January approacheth, which means the plague of year-end best-of lists is upon us.
Recently, I was asked to name four books to recommend as holiday gifts, and I had a hard time coming up with anything newish. The awful truth is, I read very few books last year. I have lots of excuses — mostly having to do with my own book deadline. Never mind my laziness, which probably ought to be the true confession of this posting. But because it is my blog, I will instead lay a big lump of the blame on the damage done by the endless political campaign to my ability to concentrate on anything else.

This really had nothing to do with being an informed voter. I obsessed and succumbed to anxiety. I spent far too much time reading OP-ED pieces and editorials. And WAY too much time watching MSNBC, CNN. I compulsively checked the electoral polls of a couple of websites — so much so that I barely wasted any time playing Solitaire.

The post-election readjustment isn’t easy, and now we’ve got the financial melt-down that makes the morning newspaper and NPR broadcasts into a car-wreck from which I cannot avert my eyes. Still, I do plan to return to reading. I have a whole list of books, including novels, which I actively avoided in 2008 due to the fact that I was writing my own novel.

Which I just submitted to the publisher on Friday. Yep. Hit the send button. Ta-da.

Talk about burying the lede.

🙂