War and Peace and Kindness and Wonder

Are you like me? Do you experience a huge sense of possibility at the beginning of a new year? I'm very excited about 2020, and I can't wait to see what happens. I'm keeping my resolutions simple this year: to exercise at least twice a week, to read and review at least 100 books in the year, to write each day, and to talk less and listen more (most difficult for me).

You may have noticed that my blog header is different. There is a reason for this. At the end of this month, I am going to Paris for sixteen days. Paris. Sixteen days. I'm a little kid when I think about it. 

I started 2020 off with a bang, as I usually do. In December, I started a big stack of twenty books, and on January 1st, I finished as many of them as I could, fourteen of them. I think I learned to do this during teacher training, and it probably has a fancy name. All I know is that it makes me feel like I'm well on the way to achieving my goals. I set my Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge at 100 books, and I've already met 14% of my goal. 

Did you choose to participate in the Goodreads challenge this year? How many books do you hope to read?

I'm reading the rest of the books I started in December, plus a few more. All of them (perhaps, though, not War and Peace) are on one person or another's list of mood-boosting books. It's my hope that these will provide a nice barrier of insulation for me against the toxic world this year. So far, it seems to be quite effective.

Sheila at Book Journey did her seventh annual First Book of the Year posting. I chose to start my year by reading Kindness and Wonder: Why Mister Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever. For a look at all the First Books chosen, take a look here.

The finalists of the Cybils Awards were announced on January 1st. I'm very proud of the work my panel did in choosing top seven favorites for each category from over two hundred picture book and board book nominees. I feel happy to have nominated books chosen as finalists in three different categories: Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson (Poetry); The Wicked King (Young Adult Speculative Fiction); and New Kid (Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novels). For a complete list of winners, take a look here. Here are the finalists for Fiction Picture Books and Board Books:

My post about the Fiction Picture Book and Board Book finalists is here.

Can I read one book all year long? I decided to try Nick's 2020 War and Peace Chapter-a-Day Read-along. 

We so enjoyed watching the Up series of movies, borrowed from our public library, that we decided to take on another huge series of movies. I borrowed all the Star Wars movies from the public library (except the last movie, of course) just before the end of the year. We are well into these:

• Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (1999)
• Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones (2002)
• Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (2005)
• Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
• Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (1977)
• Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
• Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983)
• Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens (2015)
• Star Wars: Episode VIII —The Last Jedi (2017)
• Star Wars: Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

When we finish with Last Jedi, we plan to see the last movie at the theater.

I'd love to hear about your week.

I'm very happy you found your way to the Sunday Salon. There are no real requirements to linking up at Sunday Salon. Sunday Salon is simply a place for us to link up and to share what we have been doing during the week. Sunday Salon is a great way to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

Some of the things we often talk about at the Sunday Salon:

• What was your week like?
• Read any good books? Tell us about them.
• What other bookish things did you do? 
• What else is going on in your life?

Other places where you may like to link up over the weekend are below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

My linkup for Sunday Salon is below.