Here’s my 2010, in 5 x 5 list form…

Five Books I Loved:

• PTOLEMY’S GATE by Jonathan Stroud. My favorite of the year. The ending blew me away. I couldn’t really enjoy reading anything else for the next few days.
• REVOLUTION by Jennifer Donnelly. Not a flawless book, but one that made me think and twisted my heart and stayed in my brain. And it has the line that, of anything I’ve read this year, has most resonated with me: “The world goes on stupid and brutal, but I do not. Can’t you see? I do not.”
• CHARLES AND EMMA: THE DARWIN’S LEAP OF FAITH by Deborah Heligman. This book truly brought these historical figures to life for me, from the big questions they grappled with, to the little details of their family life.
• DOGSBODY by Diana Wynne Jones. A reread of a beloved childhood favorite, and it still held up marvelously. The ending still chokes me up, with sadness, hope, and love for the characters.
• CITY DOG, COUNTRY FROG by Mo Willems and Jon J Muth. Okay, so part of the reason I loved this is that the dog in it reminds me of my dog Charlie. And I really don’t know how actual little kids would like it, especially as it’s a bit sad/bittersweet. But I loved it.

Note: this was such a good reading year, and thus harder than ever to narrow this down. Nothing makes me feel more truly rich than a big pile of excellent books, and this year I was wealthy beyond measure. There were many other books I read that I absolutely adored, and still more that I admired even if they weren’t exactly my kind of book. Here’s my full reading list for the year on goodreads.

Five Experiences:

• Seeing the Cirque du Soleil’s OVO in Boston. Phenomenal!
• Driving along the Slea Head Drive in Dingle Ireland. So gorgeous.
• Meeting my friend in the cold, dark, snowy morning for our scheduled run. We’re both getting back to it sloooowly via the Couch-to-5K plan, and we felt so good about actually making ourselves get out there that day!
• Seeing Natalie MacMaster perform live, with truly boundless and inspiring energy (especially considering she was 8 months pregnant).
• Hearing Dr Maya Angelou speak. What a remarkable human being she is.

Five Foods:

• The BBB (brown sugar, brown butter, brownie bit) Ice cream from Toscanini’s. I almost considered trying to convince Bob to stop in Boston on our drive back from NY through the blizzard the Monday after Christmas, just to get some more!
• Dried Mango (unsulphered, unsweetened) from Trader Joe’s (I ate an entire bag of this as my dinner one day and I don’t regret it one bit).
• The freshfreshfresh open-faced roasted chicken sandwich on brown bread from the Stone House in Ventry, Ireland. Best thing I ate on that trip. Nomnomnom.
• The ice cream sandwiches from Slate’s Bakery: homemade vanilla ice cream + homemade chocolate chip cookies.
• The grilled turkey, gruyere, arugula sandwich with blueberry chutney from North Creek Farm that we proceeded to recreate at home for at least six days running until we overdosed!

Five New Things:

• Zumba. The first exercise I have honest-to-goodness enjoyed while actually doing it (as opposed to, say, running, which I mostly enjoy after the fact). I love the music, I love the cargo pants, I love that everyone in my class seems to be having so much FUN.
• Merlin. Love the relationship between Merlin and Arthur, love Guinevere, love seeing how they’ve mixed up the mythology. I am so looking forward to season 2, coming to DVD in just a few weeks!
• Vampire Diaries. Our most recent household tv obsession. Complicated characters, family relationships, supernatural hijinks, and more. Addictive!
• Prophecy 3: Into the Mists. When Bob and I ran the first Prophecy LARP we never ever thought we’d see a third campaign. I am so pleased and proud that folks have embraced the philosophy and style, and so excited to see the ideas and directions being brought by the new directors, and the new players who have joined the community. Also, I am ridiculously happy to be running a plot that involves a magical library and story-telling magic.
• Bob’s new job! I was so so proud of and happy for him when he finally quit his soul-killing, time-devouring previous job and took a new part-time position at our city library, doing something he can feel good about.

Five Writing Highlights

• The publication of my second middle grade fantasy, THE MAGICAL MISADVENTURES OF PRUNELLA BOGTHISTLE. I went through some serious challenges writing this book: throwing out the entire first draft, rewriting it from a different character’s POV, completely changing the plot, etc. So it was a real thrill to see Prunella finally out in the world!
• Going to ALA Midwinter. Wow. It’s probably a good thing I went to the “smaller” one first, because I expect the full summer conference would blow my mind. So many books! So many book-lovers! So many awesome authors!
• My new (as of March) lovely purple writing space. Also my new MacBook — I have never really warmed to Scrivener, but I do love having a laptop. And wifi!
• Meeting more amazing, inspiring writers online, and even getting to meet a few of them in person. It’s such a solitary endeavor… so having connections to other folks who understand that is truly invaluable.
• Seeing a proto-cover for my third book, CIRCUS GALACTICUS (coming in Fall 2011) and also the art I commissioned personally for my website (sketches of ten of the characters). I am SO EXCITED about this book. But that’s a story for 2011!

Thank you, 2010!

Tags: yir