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Last year while we were completing my wife's 50 States for 50 years trips, she found the American Library Association's Read These Banned Books book journal.  It's a list of 52 books from various genres, authors, and topics with synopses, reasons they were banned, and writing prompts fear each of them.  

Quick thoughts from the first half of the year making my way through the list: 

1. There are a lot of young adult books on the list, which is not my normal reading lane.  The most striking point is that the sexual assault, drug and alcohol usage, suicide, and various other issues that people say are inappropriate for the age group are actually happening to that age group every day.  Why do people want to make sure that young people don't know how many other people their age are going through the same things and how many people have been through it before?  
2. The world is moving past the moral compass that prevailed when I was growing up.  "Because the Bible says so" is just not enough to convince people. 

At the beginning of this year, I felt like I was in a reading slump.  I kept reading the same type of book and was getting a little tired of it.  My preferred genre is fantasy or sci-fi, so it's easy to find enough recommendations to never get out of the two. 

To help break up the pattern, I decided to do the Popsugar Reading Challenge for 2023.  For the prompt "A book about or set in Hollywood," I chose Siren Queen by Nghi Vo. 

The wait forT a digital copy was too long, so I listened to the audiobook.  Amazing mix of a noir feel with a very creepy, menacing magic world.  And the main character is the perfect amount of morally questionable.

I got an Origami-a-Day calendar for this year and am probably a little too excited about it each morning.  Today was the penguin.

Finding new habits for the new year.  One of them is to document things that make me happy, teach me, or help me see the world differently.  Hopefully, I can use this space for that one.