January gets a bad wrap. As someone with a January birthday I try not to take it personally. I also spent the first three weeks of January 2025 intentionally between jobs - being free of work commitments, but assured of upcoming employment, I personally found this to be a most agreeable month.
Much of my free time was, as expected, spent doing house-related admin. I fear that time completely divorced from any societal or administrative obligations would leave me marooned. So in may ways, the chores were a gift that I am grateful for. In many other ways, I long for a time without chores.
Having so much free time allowed me to finished three books, as well as start a fourth. For some people I suspect this would be an unremarkable reading rate - but it's the most I've read in the last twelve months. I was rewarded handsomely for it, and I stumbled across some of the best books I have read in recent memory.
I have scattered thoughts I would like to collate, but for now take some short-form reviews in their stead:
- Ring the Hill by Tom Cox. This book is equal parts nature writing, memoir, and essay. It happens to be one of the funniest, warmest, most generous pieces of writing I have read in a while. I have already gifted a copy and leant mine out.
- Half Arse Human by Leena Norms. The expectations of "YouTuber book" would be misleading. Intentionally published in January to ride the New Year New Me wave, Norms advocates for small and sustained changes over large and fading ones. She calls for community and collective action, reminding us of the part we play in that, like talking to our friends, finding new friends, or writing to our MPs.
- Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl. In only a hundred pages, Frankl summarises his experiences as a Jewish Prisoner of War during WW2, including his time in Auschwitz. The edition I had then followed with a brief introduction to Logotherapy, a field pioneered by Dr. Frankl, among others. I don't know how you go about reviewing somebody writing about their first-hand experiences in Auschwitz. This is an important book, and Dr. Frankl was, by all accounts, a remarkable man, doctor, and writer. He lived, by the way, to ninety-two years-old.
This past week I have started my new job. As such I have set myself a pure fantasy book, Fonda Lee's Jade City, the first in a Japanese-inspired mafia story. The average Good Reads rating of each successive book in the trilogy gets higher, and this first book certainly feels like it is laying groundwork. I had to make a diagram of people, clans, companies, and their relationships. It's worked, though ! The latter books are available from my public library, so I suspect I will finish the series there in the following months.
As for sewing, I have drafted a waistcoat pattern, using the Müller&Sohn system - and took some of the time between jobs to work on the construction. I found the Handcraft Tailor Academy's short video short course on waistcoat assembly (link) super helpful for the construction. The existing resources for assembly I have assumed a slightly different cut/pattern (one with a joined-up collar or back) - but this course did not.
The videos show a few handy tricks for some of the finer tailoring details. At the moment I really appreciate these finer details, which are often finished, if not entirely constructed, by hand. I think working like this reminds me how much of a garment is a living, malleable thing - not static and unyielding. It lets me take my time with pressing, folding, easing - to create a garment that feels more precisely constructed.
Yes, it's slower construction - but the slowness can be a feature.
Personally, I have been frustrated by inclement weather. Rain, winds, and frost have kept me off of my bike. The return of dance and exercise classes has kept me a little saner. But just today I am returned from a three-hour bike ride, on a Sunday, in the sun. Few things feel more restorative to my soul.
I managed to journal most every day this month, and feel fresher for it.
In all, I thrive.
Stray Links
- "I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers" by Rebecca Shaw, The Guardian (link)
- American Fiction, Film, 2023. The best film I saw this month, novel-like. (Letterboxd link)
- "Your Billions Will Not Grant You An Exemption From The Indignity Of Death" by Tom Cox (link)