For more than thirty years, well before we knew its name, my husband and I — and later, our children — have celebrated “Christmas book flood” on December 24. One of our favorite days of the year, we celebrate with a long walk in the woods, a feast, and, when night falls, an exchange of gifts, especially books.

Another of our winter traditions is to spend Thanksgiving and / or Christmas at the Brookfield or Milwaukee County zoo. For the last few Thanksgivings, our daughters’ studies have put the kibosh on the trip, but we’ve been consistent about visiting on or near Christmas, and on Friday, we had the Milwaukee County Zoo to ourselves. Tree kangaroos, fennec foxes, and tiger cubs! Oh, my!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful winter holiday!

… until jólabókaflóð!. As I shared last year, it delights me that the way in which we have celebrated Christmas Eve for more than thirty years has a name, “Christmas book flood.”

A flurry of coupons, gift cards, and textbook sellbacks has meant that I’ve experienced a bit of a flood before the flood, so to speak. Speaking of recent acquisitions, The Vegetarian is a fine book, but it has, in my opinion, been rather over-praised. The “Kafka-esque” description, for example. Really? It reminded me more of Josephine Hart’s Damage (1991) — fraught, erotic, offbeat, memorable even; but, ultimately, slight.

Soon it will be time for my annual reading life review. At this writing, I’ve completed 120 119 118 books, of which thirty were graphic works and seventeen were plays. Interestingly, at least a dozen were rereads, including a number of books first read in high school or earlier (e.g., The Call of the Wild (Jack London) and The Turn of the Screw (Henry James)).

What have you been reading? What books do you hope to receive this holiday?

Two articles about reading captured my attention this week. The first, Will Schwalbe’s essay “The Need to Read” (WSJ, November 26), begins:

We all ask each other a lot of questions. But we should all ask one question a lot more often: “What are you reading?”

One of my favorite questions! Unfortunately, it can yield a crop of disappointing answers, including, “Oh, I don’t have much time for reading.”

Receiving a title or genre in response to the query is no guarantee that disappointment won’t soon follow, either. “I just read for entertainment” and “Oh, don’t over-analyze it” are two of my least favorite follow-up responses. Both seem designed not only to end what could have been a vibrant interaction but to dismiss and disparage me for being keen to explore. “Over”-analyze? Because I compared one novel to another? Because I wondered if you’d seen so-and-so’s review? Because I quoted a line or asked if you thought the closing paragraphs were effective?

Bosh.

My family spends a great deal of time talking about books — and, for that matter, movies, plays, art, television programs, and music. We describe what works for us and what doesn’t. We compare one book (or author or director or actor or artist) to another and stitch thematically similar works together — all in an ongoing conversation about what each of us is reading, thinking, learning, doing, and seeing. Over the last decade, we have been able to approach some works multiple times: Shakespeare’s plays, for example; LOST and Sherlock; Fargo and Soylent Green; the exhibits of many museums. This deepens and colors our discussion. More valuable to me than nearly all that we own is this mental treasure map of our shared experiences and memories, complete with its legend, comments, and annotations.

If that’s “over”-analysis, I am guilty, I guess. It’s funny, though, because, to me? That’s just good talking.

Here is another passage:

Books are uniquely suited to helping us change our relationship to the rhythms and habits of daily life in this world of endless connectivity. We can’t interrupt books; we can only interrupt ourselves while reading them. They are the expression of an individual or a group of individuals, not of a hive mind or collective consciousness. They speak to us, thoughtfully, one at a time. They demand our attention. And they demand that we briefly put aside our own beliefs and prejudices and listen to someone else’s. You can rant against a book, scribble in the margin or even chuck it out the window. Still, you won’t change the words on the page.

The other article is “A Plea for Reading in College” (Forbes, November 30):

I’m not saying that everyone should read a prescribed core of “great books” or that not enjoying reading automatically makes you suspect. However, one of the great advantages of reading, aside from the activity itself, is how it develops one’s imaginative powers. Whether in fiction or non-fiction, entering into a dialogue with characters and authors widens a reader’s perceptions of the world, a condition that greatly increases an individual’s ability to grasp the complexities that surround us, at the same time interacting with them and creating new forms and ideas.

Both articles compare the act of reading to a discussion: “They speak to us…” “You can rant against a book…” “[E]ntering into a dialogue with character and authors widens a reader’s perceptions of the world….”

So. I’m not “over”-analyzing. I’m reading, thinking, learning, and talking.

And you? What are you reading?

Early voting, and, oh, have I ever learned a lot as an election judge — about myself, my town, and, yes, even the world. The stories I could tell, too! But that seems indiscreet, so I will confine myself to a confession: I have not made a bit of progress on my ornithology studies since the post in which I asserted that I would bring the book to my assignment. On the morning of my first day as an election judge, I rightly guessed that I would not have much time for reading, so I left the tome at home. As it turned out, I did not move from my ePollBook until 2:15 p.m. that first day, and the subsequent days allowed no time for attentive study or deep reading. During the storms last week, though, I was able to read the newspapers, and on other days, I caught up on some of my magazine subscriptions and finished the last few pages of a graphic work. That’s all right. Once the election is decided, I can (re)turn my attention to the birds – both Project FeederWatch, which begins November 12, and the course.

On my free days these last couple of weeks, I’ve been practicing my music, winterizing the forever home, lavishing attention on the cats (who are not accustomed to spending eight- and ten-hour days without a human lap; thank goodness my husband is working from home this week!), and slurping down fast-paced thrillers like Dark Matter (Blake Crouch) and The Strain (Guillermo de Torro and Chuck Hogan). The first novel might appeal to fans of The Martian, although Matter is light on the science and problem-solving that make Martian a brainier book. As for the second novel, twenty minutes of a television series reminded me that I already owned the book, the first in a trilogy. Over the weekend, curled under a blanket in my capacious-bottomed Adirondack chair in the backyard, I enjoyed the butter-yellow light, the decidedly not-November weather, and the somewhat predictable vampire tale. I’m undecided about finishing the trilogy.

At this writing, then, I’ve completed 109 books, which is five above my goal in a year of reading slowly. Twenty-six of those are graphic works; sixteen are non-fiction. If those numbers were flip-flopped, I would have met one of my objectives: to read more non-fiction. Seven or so weeks remain in the year, and I am knee-deep in the delightfully informative Life Reimagined (Barbara Bradley Hagerty), so there is still (some) hope of meeting that objective. Similarly, inspired by my work in the six-week MOOC “Literature and Mental Health: Reading for Wellbeing,” I am hopeful about meeting another of my objectives: to read more poetry.

Speaking of bibliotherapy, in a neat bit of serendipity / synthesis / synchronicity, I ran across the subject last week while catching up on my magazine subscriptions. From “Read a Novel: It’s Just What the Doctor Ordered” (Time, October 27):

Even the greatest novel cannot, by itself, cure clinical depression, erase posttraumatic stress or turn an egomaniac into a self-denying saint. But it might ease a midlife crisis or provide comfort in a time of grief.

The MOOC I completed – led by Jonathan Bate and Paula Byrne and featuring excellent interviews and discussions with Stephen Fry, Ben Okri, Ian McKellen, and Mark Haddon, among others – focused on the way that literature, particularly poetry, can illuminate certain aspects of the human condition and proffer insight or succor during times of emotional upheaval. More, quite apart from the subject, the cadence or form of a poem might also speak to the reader, serving as an incantatory emotional salve. To me, the MOOC provided a responsible and fascinating way to apply reading. The Novel Cure, on the other hand, a book in my TBR and one featured in the Time article above, seems like embarrassingly oversimplified application of the ideas – as in, Feeling blue? Read this. As Bate and Burns and the doctors, writers, professors, actors, etc. they featured pointed out, though, it simply doesn’t work that way. Literature may prove powerfully effective for some people experiencing emotional distress, but the works cannot be prescribed.

Other reading notes… After a long hiatus, I accepted three ARCs: The Lion in the Living Room: How House Cats Tamed Us and Took Over the World (Abigail Tucker) was released last month; Running (Cara Hoffman) will be released in February; and The Jersey Brothers: A Missing Naval Officer in the Pacific and His Family’s Quest to Bring Him Home (Sally Mott Freeman) is due out in May. Already familiar with Hoffman’s novel Be Safe I Love You, I was engaged by the opening pages of Running, so it has secured a place in my knapsack this week along with the last two weeks’ worth of comics. (Darn this brief stint of working! It’s wreaking havoc on my reading life.)

Speaking of comics, I finally succumbed: I created a pull list at Comixology and linked it to the shop partway between home and my husband’s work. The owner not only most reliably carries copies of the titles I read, he recommended titles based on my buying patterns, including one I took – Eden’s Fall. (I know some of you think I should just get the issues electronically, but I am still hopelessly in love with hard copies.)

More when this election is (finally!) behind us. In the meantime, what are you reading?

…We have no time to stop and stare?”

It absolutely delights me that the MOOC I’ve anticipated all summer uses the W.H. Davies poem “Leisure,” the source of the opening quote, to make several points about mindfulness, the healing power of literature, and our need to clear a mental corner for contemplation. Said MOOC accounts for three of the books on this weekend’s pile: Some of My Best Friends Are Books, How to Read a Poem, and Stressed, Unstressed.

Liney’s Into the Fire is the second book in a trilogy, the first of which I read on vacation two years ago. I remember The Detainee as a gripping story that suffered from uneven writing. In the end, though, story won. I have, however, contemplated flinging the follow-up across the room, it’s that badly written. Is it vacation nostalgia that keeps me reading?

The Idealist ended up in the pile when I heard Rick Kogan’s interview with author Justin Powers two weekends ago. The book began as a long Slate profile of Aaron Swartz.

We visited our daughters this holiday weekend, which gave us time to listen to NPR and P.G. Wodehouse’s The Code of the Woosters, every other sentence of which I could press into my commonplace book. We also took two bike rides, the first of which was the most memorable: At the turnaround point, we paused for water, coffee, and some nuts. Swallows swooped and darted overhead. Prairie grasses and flowers bent in the breeze. The trees and underbrush thrummed with the sounds of animals and birds making the most of summer’s end. We had no choice. We simply stopped and stared.