Happy New Year!
I can get caught up in unproductive routines, doom loop cycles, and this time of year, overeating and overdrinking. I appreciate the fresh start the year affords.
It’s time to get after it in 2026. Renewed discipline, but also optimism, commitment, engagement with the world. I want to get outside more, walk, touch grass.
My reading is off to a good start with Jack, a biography of Jack London. I’m about a third of the way through and am greatly enjoying learning about a favorite author who typically falls in my top 10. These days I seem to be gravitating more and more toward nonfiction. The world, and its past, are so strange and full of wonder that fiction, even the weird, seems pedestrian in comparison. I do think both should be read, as fiction activates different parts of the brain, and good fiction connects us to myth and story in a way most non-fiction cannot. And I am starting to itch for a Lord of the Rings re-read. I like and agree with some recent advice from a booktuber to “read for quality, not quantity.” It does seem best to me to really know a book so much that it shapes you, changes you, than to just read as many titles as you can for breadth and only be able to recall them shallowly, if at all.
I am going to publish my heavy metal memoir. This book bridges both fiction and non-fiction; it is the unadorned facts of my life, and observations and insights on the music that shaped it, but also told with what I hope is a driving and engaging narrative voice found in good fiction. I can’t wait to share it with the world and hope it finds readers for whom it resonates.
Speaking of heavy metal I’ve got a couple of Iron Maiden concerts on the docket for this year.
I will in all likelihood be hosting one final heavy metal themed party here at my house, over the summer, with a live band. For eight years this was an annual event. After the last, in 2018, I plan to bring it back one final time for a "retirement sucks" tour worthy of Ozzy Osbourne.
We’ve also got a trip to Alaska lined up, land and sea, which I’m greatly looking forward to. At 52 I am very aware of my steady advance into middle age and want to see and experience more of the world while I still can.
What plans do you have for 2026? What behaviors do you hope to adopt, or drop?
BTW I’m debating more posts like this, where I’m just sort of rambling not about any particular book or movie or author or trend. I enjoy letting my mind wander without needing to stop and reference facts or cite passages.
1 comment:
You can certainly write about whatever comes to mind but I do like it when you talk about something in particular.
It's interesting that you are drawn to nonfiction. I tend to fiction but there is some really strong non-fiction (I will recommend The Master and his Emissary again.) I also understand wanting to read more substantive things especially as you get older.
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