a decade ago, I was gifted Ryan Holiday’s book The Daily Stoic and I flip through the book to this day. The book is great but I don’t quite care to listen to his podcast or read his newsletters because it’s too “broicism” for me. I like for a little hedonism and nihilism to be thrown in to my daily philosophy. Girl’s gotta have balance, right?

· Stuff You Should Know

· Tricylce Talks

· Pop Culture Happy Hour

· The Slow Down

· The Happiness Lab

· Wild Geese

o Lately, the algorithm has been throwing young, fast-talking women like Anna at me. They talk at me about culture, “brain-rot”, books, living a more “analogue” life, etc. Bits and pieces are interesting but I often find myself thinking that they’re a waste of time because I already do the things that they are romanticizing.

Films

I didn’t put a ton of effort into watching interesting movies this year. My genre preferences are horror, thriller, drama, and arthouse. You’re going to see a lot of Christmas movies because I had them on while baking, decorating, wrapping gifts, and unwinding. Last Christmas was a little lackluster because we were in the spiral of Brian not doing well so I went overboard with the Christmas spirit this year.

· Babygirl (2024) I’m glad that these problems are not my problems.

· Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016) Watched with friends—can’t quite remember what happened

· Ouija (2014) Same with this one

· The Room (2003) “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”

· Nosferatu: The Vampyre (1979) I very much prefer the 1979 film over the 2024 one.

· Nosferatu (2024)

· The Haunting in Connecticut (2009) Watched with friends

· Eraserhead (1977) Kinda wish I was stoned while watching the whole eraserhead scene lol

· Groundhog Day (1993) Why not?

· The Devil All the Time (2020) I remember enjoying this one.

· The Lighthouse (2019) I wanted them to kiss.

· Blue Velvet (1986) This was my first year watching a David Lynch film

· Inglourious Basterds (2009) When watching this, I literally said to Brian “Oh, she owns a theater! She should let the Nazis use the theater and burn it down with them in it!”

· White Noise (2022) I’d love to read the novel

· Aftersun (2022) Makes me want to watch more movies with Paul Mescal in them. Lucky for me, he plays Shakespeare in “Hamnet”

· The Menu (2022)

· Mickey 17 (2025) Mark Ruffalo’s rendering of Trump was cute

· The Princess Bride (1987)

· Conclave (2024) I predicted the big reveal in this movie as soon as the actor spoke his first words

· The Squid and the Whale (2005) Glad these problems are not my problems

· Trust (2010) Totally forgot what this was about and had to look it up

· Dinner in America (2020) Cute and bizarre

· Watcher (2022) I don’t remember watching this

· Palo Alto (2013) Boring

· You’re Next (2011) Silly horror movie

· Nope (2022) I was slightly obsessed with this movie after I saw it in theaters in 2022. I wanted to revisit it.

· Independence Day (1996) Nostalgia

· Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) Watched with friends

· Death of a Unicorn (2024) Fun but waning

· A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) Nostalgia

· Clock (2023) Intriguing movie

· The Starling Girl (2023) Pretty good

· Bugonia (2025) My 2026 Bingo card has “Emma Stone will play yet another woman who is not exactly a woman”

· Die, My Love (2025) A lot of people say that this is a postpartum film but I don’t agree.

· The Family Stone (2005) Awkward and cute (Christmas movie)

· Marty Supreme (2025) This movie was like one long-ass, exhausting day. Or like a game of table tennis.

· A Rainy Day in New York (2019) A walking around New York City movie

· They Look Like People (2015) Good bro/psych horror film.

· Love Actually (2003) To get into the Christmas spirit. I do love Christmas.

· Elf (2003) I don’t really care for Will Farrell type humor

· The Santa Clause (1994) Nostalgia

· Home Alone (1990) Nostalgia

· Happiest Season (2020) While baking cookies

· The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017) So weird and interesting

· Four Christmases (2008) Watched with friends

· Beautiful Boy (2018) Somebody tell Timotheé Chalamet to let other guys star in movies. He was in so many movies this year

· The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) Nostalgia/Tradition

· Jingle All the Way (1996) Brian put this on

· Nutcrackers (2024) Cute

· Christmas with the Kranks (2004) with friends

· A Christmas Story (1983) Tradition

· Die Hard (1988) I fell asleep

· A Christmas Story Christmas (2022) with Brian

· Sinners (2025) I just watched this last night and look forward to listening to the soundtrack/score during my drive across the state today

Feature Length Documentaries

· Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever (2025)

· God and Country (2024)

· The Antisocial Network (2024)

· The Twister: Caught in the Storm (2025)

· Listers (2025)—Loved this documentary about birding. Find it on YouTube!

TV Series

The majority of these shows were just background noise while I was doing other things. I’m not a huge fan of starting an interesting narrative series unless the series is complete. I have a poor memory and don’t want to re-watch seasons in order to understand what happens next.

· Alone (Season 10)

· Alone: Australia (Season 1)

· Owning Manhattan (Season 1)

· The Great British Baking Show (Seasons 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

· Seinfeld (random episodies)

· How I Met Your Mother (random episodes)

· The Office (background)

· Family Guy (background)

· Apple Cider Vinegar (2025)

· Adolescence (2025) Great cinematography in that first episode!

· You (Season 5)

· Too Much (First episode—that was enough. I had to turn it off.)

· The Paper (Season 1)

· Forged in Fire (background)

Docuseries

I didn’t document every docuseries we watched because we put random things on all the time. Here are some that stood out that are beyond our usual weather and nature documentaries.

· Call It A City

· American Murder: Gabby Petito

· Secret World of Sound

· Ken Burns’ Dust Bowl

· Ken Burns’ Prohibition

Music

This is a hard one to document because it’s everywhere and all the time. So, I’ll share what I listened to over and over (be it the genre, band, instrument, or artist).

· Sarah Jarosz (artist)

· Patrick Watson (artist)

· “Sprout and the Bean” by Joanna Newsom (song)

· Mountain Man (band)

· Josh Garrels (artist)

· Delta Blues (genre)

· David Bowie narrating “Peter and the Wolf”

· “They Call the Wind Maria” by Harve Presnell (song)

· “Jimmy” by Moriarty (song)

· Laura Marling (artist)

· Cat Power (artist)

· “The Night My Piano Up and Died” by Johnny Flynn (song)

· Beirut (band)

· “Small Hands” by Keaton Henson (song)

· Be Good Tanyas (band)

· “My Sweet Annette” by Drive-By Truckers (song)

· Tchaikovsky (composer)

· “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof (song)

· “Pulaski at Night” by Andrew Bird (song)

· Iron & Wine (band)

· Yann Tiersen (composer)

· First Aid Kit (band)

· “Clay Pigeons” by Blaze Foley (song)

· Lord Huron (band)

· The Secret Sisters (artists)

· “Sensitive Kind” by JJ Cale (song)

· Joshua James (artist)

· “Julep” by Punch Brothers (song)

· Norah Jones (artist)

· Music featuring the theremin

· 1940s and 50s crooners

· Hoagie Carmichael (artist)

· Agnes Obel (artist)

· “Hearts a Mess” by Gotye (song)

· “The Ghost of Lovell Hill” by Elyssa Samsel (part of motion picture score)

· “Sinners” soundtrack/score

· Electric Swing (genre)

· Fleet Foxes (band)

· Choral music/chanting

· Steep Canyon Rangers (band)

· Hozier (artist)

· “El Condor Pasa” by Simon & Garfunkel (song)

· “Suspirium” by Thom Yorke (song)

· “Life Crisis” by River Whyless (song)

· The Head and the Heart (band)

· Fleetwood Mac (band)

· Josh Ritter (artist)

2026 is coming. I like new beginnings. Every morning. Every step outside. Every “hello”. For the long, linear song of life to be broken up into acts, chapters, narratives, breaks, intermissions, etc., keeps things interesting and novel. Some folks don’t see it that way. “It’s just another day” and its ilk is very well true but also such a yawn. Yesterday, severe winds led to a power outage that rendered everything dark and quiet in my house for several hours. Snow buzzed in the air and the wind droned on through the valley. But eventually the winds will settle. The snow will melt. The song will laze longer and higher in the sky. I like living in seasons. I like the season of beginnings. The season of hunker down. The season of barefoot in the garden. The season of salty skin. The season of the hummingbird. The season of walking in the river. The season of eating straight from the vine. All of those seasons have a beginning, middle, and end.

Happy beginning and ending to you.

Websites

I browsed a lot of interesting websites this past year but didn’t document them all. Here are a few that I explore more regularly.

• Substack, of course. So many blogs.

• The Marginalian (Maria Popova is the contemporary MVP of marginalia)

• SunsetWx

• Noema

• semantic.art

• The Lever

• Colossal

• Aeon

• Terrain.org

• JSTOR Daily

• NPR

• National Archives

• TED

• Poetry Blogging Network

• davebonta.com and vianegativa

• ThoughtCo