After complaining that January felt like it lasted forever, February absolutely flew by. I mean, I know that’s because there are fewer days to start with, but it felt like everything in work and in life started to pick up speed this month. My reading didn’t suffer too much despite the quicker pace, but I certainly wouldn’t mind a more moderate March.
In February I finished eight books, a little heavier on the fiction thanks to increasing my audiobook time, but overall still pretty balanced. Here are the books:
- A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas, narrated by Kate Reading (fiction, audiobook) (review)
- The Evolution of Beauty by Richard Prum (nonfiction) (review)
- Jane, Unlimited by Kristin Cashore (fiction) (review)
- An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (science fiction)
- The Storied Life of A.J. Fickry by Gabrielle Zevin (fiction) (review)
- Tell Me More by Kelly Corrigan (essays)
- The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú (nonfiction)
- A Treacherous Curse by Deanna Raybourn, narrated by Angele Masters (fiction, audiobook)
Looking at the list, I really can’t complain! I didn’t love the book I was reading for my book club, The Evolution of Beauty, but everything else really felt like it hit the spot. The two other nonfiction books I read – Tell Me More and The Line Becomes a River – were both excellent, definitely books I’d recommend to others.
On the blog I reviewed two nonfiction books that complete tasks in the Read Harder challenge, confessed my love of Victorian-era lady detectives on audiobook, and shared the books I’ve bought so far this year.
A Look to March
This month, I’ve got three new releases on my shelves that I’m looking forward to reading: Fisherman’s Blues by Anna Badkhen, a look at a fishing village in Senegal and the impact of climate change and overfishing on the industry; The Last Wild Men of Borneo by Carl Hoffman, the story of two men and their fates in the wild; and Soon by Andrew Santella, “an overdue history of procrastination.”
I’ve also got a little project planned for the month. The March prompt for the One Little Word workshop I participate in is to pick a personal practice to work on each day, something that supports your One Little Word (mine is “explore”) or challenges you in some way. One of my goals for the year is to be on my phone less, so I decided my practice is going to be reading a short story or essay every morning instead of immediately picking up my phone. I’m hoping this will help me start my day off on a more positive note than my current habit of scrolling through Facebook and Twitter and getting alarmed about the state of the world. Win-win, I hope!
What was your favorite book of February? What are you hoping to read in March?
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So glad you loved Tell Me More! It’s one of my favorites of the year so far and I just downloaded Glitter & Glue on audio.
I’m definitely going to be looking for her backlist titles when I’m browsing at the library and bookstores — so funny!
I loved Tell Me More too. I want to know more about The Line Becomes a River.
What did you think of Jane, Unlimited? I was just hearing some great things about it.
It was so weird and fun, I loved it. I really didn’t expect it to go in the direction that it did when I started, and I thought that was really cool.
I have been finding Facebook just depresses me lately. Every post I read is either political and depressing or entirely inane. I really need to rework my relationship with it. 🙂
I’ve been trying to cut back, but I’m on social media most of the day for my job so that’s hard.
I’m planning on reading or rather listening to A Study in Scarlet Women for my mystery group theme for April. We’re doing ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and that can be however the reader wants it to be. The real deal, the TV or movie adaptations or some of the new books that feature Sherlock or Sherlock-ish characters. Think that book will work. And I love Kate Reading’s narration skills. Hope you have a good March and starting with a story or essay seems like a fun thing!
That’s a fun theme! A Study in Scarlet women definitely fits, it’ll be cool to see how it compares to other books that play with Sherlock Holmes.
What a great variety of books you read! I keep hearing a lot of good things about The Line Becomes A River so that one is definitely going on my nonfiction list to explore. Here’s to a great March!
I plan to read Jane, Unlimited soon. It was something I wanted to read when it came out, but my reading is kind of slow. I hope you liked it!
Seven out of eight being good is pretty awesome. I’m very behind on new releases so didn’t know about Jane, Unlimited. I’ve wanted to read Graceling for years and found it in the library so this might push me to just read it. And the description of Soon sounds interesting, not a subject I’d have thought there would be a book about! My own favourite was The Age of Innocence; purposefully no plans for March other than the book I’m currently reading (Emmeline by Charlotte Smith). I’m trying to keep going with the what and when I want thing.
Reading what you want to read, when you want to read it, sounds like an excellent plan!
Some great books you read in Feb. have definitely expanded my TBR 😊
That’s a nice looking combination of reading for this month! I start most days with a short story too (sometimes, instead, poetry – just five or six) and it is a terrific routine. I started to seriously try to reduce my screen time two years ago and it has made a great difference in so many ways, encouraging other activities (that I was overlooking or hadn’t even considered to begin with) and helping with better sleep too (as checking, for instance, Twitter, right before bed was exactly the wrong thing to do, even though it often started by an innocent “weather check” *rolls eyes*). Hopefully you start to notice enough improvements that it’s an easy habit to continue!
I like the idea of starting with poetry too, that would be relaxing. I think the big step for cutting back is to leave my phone in another room when I sleep or just not on my nightstand. It’s just too tempting there.
Ooh, I hope you’ll have more to say about The Line Becomes a River. I read a pretty critical review of it in the New York Times today, and I’m interested in other perspectives.
I just saw a story that it’s getting criticized by liberal political groups, which is interesting too. I didn’t read the NYT review, but I am going to look for it.
What a great reading month! It seems like you read a great variety of fiction and nonfiction, most of which I’ve read or want to read. Like Jenny, I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Line Becomes a River and I’m also curious about what you thought of An Unkindness of Ghosts, because that’s one I wanted to like more than I did.
Sounds like a review of The Line Becomes a River should be next on my list!
I’m catching up on posts after a couple of busy weeks, but I hope your project for the month of reading an essay rather than getting sucked into social media is going well. I’ve deleted Twitter and Facebook off my phone, but Instagram is harder to remove since I need the phone to post the pictures. So I’m still trying to find ways to limit social media (and that jolt every morning of anger as I read see the news and reactions to it).