Today I went to Barnes & Noble to look for a Christmas gift, and there were so many people there. I thought, “Why would you wait this long to do your Christmas shopping, Kaylee? You’re dumb.” I thought, “Why is that child crying? Why is that other child crying? Someone needs to get these crying children out of the store.” I thought, “It’s a Tuesday. Why aren’t these people at work? Everyone go back to work.” I thought, “I should go on a murderous rampage to make this line shorter.” But the whole thing made me kind of happy in the end, because if there are that many people trying to buy things at Barnes & Noble, maybe more people still care about books than I was cynically beginning to think.

So! That being said, here’s a list of the top 5 books I read this year. “But Kaylee, no one cares about your list because you’re not an important literary figure and also most of these books didn’t even come out this year.” I KNOW. But I like lists and also books so I’m going to do it anyway.

5. “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel
4. “A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan
3. “Interpreter of Maladies” by Jhumpa Lahiri
2. “The Anthologist” by Nicholson Barker
1. “The History of Love” by Nicole Krauss

I used to think it must be really hard for Nicole Krauss to be a writer and be married to Jonathan Safran Foer. I thought, “Wow, she must feel so inferior all the time because he’s so talented.” But now that I’ve actually read her book I think I can say that no, she definitely doesn’t, and now I picture them just sitting around all the time, eating their couple-y dinner or whatever, and just basking in their own glory…