For various reasons, rather less reading got done this year, though much fun was had despite that. I only read/finished/started 9 books. In my defense, several of them were long! Several of my faves below.

Fiction:

Fellowship Point, Alice Elliott Dark. I ended up liking this rather more than I expected. The prose was lovely and the main characters were old ladies, which seems to be right up my alley these days. I even teared up a bit at the end.

Hemlock & Silver, T. Kingfisher. I boomed through this in about two days and thoroughly enjoyed it, as with most Kingfisher books.

Non-Fiction:

Inventing the Renaissance, Ada Palmer. I listened to this as an audiobook (all 30 hours of it) but it worked quite well that way. It was a fascinating look at how the ‘Renaissance’ was perceived/created/recreated in the period and afterwards, with a focus on Machiavelli and Florence. I especially enjoyed her nicknames for the various popes, including ‘Battle Pope 1’, ‘King Log’, ‘Battle Pope 2’, and ‘Pope No Fun’. I would love to take her class and do the ‘let’s reenact the papal election of 1492’ exercise. Serious scholarship, but accessibly presented.

City of Quartz: Excavating the Future of Los Angeles, Mike Davis. I found this one via the ‘Historians at the Movies’ podcast and actually had to go to the library (gasp) to get a physical copy. It was published in 1990 and explores competing ideas of Los Angeles and how the various powerful groups exert their influence over the built and social environments.

The Work of Art, Adam Moss. Former New York Magazine editor and aspiring painter Moss interviews a variety of creators (including artists, writers, composers, screenwriters, and even chefs) about their process and the creation of one of their works. As usual, such things are deeply personal and idiosyncratic and did not solve my plotting problems. But I enjoyed it.

And I caught up on British society gossip via a few issues of TATLER. Sadly, far fewer people seem to be naming their children Arabella and Peregrine…