50 Book Recommendations on the Occasion of the Big 5-0

Hi!!! Did you have a nice Thanksgiving? This is me with what I guess is a maraca, but it sort of reads like a drumstick too. So, if you like turkey (I do not), maybe you can grab a drumstick and party hearty/hardy while drooling later this weekend. ‘Tis the season! (Guess I was teething, and yes, I also had some big-time allergies when I was little. But the ruddy cheeks just add to the whole enthusiastically disheveled look.)

I turn 50 at the end of this year. December 26 to be precise. My birthday is usually a quiet affair — partly due to the date, but also due to me often feeling shy about wanting people to make a thing about the day and brushing it off as NBD. But dammit, 50 is a really big deal, so I’m going to make my own big thing about it. Taking a cue from @christenpears and her gorgeous, gorgeous account, I’m going to share 50 book recommendations (i.e. my favorite books) over the course of the next handful of weeks. Believe it or not, I’ve often found myself stumped and flummoxed when someone asks me for a book recommendation. It’s like I start drooling as if I’m teething and have a maraca in hand. So this will be fun and fruitful for me, and I hope it will be fun and fruitful for others.

I’m not sure how or in what increments I’ll share these recommendations. Maybe 5 at a time? I’ll just play it by ear. I’ll try to take a pic of a recommended book (if I own it) on our awesome new book wall, à la the Carol Shields books below. (Those don’t count yet! Because I have to think about which of hers I’d SPECIFICALLY recommend. [But maybe it’s all of them…?])

Cheers! xo amy

Edit: I’ve mostly ended up posting them individually on Instagram. On my website, you can find them all HERE.

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originally published on instagram