This New Year, Keep On Dreaming

I'm not a big New Years Eve person. Growing up, I spent most of them with family friends playing cards into the early hours of the morning, only pausing for a few minutes to acknowledge the clock striking midnight.

And I don't believe much in New Year's resolutions, because I believe that if someone wants to change something enough, the turning of a calendar page isn't going to matter. All the power to everyone who makes resolutions and keeps them -- they're just not for me.

So I'm excited about 2012, but only because I'm excited about life in general and not because I'll write a new year at the end of dates.

I'll always remember 2011 as the year I graduated from college and started life in the real world. The year my Rangers came within a strike of winning the World Series -- twice -- and broke my sports-heart instead. They had me sliding down a couch to the floor with my hands on my head shouting with my dad in disbelief, and I couldn't forget that even if I wanted to. Even if I tried. Because it was one of the greatest games in the history of baseball and they'll talk about it for decades to come.

It is the year I read more books than any other. A year I learned important things about my writing and took some major strides.

But there's one thing I like to learn anew every year. Something Stephen Colbert reminded me of in his commencement speech (which I talked about here). And that's the importance of dreams. To always dream about something, always strive for something. To take every failure, put it in your back pocket, and declare that you'll never give up.

So on that note, I want to share this song by one of my favorite bands:

Happy New Year everyone. I hope you keep on dreaming, even if it breaks your heart.

Books I Read in 2011 that I Recommend You Read

I'm awful at picking favorites, so I don't have a top 5 books list of 2011, or even a top 10 list. But below are some of my favorite books I've read in the past year that I highly recommend. They weren't all published this year, and they're of all sorts of genres, and I recommend them for all sorts of reasons.

• Looking For Alaska – John Green
• Everything about John Green's writing just makes my heart happy. It's smart and funny and compelling and rings true.
•  Room – Emma Donoghue
• This one's a bit disturbing, but it needed to be. And the five year-old narrator is extremely well done.
• An Abundance of Katherines – John Green
•  Paper Towns – John Green (Can you tell this is the year I discovered John Green?)
• Fall For Anything – Courtney Summers
• The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – John Boyne
• This one might break your heart a little. A quick, lasting read.
• Where She Went – Gayle Forman 
• I highly recommend the first book, If I Stay, too. I wasn't sure how I felt about this second one switching point of views before I read it, but I think I may have even loved it more than the first. 
• Divergent – Veronica Roth
• Don't start this if you've got a lot to do. I was sucked into this world and the voice of Tris and couldn't put it down.
• Imaginary Girls – Nova Ren Suma
• Immediately after finishing this book, I couldn't decide how I felt about it. But I haven't stopped thinking about it ever since, and that says a lot.
•  Before I Die – Jenny Downham
• The prose is just beautiful and heartbreaking.
• Invincible Summer – Hannah Moskowitz
• I couldn't get enough of the families in this story. The book takes place over four summers, but it's about so much more than summer and teenage summer love.
• Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson
• If you loved Speak, you have to read this. It's just incredible.
• The Help – Kathryn Stockett
• I didn't think this was my sort of book, so every time someone told me it was great I just smiled and nodded. But it really is as wonderful as everyone said, and it certainly made me stop and think about the world we live in and how people are treated.
• How to Save a Life – Sara Zarr
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson – John Green and David Levithan
• Beyond Belief – Josh Hamilton
• This is a memoir of one of my favorite baseball players who very easily could've died from a crack addiction. His story is so complex and inspiring, I can't recommend it enough.

Here's to another great year of reading in 2012!


Have you read any of these? What were your favorite books you read this year?