Thank God It's Over

Goodbye 2024, I have not liked you very much. Except for Trump winning back the presidency, it's been sucky. My usual new year's resolution is to lose ten pounds. I never do, so it's basically been the same ten pounds since about 1990. But this year I've decided on a new one: Stop looking at anything online. To make sure, I deleted my Instagram account, the worst offender.

If you spend a consistent amount of time browsing the internet you begin to lose touch with reality, since much of what is on there is false. So many people -- myself included -- are hooked on make-believe lives populated by artificially created people, giving us literally nothing to show for the time spent there. So I figured I might as well read honest-to-goodness fiction, starting with books I have always wanted to read but never have, and maybe become smarter, or at least less dumb. My list follows:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky