The hardest part of 2020 for me has been having zero time to myself. I work from home and have to manage that while juggling my 6-year-old's online assignments and class schedule. God, I even miss the 15 minutes alone I used to have in the car for my commute.

The best thing I've done for myself is I've started taking ukulele lessons online. It's light and creative, and it's mostly muscle memory, so it doesn't feel demanding. My teacher doesn't even care if I practice, so it's very low pressure. And it's an hour each week when I can shut the rest of the world out and just do a fun thing.

I'll second A Memory Called Empire being a great audiobook.

Of Banks' Culture novels, The Hydrogen Sonata is my absolute favorite, and the audiobook for it is stunningly good. That one is his last, but they are all mostly stand-alone.

The best audiobooks I've listened to in the last year was The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty (The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold). The narrator is just fantastic, perfect for the language and lyric descriptions. The story starts out in eighteenth century Cairo but quickly moves to a magic-filled landscape and city of djinn. The series is an interesting alternative to typical Western fantasy.

@rinel Servant x Service is a cute, slice of life comedy about civil service employees.

I also recommend the previously mentioned Recovery of an MMO Junkie.

I'll second A Memory Called Empire being a great audiobook.

Of Banks' Culture novels, The Hydrogen Sonata is my absolute favorite, and the audiobook for it is stunningly good. That one is his last, but they are all mostly stand-alone.

The best audiobooks I've listened to in the last year was The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty (The City of Brass, The Kingdom of Copper, and The Empire of Gold). The narrator is just fantastic, perfect for the language and lyric descriptions. The story starts out in eighteenth century Cairo but quickly moves to a magic-filled landscape and city of djinn. The series is an interesting alternative to typical Western fantasy.

@rinel Servant x Service is a cute, slice of life comedy about civil service employees.

I also recommend the previously mentioned Recovery of an MMO Junkie.

The hardest part of 2020 for me has been having zero time to myself. I work from home and have to manage that while juggling my 6-year-old's online assignments and class schedule. God, I even miss the 15 minutes alone I used to have in the car for my commute.

The best thing I've done for myself is I've started taking ukulele lessons online. It's light and creative, and it's mostly muscle memory, so it doesn't feel demanding. My teacher doesn't even care if I practice, so it's very low pressure. And it's an hour each week when I can shut the rest of the world out and just do a fun thing.