What *DID* I do yesterday?!

Yesterday was a rough day. I mean ROUGH. It didn't start out that way. It started out pretty great. What's my definition of great? I spent the entire morning cross referencing the NPR Best Books of 2017 and the Goodreads Around the Year in 52 Books lists to plan my reading for 2018. How's THAT for exciting!??!

I know.

Here's my list: 

1. A book with the letters A, T & Y in the title: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (NPR)
2. A book from the first 10 books added to your To Be Read list: Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
3. A book from the 2017 Goodreads Choice Awards (link): Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (NPR)
4. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #1 Earth (in title, cover, content, setting, author...) Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth by Oliver Jeffers (NPR)
5. A book about or inspired by real events: Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan's Disaster Zone by Richard Lloyd Perry (NPR)
6. A book originally written in a language other than English: Frontier by Can Xue (NPR)
7. A gothic novel: Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore (NPR)
8. An "own voices" book*: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (NPR)
9. A book with a body part in the title: River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (NPR)
10. An author's debut book (their first book to be published): Lotus by Lijia Zhang (NPR)
11. A literary fiction: Human Acts by Han Kang (NPR)
12. A book set in Africa or South America: Leopard at the Door by Jennifer McVeigh (NPR)
13. A book with a plot centered around a secret (forbidden love, spies, secret societies, etc): Glass Houses by Louise Penny (NPR)
14. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #2 Fire: American Fire: Love, Arson, and Life in a Vanishing Land by Monica Hesse (NPR)
15. A book with an unique format/writing structure: My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (NPR)
16. A narrative nonfiction: Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann (NPR)
17. A book you expect to make you laugh: Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience by Maggie Rowe (NPR)
18. A book with a location in the title: Iraq +100: The First Anthology of Science Fiction to Have Emerged from Iraq by Hassan Blasim (NPR)
19. A book nominated for the Edgar Award or by a Grand master author (books & authors): Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse
20. A book rated 5 stars by at least one of your friends: The Golden House by Salman Rushdie (NPR)
21. A book written in first person perspective: The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying by Nina Riggs (NPR)
22. A book you have high expectations or hope for: Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks (NPR)
23. A medical or legal thriller: The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris (NPR)
24. A book with a map: Cinemaps: An Atlas of 35 Great Movies by Andrew DeGraff (NPR)
25. A book with an antagonist/villain point of view: The Strange Case of the Alchemist's Daughter by Theodora Goss (NPR)
26. A book with a text only cover: Literature Class, Berkley 1980 by Julio Cortazar (NPR)
27. A book about surviving a hardship (war, famine, major disasters, serious illness, etc): What We Lose by Zinzi Clemmons (NPR)
28. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #3 Water: ­Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (NPR)
29. A book with a "Clue" weapon on the cover or title (lead pipe, revolver, rope, candlestick, dagger, wrench): The Storm Before the Storm by Mike Duncan (NPR)
30. A short book: Kill All Normies by Angela Nagle (NPR)
31. A book set in a country you'd like to visit but have never been to: The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (NPR)
32. An alternate history book: The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K Dick
33. A book connected (title, cover, content) to a word "born" in the same year as you (link): An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became a Big Business and How You Can Take it Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal (word: PPO, preferred provider) (NPR)
34. A suggestion from the AtY 2018 polls, that didn't win but was polarizing or a close-call (link): The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (NPR)
35. A book featuring a murder: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz (NPR)
36. A book published in the last 3 years (2016, 2017, 2018) by an author you haven't read before: From Here to Eternity: Travelling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty (NPR)
37. A Women's Prize for Fiction winner or nominee (link1, link2): The Power by Naomi Alderman (NPR)
38. A science book or a science fiction book: Sourdough by Robin Sloan (NPR)
39. A book with a form of punctuation in the title: The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in WWII by Svetlana Alexievich (NPR)
40. A book from Amazon's 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime list (link): A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
41. A book by an author with the same first and last initials: Tender: Stories by Sofia Samatar (NPR)
42. A book that takes place on, in, or underwater: Starfish by Peter Watts
43. A book with a title that is a whole sentence: literally show me a healthy person by Darcie Wilder (NPR)
44. A ghost story: Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (NPR)
45. A book that intimidates/ scares you: Walkaway by Cory Doctorow (NPR)
46. 4 books linked by the 4 elements: Book #4 Air: Memory's Last Breath: Field Notes on My Dementia by Gerda Saunders (NPR)
47. A book where the main character (or author) is of a different ethnic origin, religion, or sexual identity than your own: Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Ngozi Adichie (NPR)
48. A book related to one of the 7 deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth): Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar (NPR)
49. A book from one of the Goodreads Best Books of the Month lists (link): 4 3 2 1 by Paul Aster (NPR)
50. A book with a warm atmosphere (centered on family, friendship, love or summer): The Wide Circumference of Love by Marita Golden (NPR)
51. An award-winning short story or short story collection: The Mountain: Stories by Paul Yoon (NPR)
52. A book published in 2018: ____________________________

I'm super excited because most of these books are by authors I've never read before. The only exception is Sourdough by Robin Sloan. Sloan wrote Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

So, what can you do with all of this information? Two things, I think. If you've seen this list AND my list for Year of WIPs, you could laugh, that would be what I would do if I saw someone else claim she was going to stitch all of that and read all of this and blog about it and make Flosstube videos (did I mention I did that too?)

Option two: pick up that gauntlet that was just thrown down by your feet, hop over to the group on Goodreads, and get your read on with me!

Or, you know, both.

So, that's how the day started. And it was great till the end. I lost a patient yesterday, and I know, I'm a HOSPICE NURSE, that's the name of the game. But it wasn't a good death and that's decidedly NOT the name of the game. So I'm practicing self-care today and reading the comments on my first blog and on Flosstube and Insta are all part of that. So thank you. I'll be fine. And you'll have contributed to that. So thank you.

Also, current audiobook between calls at work:

Racy.