I wish that I had started sharing this from the very beginning, but here we are. I turned in the first big draft of my manuscript to the editor a week and a half ago, and by the time I pressed SEND on that email I wasn’t even sure if the thing made sense anymore. It was like when you stare at a word for too long and then you start to wonder if it’s spelled wrong or if it’s even a word at all. My brain had gotten a bit lost in the delirium of writing 60,000+ words (mostly) ABOUT MYSELF.

My To Read right now is absolutely toppling over. I can’t remember the last time I had so many books to read. Mostly this can be attributed to my book buying habit, of which there is no cure. But also it’s gotten so out of hand because I’ve been reading less in 2020 than usual. I’ve been working on the podcast and my book so much (all good things!) plus some travel and general family life, and my brain has been just fried. Books aren’t holding my attention, so I’ve been focusing on quite a bit of nonfiction (where I can’t get lost in a plot, and can put it down for days or weeks at a time and it doesn’t matter).

I’m posting my full To Read list here as a way to stay accountable to reading most of these books over the coming months, and also in case you’re looking for inspiration on something to read.

I shared more about some of these books on the BONUS: My To Read Pile episode of the podcast.

I decided to break down the list into categories. **affiliate links are used in this post

My To Read pile for Spring 2020:

I’m doing it! I should say, I’m FINALLY doing it, as writing has been my ultimate goal since I moved to Los Angeles in 2001.

And I have been writing for many of these years, it just didn’t look like what I imagined. When I started a mommy blog in 2010, writing on the internet was meant to be temporary, a way to learn how to write for an audience, a stepping stone to “real” writing. But I just kept doing it. And it just kept working (mostly). The opportunities that came up in those early years came through my blog posts and blog audience, and traditional publishing felt like a dinosaur.

I love to give books as gifts, and there are so many genres and options that it works for so many recipients and is usually a very decent price point. Cookbooks, self-improvement, coffee-table books, inspiration, those are my go-to when gifting, because novels are way more of a gamble in terms of taste. (Although I did include a few recent best sellers here, in case you have someone who enjoys reading the most buzzed about books of the year.)

You can see all these books in one place here.

We absolutely LOVED our time London. It was our first stop on our two-week European extravaganza, and because of flight times and availabilities, we ended up there one extra day than the other cities. This worked out perfectly to give us a little jet-lag flex time for the first few days with an 8-hour time difference.

10 Things about our time in London:

In June we took what a trip of a lifetime to Europe. We traveled to London, Paris, and Amsterdam to visit friends living abroad and to celebrate two big birthdays (including my 40th!). I shared a lot of our adventures on Instagram (because I love that platform for this very thing), but was getting so many questions in my DMs that it felt like answering them all would be better suited to an old-school blog post. Because what else do I have this space for, if not to share?

A lot of the questions were in the same vein, so I’m just going to share 10 Things generally about the trip that other families planning travel might find interesting:

Is it just me or is 2019 turning out to be a FANTASTIC reading year? I’ve read more new releases than ever this year (though I plan to dip into some back lists and classics in the fall), and my To Read stack for the summer (when I do the most reading) is already toppling.

Reminder: I always share what I’m reading on my personal Instagram page, and give the most honest reviews in the Secret Posts. Let’s be friends on Goodreads!

Here is my To Read summer list, and I'll update this post with reviews as I go:

You can listen to a longer discussion about some of my favorite books of 2018 on Episode #38 of the podcast Smartest Person in the Room. 

But if you’re a list person (and I am a list person), here are my 10 Favorite Fiction Reads of 2018:

(Click on any cover or title to take you directly to the book.)