I feel like the therapist in the room need to be like giving you the standing ovation. I know same. All right. Good

for me. Next one, Seth, what were the best books you read this year? Maybe best book or books?

Well, I'm just going to go with one because that was the question and I didn't even have to think about it. So you know how I put off Claude Cuculan forever and ever and ever and ever. And then this year I finally I started actually I started a David Mitchell book that I still haven't finished that I really want to read. And then I got about two pages into the David Mitchell book and I was like, I actually felt guilty. I felt guilty that I had Anthony door sitting on my bedside and that I chose David Mitchell. If you're listening, I'm sorry. You're not listening, but I'm sorry. So I put David down walked away, went to the cabinet, picked out Claude Cuculan land and read it. And it was I it's really interesting book to me. I've actually talked a little bit about this with Sean Smucker. And when call your actually the both authors when said he couldn't get really into it because he was trying to listen to it, which I totally get like the format of that book.

Did you try to listen to my problem? Yeah, I had to stop and and I love and the thing is I didn't even really want to listen because I love Anthony door sentences so much that I just need to go back to reading it. And so this is encouragement for that. Anyway, go on. Okay, good. Yeah.

So so in in winds wife, Miska is also a huge reader and they tried to listen to it together on a road trip and they both were like, we can't do this can't can't make it happen. And I totally get it after reading it. I totally get it. But I talked a little bit to Sean Smucker about it just briefly. I'm not sure that this book is for everyone kind of in the same way all the light we cannot see was like that book is just so broadly applicable to yeah to the human experience and people who are interested in

war and Europe and geography and

mystery and all these things. Cloud Kookalyn was fundamentally different. And in a sense, it was kind of I thought it was kind of like his ode to books like his love letter to books and libraries and and I absolutely loved it. There are scenes in that book that I still think about and I cannot say the same thing about all the light even though I would say that all the light is probably in my top three novels of all time in cloud Kookalyn is not. Yeah. But it was such a good read and there are scenes in there that I still think about and that I love and there are a couple characters in there that I still think about and I love and and interestingly the characters that I love are sort of like a young youngish woman youngish man pair who are sort of on opposite sides of a warring tribes for lack of a better term. And from some of those themes of all the light. So anyway, there were things about that book that I really really loved and so I would say hands down for my money that was like my best read of the

year. That's really great. I've got so there's a listener subscriber of mine. I love her YouTube channel. She her name is Autumn Kern. So she's listening. She puts out this thing around the end of every year. That's like how to plan for your 20 your next year's reading life like plan your literary life. And she encourages different categories. And I told her the other day, I think my category is going to be books I already own because I have been guilty of the something shiny syndrome like a here a new book coming out or I see one like yes, I've always wanted to read that. I'm going to read that and said and then I buy it and then it sits there. Anyway, that falls in that category. I think it is this has been my impetus to finally finish this book probably restart it because of the listening situation that you just said. So thank you for that little kick to do that in 2024.

I also think it's a winter book. So I would suggest. Nice. January when you started, it doesn't feel like this say, you know, sometimes the summer books, you know, you want something a little cheekier or lighter or something. This is not that. Yeah.

So yeah. Cool.

I'll do that. Very cool. What is the what has been the most rewarding thing about your work this year? Yeah.

Oh, that was a good segue to what I had just mentioned. I have been really pleasantly surprised how much I have enjoyed getting to know like-minded readers and writers on sub stack. And I know we had a whole episode about sub stack. So I'm not going to just re say all the things we just said on that. But getting to know other writers who really are in it for the craft of writing and then readers who leave really thoughtful comments and go back and forth with each other and seem to just find each other. I don't know what it is about the platform that helps people find one another in a way that maybe it's just sort of the by nature of what sub stack is. It's a little bit of the anti social media spot on the internet. So maybe it just naturally attracts that crowd. But it has been just enjoyable. I would say I probably have gotten to know, I mean, know in an internet kind of way, probably 10 writers that I didn't know existed this time last year. And that has been so enjoyable to me to where I actually feel that rekindled love of kind of short term writing where you know, you publish something in a week and you look forward to the interaction. That to me feels like old school blogging in all the right ways. So that has been probably my favorite thing about my work this year. And I feel like you can relate to that a bit.

Yeah, I can't agree with you more about the platform in general. We've talked about it a lot. We continue to talk about it a lot. I think there are some things that I really love to sit down and have a round table with the people at sub stack, whether for a podcast or otherwise. I think there are some things that I'm noticing that I wish would change. So there is some saturation that's happening that makes it difficult to navigate and there needs to be some better ways to navigate, I think, whether that's through like sub genres or something like that. But all that say, as a general rule, you are exactly right. The way that platform operates makes it really easy to connect and get to know people and doesn't necessarily make it easy to grow, but it makes it easy to connect. And I think that that's something that we kind of had a dead period after the blog cycle crashed and went into social media. Like nobody was really connecting over the writing on Facebook. Not really. Yeah. So you're right. And I will say you should feel in particular, very pleased and rewarded in your own sub stack journey because you've done great things this year. It's been really great to watch. So

you know what you're doing. Aw, well, thanks. It's been fun. And I think that's one of the nice things about this kind of platform and not even I don't mean platforms specifically like proper noun sub stack. I mean, just kind of more the platform of writing on the internet where there's lots of ways to do it, right? So the way I'm doing it works for me. Maybe next year I'll be doing it differently and different people do it different ways. And I just love that. So hooray for finding kindred spirits on the internet. That's the way where I feel like the internet shines, you know, when you can back away from the vitriol. So it's been a good year in that regard. Well, I think that was three each already. That went by really fast. So therefore we're going to wind this down and say a Fon farewell to 2023 with how we do every episode. And that's talking about what's adding more beauty, goodness, truth to our lives. So Seth, what are you enjoying these

days?