New Year, New Books, Same Quain

the new year means nothing but hoping for change means everything!

Hey, friends - happy 2024! I hope you all had an amazing rest of December full of good friends, family, food, and merriment. We’re lucky that Dustin’s offices close for the last two weeks of the year (and my schedule is more of a concept I made up than anything too concrete), so we took off to New Orleans for the week before Christmas and had an amazing time. From there, we rolled our jambalaya and Sazerac filled selves up to New Jersey for Christmas, then took the train back to Pittsburgh, then spent two frantic days doing big cleaning projects before we had friends in town for New Year’s.

fun fact, we learned afterwards that my dad used to work on this steamboat!

at one point we almost tipped the lifeboat over, but then we didn’t, so it was chill.

I’m very tired!

But I still find myself loving January, way more than i ever have before. Partially, I think, because I’ve been working on self-improvement for a couple of months now, and so January feels like a great incentive to keep going, instead of a reminder of supposed stagnation. (Even though, of course, we’re never actually stagnant, whether we want to be or not.) And though we still have plenty of travel planned for this year, the next few weeks will be quiet and cozy and delicious.

And for me, full of books!

This year, I took up the mantle (and challenged my friends) of coming up with a zero-stakes resolution. One friend is expanding his tea consumption. Another is going to crowdsource ideas for painting projects. As for me…

I will read ANYTHING that’s suggested to me.

I know, this sounds terrifying! And to clarify, I don’t mean like, random jerks on Twitter. But if a friend tells me, ‘you have to read this book!’, I’m going to do it. Books are one of the best ways we share ourselves, and I want to treasure all the pieces of my friends that they’re willing to give me.

So if you have a suggestion, an absolute must-read, let me know in the comments! I’m mostly keeping this to in-real-life suggestions (I am but one person, after all), but my newsletter is a place for friends, so share away!

And hey, if you’re looking for a great option to read this year… I’m legally obligated to tell you that this is the year of DASHED, AKA my third book, coming out into the world. And if you take one book suggestion from me this year, well, you can do worse than that one.

This remains one of my favorite lines, tbh.

And if you’re still looking for a resolution - or not - I’d highly encourage you to explore one with no stakes! Our rule was that it had to have zero real self-improvement to it - the sort of thing that, if you told your mom you were doing it, she’d say, ‘huh!’ instead of telling you how proud she was of you. (Except for my mom, who will love this, because she’s always recommending books to me!)

Most of all, though, as we move into these quiet months, be kind to yourself. Hunker down with a blanket, get cozy as heck, and remember that you’ll change and grow whether you make a January 1 resolution or not. When time is meaningless, every day is meaningful.

I love you all. Happy New Year!

Peace, love, and all of your favorite books,

Amanda