Here we are at my favorite video of the year, because it is all about books.

Looking back on the year, I was reviewing the books that I read, and I noticed an interesting

pattern. I seem to have been looking for something, because although I didn't start the year

with any real reading plan, I kept coming back to the same kind of book again and again.

For starters, it was a lot of history. A lot of storytelling about people who really lived,

events that really happened, and beliefs that changed the world. If I had to sum it up, this is the reading profile of a woman, a mother, and a journalist who was seeking perspective.

I wanted to understand the times we live in and the ideas that shape us for better or for worse.

I only get about 10 to 15 minutes of reading time a day, depending on how

quickly I pass out once I'm in bed for the night. With seven kids ages 1 to 20, I am in peak

parenting mode. All told, I read 20 whole books this year. Nine of them were chapter books

written for children under the age of 10.

And I decided if my reading list were a Spotify wrapped, my reading age would be 12.

But how to rank them?

By publishing date, by category, best to worst, worst to best, alphabetical by author,

there were too many decisions. So I'm going to just go in the order I read them because that in

itself is a journey. First up came the Civil War, a narrative volumes one and two by Shelby

Foot. This weighs about 35 pounds and it's not even including the third volume.

These two took me through the end of March, at which point I needed a break from endless slaughter.

By the time I finished volume 2, Friedrichsburg to Meridian, over 300,000 American boys were dead, many needlessly, most from diseases that we would laugh at today. The best part of reading foot is that, like other rogue historians, he didn't bother with footnotes.

They interrupted the storytelling, he said, and his storytelling is incredible, especially when you can hear his Greenville-Mississippi accent in your head as you go.

Lines like this about the Emancipation Proclamation. They took it for more than it was, or anyhow, for more than it said, the container was greater

than the thing contained, and Lincoln became at once what he would remain for them,

...