My mom read sixty books this year. That’s more than a book a week. Another Ricochet member offered an impressive post on his 2020 reading list where I see that others enjoy a similar diet. I don’t know how you all do it. I read nightly, snacking on my stories for a few minutes before falling asleep, and then partaking of extended meals on occasions when I’m awake in the wee hours. I always have a book or two on my plate. Despite this, it takes me weeks to finish a work, and I realized that I’ve completed only a handful of books in 2019/2020 and sampled a few others. I count my daily grazing at Ricochet as reading, too, so I suppose I could figure in the equivalent of a year of bi-monthly magazines to account for that.

I usually skip the dessert of fiction that keeps me up at night and stick with autobiographical stories and engaging histories with subtle, well-rounded layers. These works, often two-dollar Kindle deals, can have imbalances that earn them a few one and two-star ratings on Amazon. However, I often find them satisfying or even deeply nourishing. Most selections originate from places and times outside my own: the South Seas in the 1700s, Europe, Africa, the Middle East. Some of these international repasts were unforgettable, others savory and filling, and a few meriting abandonment after several bites.