We’ve reached the end of February! Now, I can’t say this was the best reading month for me, but I did read 7 books and listened to 1 audio. The audio was the brightest and best spot of my reading for this month for sure. I think I spent most of the month listening to this one audiobook, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. The rest of my reading (physical books) was just okay overall.
February Books
Sadly, I started the first of the month with a DNF! The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye. Unfortunately I followed The Paragon Hotel with another book that came darn close to being another DNF! Reproduction by Ian Williams was not the book for me to read at this time. I wrote briefly about these two already in my Netgalley Update.
The Lost Queen and The Birds That Stay were better for my reading, yet just good overall. The Hunting Party and The Familiars fizzled out for me, thus making the majority of my reading month feel like it was just a so-so one. :-(
The brightest and best part of my February was definitely the audio for The Lacuna as I mentioned above. Holy crackers did I completely LOVE The Lacuna! What a wonderful piece of storytelling! I enjoyed every single moment of the 19 hours and 15 minutes spent listening to it.
But I did finish my February reading on a higher note with The Night Tiger. Although I felt like I was reading it forever, I even quipped to Hoarder Elizabeth that it seemed like I was about to get married to it! Not that it was a tough or terrible read at all, it was actually filled with beautiful and lyrical writing. I was fully invested when reading, it just seemed to take me a long time to finish. The Night Tiger is a lovely story filled with superstition, fantastic characters and shape-shifting men that turned into tigers. It had intensity and mystery to it too!
Let’s hope March hits it out of the park for me! In like a lion? Is that what the saying for March is? Let’s hope the books roar like a lion all month long!
March Reading
So far in March I have planned:
I’m currently listening to Euan Morton’s awesome narration for Macbeth by Jo Nesbo. I need to hustle and read The Woman in the Lake in 7 days. She’s in high demand at the library. I also have The Weight of a Piano from the library. I plan on reading Leading Men. That one is a Netgalley request, but I also get to use this for the new Spring reading challenge from Reading with Style. (To be used for the task for an LGBTQ character, and I also get bonus points since it can also be used in the task for reading a fictionalized biography (it’s about Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover, Frank Merlo.)
I really do want to read If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Peacock Feast, The Shell Seekers, Once Upon a River, A Ladder to the Sky…
For our book club I’m really hoping they pick Talk to Me by John Kenney – he wrote Truth in Advertising and we all loved that one so much. But, I’m also bringing Little Faith by Nickolas Butler and American Pop by Snowden Wright, which looks like a great southern novel. We haven’t read one of those in a long time. I also want to read The Wolf and the Watchman and, and…
From my Netgalley list, I have The Hiding Place, Blood Orange, The Woman in the Dark (three thriller style books and will mean that I need a good solid break after reading them – thriller fatigue will more than likely settle in!)
I have a few short story collections that I want to read too. I could easily fit those in with my reading – spend my breakfast reading time with a story each day? I’ve got a nice set of different collections: Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang, Elsewhere Home by Leila Aboulela, Meteorites by Julie Paul, and I’m interested in reading Divided Loyalties by Nilofar Shidmehr which I can borrow from the library.
It’s a bit of an aggressive list isn’t it? I’ll probably not be able to read everything listed here, and others will more than likely catch my eye (for example, the Women’s Prize for Fiction is announced on March 4th!) but I sure will give it my best effort.
What are your reading plans for March? Are any from my list on your list too?
4 Comments
It’s wonderful when a book takes hold of you the way that the Barbara Kingsolver did! Hopefully something in March can be even half as good for you. I’ve wanted to read The Shell Seekers for years. And I just finished Divided Loyalties (lots of good stories in there – I think you will like them – the first story is a good litmus test). Are you planning to read any of the Canada Reads titles?
We read many of the ones that appeared on the Longlist for Canada Reads (still in disbelief that The Boy on the Beach is not on that shortlist). And I read Brother already. I do have the rest marked down with the only one that doesn’t find itself high on my must read list – the Woo Woo one. Great to hear that Divided Loyalties was a good one – so many collections to read this year! :-)
The Shell Seekers is an old favorite of mine. You will enjoy it. Looking forward to listening to Barbara Kingsolver. Thanks for recommending.
I’m thinking that The Shell Seekers will be an excellent read for me. (Hoping!) I hope you love The Lacuna as much as I did Eve! 😊