Catchy Name Needed

Happy New Year, y'all. 2021 wasn't a bad year for me personally, but it was a pretty bad year for the world in general, wasn't it? Insurrections, climate change, ugh. So let's hope 2022 is going to be an improvement. (I'm not really holding my breath for that, I'm afraid.)

If I get around to it in time, I'll do a movie wrap-up tomorrow. (I'll probably put it up even if I don't manage to do it in time to post it on Holidailies. The last couple of years I have been posting periodically about movies here even if I don't post about anything else.)

Assuming I don't finish any more books before midnight, the list of new novels I've read this year is going to end at 69. (This is not meant to be a fiction-only list, but apparently the only non-fiction books I finished were a handful of Civil War books that I had already read some years ago. Nothing new.) I highlighted a few things that stood out to me, some of which were actually new books (Winterkeep, Leviathan Falls) and some of which were not new this year but I hadn't gotten around to reading before (News of the World, Lock In).

As far as series go, I really enjoyed the "Lady Julia" series, which are period mysteries, and the "Lily Bard" series, which is categorized as a "dark cozy" mystery series, as I understand it (written by Charlaine Harris, who also wrote the "True Blood" series). I probably read more mysteries this year than I've read in some years, or possibly ever - I can't be sure about that since I only recently started keeping lists of my reading again.

(I really think it's kind of absurd to even post my list at all, but I posted it once before so I figured I would update. I don't ever keep up on Goodreads so this is the only place it's online.) (And I don't consider it a competition. I don't work full-time so I have a lot more reading time than most people.)

I don't particularly set any goals for myself about reading, normally. I read plenty already, I don't have to encourage myself to do that, in general. Left to myself I re-read an awful lot, so that's why I have started keeping up with how much new stuff I read. I did set a goal for myself last year to read 18 books that were new to me, and I passed that ages ago. The only goal I have set myself for the future is to keep reading at least a couple of new things a month. And I made a "to-read" list - it started with an idea I'd seen to do "22 books to read in '22" but I hit 22 and kept going - I have an whole lot of unread books on my Kindle, so I guess you'd have to say getting through some of that list is also a goal.



New-to-me reading in 2021

1. Winterkeep (Graceling Realms #4)
2. Star Wars Aftermath
3. Silent in the Grave (Lady Julia #1)
4. A Court of Thorns and Roses
5. Cocaine Blues (Miss Fisher #1)
6. Flying Too High (Miss Fisher #2)
7. Silent in the Sanctuary (Lady Julia #2)
8. Silent on the Moors (Lady Julia #3)
9. Real Murders (Aurora Teagarden #1)
10. Murder on the Ballarat Train (Miss Fisher #3)
11. Shakespeare's Landlord (Lily Bard #1)
12. Murder in the Heir (Violet Carlyle #1)
13. Kennington House Murder (Violet Carlyle #2)
14. Shakespeare's Champion (Lily Bard #2)
15. Murder at the Folly (Violet Carlyle #3)
16. A Merry Little Murder (Violet Carlyle #4)
17. Dark Road to Darjeeling (Lady Julia #4)
18. Murder Among the Roses (Violet Carlyle #5)
19. Shakespeare's Christmas (Lily Bard #3)
20. Murder in the Shallows (Violet Carlyle #6)
21. Shakespeare's Trollop (Lily Bard #4)
22. The Assassins of Thasalon (Penric & Desdemona) (I originally had this in with the novellas, but I was mistaken)
23. Shakespeare's Counselor (Lily Bard #5)
24. Gin and Murder (Violet Carlyle #7)
25. The Dark Enquiry (Lady Julia #5)
26. Night of a Thousand Stars
27. Obsidian Murder (Violet Carlyle #8)
28. Murder at the Ladies' Club (Violet Carlyle #9)
29. Wedding Vows and Murder (Violet Carlyle #10)
30. The Magic of Found Objects
31. An Untimely Death (Anna Fairweather #1)
32. An Unfortunate Demise (Anna Fairweather #2)
33. What the Dead Leave Behind (A Gilded Age Mystery #1)
34. An Uninvited Corpse (Anna Fairweather #3)
35. An Unexpected Misfortune (Anna Fairweather #4)
36. Shadow Hunter (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #1)
37. Strange Practice (Dr Greta Helsing #1)
38. The Schoolmistress of Emerson Pass (Emerson Pass #1)
39. An Unhappy Murder (Anna Fairweather #5)
40. An Untidy End (Anna Fairweather #6)
41. Lock In (Lock In #1)
42. Blue Midnight (Blue Mountain #1)
43. Austenland
44. A Rogue By Any Other Name (Rule of Scoundrels)
45. Head On (Lock In #2)
46. When Sorrows Come (October Daye #15)
47. A Heart So Fierce and Broken (Cursebreakers #2)
48. Love at First
49. News of the World
50. Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)
51. Vanished (McLand & Callahan #1)
52. The Murder at the Vicarage (Miss Marple #1)
53. The Other Bennet Sister
54. If Ever I Should Love You (Spinster Heiresses #1)
55. A King of Infinite Space (Long Beach Homicide #1)
56. The 7-1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
57. The Pain Scale (Long Beach Homicide #2)
58. A Cold and Broken Hallelujah (Long Beach Homicide #3)
59. Half a Soul (Regency Faerie Tales #1)
60. Come Twilight (Long Beach Homicide #4)
61. A Deal with the Elf King (Married to Magic #1)
62. Bridge to Terabithia
63. Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales #2)
64. Someone Perfect (Westcotts)
65. Leviathan Falls (The Expanse #9)
66. A Dance with the Fae Prince (Married to Magic #2)
67. Sleigh Bells Ring
68. In a Holidaze
69. A Subtle Murder (Rose Beckingham #1)

novellas:

• Midsummer Night (Lady Julia)
• Silent Night (Lady Julia)
• Twelfth Night (Lady Julia)
• Bonfire Night (Lady Julia)
• All Systems Red (Murderbot)
• Knot of Shadows (Penric & Desdemona)
• The Lord Sorcier (Regency Faerie Tales)

I don't usually do resolutions. I just think it's a waste of time, generally - what I see with other people is that they put a lot of thought (at least sometimes) into their resolutions, and then a week after New Year's, they've forgotten all about it, regardless. I say "they" but when I've tried it, that's exactly what happens with me, too. So I decided some years back just not to bother, and I've mostly stuck with that. However, I do have one for this year, and that's that I'm going to try not to buy any nail polish in 2021.

Now I know this seems like a small thing, but it's actually kind of a big step for me. I have a nail blog, although I haven't posted to it in several months. I was remarkably consistent about posting for a long time, though. I own way too much nail polish, so saying I'm not going to buy any doesn't mean I don't have plenty to wear, anyway. I've slowed down on buying it in the last couple of years, but I've still got tons of stuff I haven't worn, even. Overall I own well over 500 bottles, and that's being conservative. So it just seems like a collection I should stop adding to for a while. We'll see how it goes.