A look at January’s reading…

Popping in with a second post today (good grief!) just to round up January’s reading – more chat about what’s planned for February will appear tomorrow!! So here’s what I read during this month:

 

I had such a brilliant bookish month and am *really* happy with that stack! My reading mojo has been on form during January and I have read some wonderful, wonderful books! No duds at all, and some real standabouts – the Calvino and the Niven, in particular, were epic reads and both of these are likely to feature on my year-end best of. However, all of the books were gems; I had great fun taking part in the Japanese Literature Challenge, choosing some lovely books from my shelves which had never been read; and I seem to have rediscovered my ability to take on chunksters (at least in non-fiction form!) There was fiction and non-fiction, classic crime, autobiography, small presses – really, a cornucopia of bookish delight!

So a marvellous reading month, and February looks to be a fascinating one too – see you back here tomorrow for more plans! 😀

January – a bit of a stinker, really…

I have to be honest and say that January really isn’t my favourite month of the year, and this one has been particularly trying… The general coldness and bleakness and darkness and flat post-Christmas feeling has, I think, got to lots of us, and there were Family Worries rumbling on all the time too (nothing major, but enough to be constantly there and a bit unsettling). Add in the constant complexities of working in a school during a pandemic and you might get why I called the month a stinker above and felt like spending a lot of time hiding in books… I thought initially I hadn’t read that many books in January, but in fact I did, and here they are:

No complete rotters, but a couple which underwhelmed me. However, there were also some real stunners and not all have been reviewed yet so you’ll have to wait a little to find out what I thought… All (apart from the two mentioned earlier) were marvellous reads.

Thinking about what’s coming up in February, well there is of course #ReadIndies 2022, which I’m most happy to be co-hosting with lovely Lizzy! More info will follow about that tomorrow, but I’m very excited to be doing this again and as you might guess from the image of January books, I have already started reading for the month! So many choices!!

As well as indies, I shall also try to join in with the Virago Modern Classics Librarything group challenge, and February’s prompt is North American Authors or Settings. That gives a *lot* of scope, and these were just a few of the possible titles I pulled off the shelves (not even attacking the pile of Atwoods I own). There is, of course, an Amanda Cross which would fit the bill but frankly I’m not sure if I feel like reading another one at the moment. Of course, as Virago were an indie when they published most of these, I can count them for #ReadIndies!!

Apart from that, I shall pick up the next title in the #Narniathon, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” – and that’s about it! It will be pretty much all indies in February and I can’t wait – hope you can join us! 😀