You might have noticed that my Instagram account has kindof pivoted from a “small business” focus to a wholly bookish focus. That honestly has been intentional. So much of my consulting work is done working with corporations who find me through an employee referral or from news media coverage or my LinkedIn posts, so the need for my Instagram to focus on my business has slowly diminished. It’s unlocked the opportunity for me to pivot to content I really truly enjoy and I’m excited to create more bookish content in 2023 as well.

With this in mind, I also thought it would be fun to start a monthly update on books (and other things) I loved each month, as well as a monthly reading recap, all in one place. So please read on for the first in hopefully a consistently ongoing series (with ADHD, who knows) of what I loved this month. (Credit to @martinamenzini for the inspiration behind this new series!)

favorite books

I read 26 books in November and honestly thoroughly enjoyed most of them. Not included in the list below is The Marriage Auction, as it is a Kindle Vella exclusive (although it is coming out in a four-part book series early next year). It also doesn’t include the two Audible exclusives I listened to, Smoke Signal and Paging Dr. Gupta, both were four stars for me in case you’re looking for short audiobooks to listen to. Finally, it doesn’t include Stone Heart, a self-published Katee Robert novella. It is free to read through February 2023 on her website though! And my last disclaimer: six of the books below were ARCs, although I believe three of the six are now out and available to the public.

This list includes every book I read, 1-5 stars, so there are some books that I found to be duds on the list. If you’re looking for some of my five star reads from the month, those would include The Poppy War, ReadMe.txt, Girl In Ice, and Queen Among the Dead.

favorite music

It is the time of Spotify Wrapped, so I do have a good grasp on what I’ve listened to repeatedly this year. Brooke Alexx was my top artist of the year and I found myself in the top 1% of her listeners. As far as podcasts. go, What’s Da Craic and Archetypes were my favorites there.

favorite creator

As I’ve tried to reduce my screentime this month, I’ve also gone through and re-curated my social media accounts to prioritize those whom I really truly want to consume content from. Two accounts have stood out as top “new to me” finds this past month though - @EmmaSkies on Tiktok (a book account) and @meredithjeandoty on Instagram (a fitness coach). I have some exciting personal updates on the fitness front coming soon and Meredith has been an incredible person to learn from!

favorite product

As I’ve slowly returned to travel this year, the Thule Aion 40L Travel Backpack has become my complete go-to. I was previously a rolling carry on person, I’ve had suitcases from Away and others and still have the Tumi Merge carry on bag. But as my mobility has increased over the past couple years, I’ve found a backpack to be more convenient for running around airports and quick layovers like the one my wife and I just did in Amsterdam. The Aion 40L backpack has become perfect for this - it’s waxed canvas and mostly waterproof, unzips like a suitcase for easy packing, and has a robust secondary pocket with padded sleeves for a laptop and iPad and enough space to fit three additional books on top of that (very important criteria). There’s also a hip pouch that goes with it but I haven’t bought that yet - although I’m considering it.

Let me know in the comments if this is the sort of content you’d like more of! I’ll be back next month with another wrap up.