blood bank / reading themes

I’ve been able to catch up with a few friends over the holidays and I got asked several times—what is your reading theme for this year? Although I’m generally aware of my reading themes, I’ve never mapped them out annually before, so here is a general list of the themes I tackled in 2018 (consciously), common themes that piqued my interest in 2019 (less consciously, I allowed myself to follow where my curiosities led last year), and what I plan on exploring in 2020.

reading themes 2018

• Food politics

• Meat industry

• Soil health in agriculture

• Fishing

reading themes 2019

• China’s recent political history

  • Cultural Revolution

  • Tiananmen

  • modern culture in China

  • Censorship

  • Technological development)

• Climate change

  • Psychology and denial

  • Feasible political responses

  • Potential outcomes (flooding, fires, natural disasters)

  • Migration and border security

  • Past “ends of the world”

• Racial and economic inequality in the US

• Short stories

• Memoirs

• Current political state of the US

reading themes 2020

• Urbanism (Inequality, segregation, how to build better cities?)

• Water (History of water rights, especially in the western US, how water is regulated, future of water in age of climate change)

• Immigration stories (Asia, Latin America)

• Maps and geographic history

• Food (How to build more secure food networks?)

• Surrealist fiction and short stories

other updates

• Played a lot of intense Spike Ball with family over the holidays

• Went snowboarding over Christmas and New Year and can occasionally toeside turn now. Going back up to Big Bear this weekend and excited to get more practice in

• Went to Tahoe for the first time and it was beautiful. I took a lot of medium format shots on the Mamiya, and am excited to get those scans back sometime next week

• Visited Sacramento for the first time. Was surprised by how un-Californian it felt, I think because I’ve never been to a city in California with a river running through it

• Saw my first meteor shower (kind of??)! The Quadrantids happened while in Tahoe and saw a few of them! It was more anticlimactic than expected but the skies were beautiful

• Can almost play Cherry Wine properly on the guitar

• Read Chanel Miller’s Know My Name and was entirely wrecked by it

• Bought some matcha and was gifted a matcha tea set over the holidays. Excited to make some oat milk matcha lattes

reflection questions

• When was the last time you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone?

• What are you seeking?