By Well, I’m finally starting to do wrap-ups on here again. I kind of fell off doing this last year, but I decided I ought to continue again because it’s nice to reflect back on the months, and I kind of like having this record.
As a consequence of my new life as a college student, I had the month off from school. Thus, most of the month was spent in my room reading, or frequenting the bookstore near my house in an attempt at productivity. I also tried to make progress on my various creative writing projects.
Reading:
I managed to read 13 books in January, which is pretty good, if I do say so myself!
You can hear my full thoughts by watching above YouTube wrap-up video, or checking out my Goodreads.
A Quick List of the Books:
The Idiot and Either/Or by Elif Batuman – 5/5 stars
Studies in Pessimism by Arthur Schopenhauer – n/a
The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston – 4/5 stars
Stoner by John Williams – 3/5 stars
Deep Work by Cal Newport – 5/5 stars
The Rain in Portugal by Billy Collins – n/a
The Enchiridion by Epictetus – 5/5 stars
Fox 8 by George Saunders – 2/5 stars
The Make-Up Test by Jenny L. Howe – 2/5 stars
Persepolis by Marjane Sartrapi – 4/5 stars
Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk – 3/5 stars
Animal Farm by George Orwell (re-read) – 5/5 stars
Movies, Podcasts and Other Miscellany That’s Not Reading
Movies / TV
House – I reached the second season of House, and I’m still addicted to it, and watching it while I’m at the gym.
Mr. Robot– I binged all four seasons of this show back in August, and now I am re-watching it with my friend. We started season 2 this week.
Breaking Bad– I’m cheating because I watched this in November/December, not January, but I finished Breaking Bad over the break. I have never felt as depressed about the fate of a certain particular character, my favorite character, as I was at the end of this series. Can’t say who it is, but if you’ve watched the show, I think you can probably hazard a guess.
Podcasts
My podcast addiction has not gone away. Here are some of the ones I’ve been listening to recently:
Darknet Diaries
This Podcast Will Kill You
Cults
The History of Rome
Fiction Writing Made Easy
Philosophize This
The Daily Stoic
Blocked & Reported
Writing
I wrote 10K words on the novel that as of yet is simply entitled “Spring 2023 WIP.” I also wrote a couple rudimentary and half-finished short stories.
Goals for February
1) Reserve one day per week as a “rest and reset day”
I think I need to start designating Sunday as my official “reset day” and try to finish all of my homework on Saturday. I really just need some scheduled relax because paradoxically, if I don’t schedule it in, I’ll never be able to turn my brain “off”. I also need some extended focus time to work on my writing, which leads to my second goal for February:
2) Get serious about my writing
This was one of my primary New Year’s resolutions in January, and I’m going to be continuing on with it this month. To quantify this goal a bit more: I want to establish a writing routine of working on my current projects for at least 30 minutes a night.
3) Establish a routine of reading every night before I go to sleep
I used to be very good at this, but in recent years, I haven’t been reading before bed anymore. I want to start doing this again. It’ll take care of giving me a good night routine while at the same time helping me get some reading done.
Well that’s it for my January 2023 Wrap-up… How was your month? What was the best book you read? Feel free to share in the comments!
If you liked this post, consider subscribing to Frappes & Fiction. I post about the books I read, the books I think YOU should read, and anything else on my mind.
Find me elsewhere:
Frappes and Fiction 
1 comments on “January 2023 Wrap-Up: A Paradoxically Eventful Month of Hibernation”