5+4+3+2+1 = My Arithmetic Progression Review of the Year!
Lose the gold rings, strangle the partridge...
These gifts are my thank yous to all of yous for putting up with me all year.
5 Books a-Browsing
This year I've read 34 books all the way through without skipping straight to the pictures. Looking back over my book database (not weird, right?), here are my five favourites:
Happy Money: The Science of Smarter Spending (non-fiction) by Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton. Should be required reading for every human being who uses money: a straight-forward collection of all scientific research concerning money and happiness.
The Third Policeman (fiction) by Flann O'Brien. Remarkably cliche-free writing that will make you remember that words can be enormously entertaining. So good it made an appearance in my blog post on positive constraints in literature.
The Reaper (fiction) by Steven Dunne. Excellent serial killer thriller written by a man I played cricket with in the summer (I dropped a catch and was bowled first ball - the book is more successful).
Breaking Open the Head (non-fiction) by Daniel Pinchbeck. An astonishingly clear-headed first person adventure in the transformatory powers of psychedelic experience.
Mating in Captivity (non-fiction) by Esther Perel. Why is intimacy so inimical to eroticism? How can we keep that spark going through dish-washing domesticity? Fascinating for anyone interested in love.
4 Blogs a-Blogging
As you might have noticed, I've published 78 blog posts this year. Don't bother reading them all, here are the two most read, plus two I reckon should do better:
Thank-You Letter to the Daily Mail (January, 7,942 views).
Understanding the Calais Critical Mass (September, 1,400 views).
Why does society need people who go on crazy, stupid, arduous adventures? (January).
3 Trips a-Travelling
This year, I haven't snorkelled to the Antarctic, wing-walked through the Sahara, or even Fosbury-flopped the Taj Mahal. Lazy. But, thanks to endless cajoling from the irrepressible Alastair Humphreys, microadventures are the new epic, so here are my top three from the year:
The Calais Critical Mass (August). Eighty cyclists cycling seventy miles from London to Calais over two days. The closest I've ever felt to being part of something more powerful than us all.
New River walk (June). A 28-mile walk up the New River from London to Hertford, with Anna Hughes. So simple, so spectacular, that Anna's possibly writing a book about it!
Cycling Home for Christmas (December). Cycling 70km through the night after a day shift at Crisis, to arrive home in the early hours of Christmas Eve. It's always nice to remember that something remarkable is waiting behind every full moon; we just have to listen and act.
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And a Promise in a Pear Tree...
A promise? What the hell? Crappy present. Okay, but here it is anyway:
2015 has been a year of great collaborations, from the Calais Critical Mass to the crowd-funding of my book with Unbound (we hit 20% - yay!). Working with you all on these projects has made me realise how important cooperation and collaboration are to making anything I do a success. So 2016 will be a year of giving back to my friends, colleagues and networks, without which all my efforts would be for nothing.
Thank you and all the best for 2016!
d
p.s. As usual, please hit reply to this email if you have any questions, thoughts, polite requests or final demands. It's great hearing from you and I will get back to you.