Today’s Top Ten Tuesday topic at That Artsy Reader Girl is one near to my heart: books published last year that I was excited about, but didn’t get to for one reason or another. There are dozens of those, but here are ten of the key ones:

1. Murder on Cold Street by Sherry Thomas
2. Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde
3. Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
4. Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev
5. Jo & Laurie by Margaret Stohl & Melissa de la Cruz
6. Aurora Burning by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristof
7. Check, Please! Book 2 by Ngozi Ukazu
8. Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
9. A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik
10. A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

The particularly disappointing part about this list is just how many authors on it are ones I love.

How about you? Were there 2020 releases you put on your must-read list that you still have yet to tackle?

I am loving the new stripey socks I am knitting. They are the pleasantly addictive kind with four rows of each color, which means they’re a lot like potato chips or cookies. You swear you’ll just knit/eat this one more and then you’ll stop. And suddenly you’re staring at an empty row of Oreos or a half-gone bag of chips or several inches of project. Except that, of course, knitting is way better for you than eating that much delicious junk food.

I am also enjoying the audio version of a book my dad recommended over the summer, The Happy Ever After Playlist by Abby Jiminez. Apparently it’s the second book in a connected series, the first of which apparently includes a lot of tears, so I’m glad I’ve started with this one.

I have a project that’s very nearly off the needles and a four-and-a-half-hour-long training tomorrow, so I’ve given some thought to what to knit next. This is Havirland Pax Socks in the Holiday Hangover colorway, which feels right for a January knit.

Since the training is a live video discussion about equity and inclusion, I’m not anticipating being able to spend the whole time knitting. But I wanted to have something to work on while I’m doing the listening part of the work, since I feel like the repetitive motion will help keep me focused on the conversation at hand, rather than wandering back to the pile of other work I have.

Rudi is spending one weeknight each week this winter coaching and tomorrow is that night. I’m anticipating having plenty of time to curl up with my current read, Evie Dunmore’s Bringing Down the Duke, a Victorian-era voting rights romance between a nobleman and a bluestocking. I’m about halfway through, and the duke has just asked the female protagonist to be his mistress. She skipped her first ever fireworks show for this conversation, and I think she’s going to rue the decision.

Head to As Kat Knits to see what others are knitting in this new year.

Here’s one of the things Annie Lennox has been working on during the pandemic: playing “Moonlight Sonata” perfectly:

She’s been way more productive with her pandemic time than I have.

I’m not much for resolutions, but I have lots of hopes for the coming year. A whole lot of them involve the pandemic ending, but some of them are within my control.

Here are ten of the more bookish hopes I have for this year:

1. All of my local indie bookstores stay in business. (D.C. is home to one of the best indie book scenes in the country.)
2. All of your local indie bookstores stay in business. (I want them to be there for you. And I want to come visit them all once the pandemic ends.)
3. I can browse in the library again. (I do appreciate that they let me pick up reserved books, though.)
4. I can attend author events in person. (I’m grateful for all the video events, but they aren’t the same.)
5. I read through some of my personal stash of books. (I think only 20% of the books I read last year were from my collection, which is less than I acquired.)
6. I read a book a week. (It’s less about the number specifically, and more that it means I’m prioritizing something that brings me joy.)
7. I publish my top ten reads from 2020 (and 2019 ::sigh::).
8. I do a better job blogging about the books I read. (I like having written the reviews; I’m just awful at actually doing the writing.)
9. I read more poetry. (I love buying books of poetry, but am not great at finishing them, which means they never move off my to-be-read and currently-reading lists.)
10. If I get stuck in another reading slump this year that I’m faster at moving to re-reading something I love. (Harry Potter, Thursday Next, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, and L.M. Montgomery could all help lift me out of the bookish doldrums.)

Huh. That ended up being easier than I expected. How about you? Do you have bookish hopes or goals for 2021?

Head over to That Artsy Reader Girl to read others’ entries into this week’s Top Ten Tuesday.

Bout of Books 30 has wrapped up. For the first time in several years, I didn’t manage to make either Twitter chat, which was disappointing, since I usually enjoy them.

I did, however, get some reading done, although I didn’t finish any books.

I listened to some of Becoming Duchess Goldblatt by Anonymous, a memoir from the real-world journalist who creates a fictional Twitter persona for herself. There’s lots to make you laugh, but also lots to make you cringe.

I picked up Evie Dunmore’s Bringing Down the Duke again this week (apparently I was craving tales of high royalty), which is currently my most overdue library book with the hopes of returning it this week. It’s about a Bluestocking commoner who finagles her way onto the titular duke’s estate in an effort to find a way to get him to support voting rights for women. Instead they both find themselves fighting off mutual attraction.

The next Bout of Books is May 10-16. You can bet I’ll be back for it.