Reading on a Rainy Day

Look at me making reading plans here, when I'm reading at a snail pace. Hilarious! Still, the act of making plans does make me want to read more, even if that feeling lasts only a few days. February review This was my least read February in years. My first half of a year are usually reading-heavy. But life got in the way very early this time. Below is what I planned to read in February and what I did read. Lots of abandons, which I'm not surprised by. The Song of Achilles  by Madeline Miller -  read . it took me a while to finish this book, but I loved reading every minute of it. Highly recommend! The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin - reading Presence by Amy Cuddy - abandoned . I had plans to read this book but I didn't get to it. I still plan to read it but maybe later. Half of a Yellow Sun  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - abandoned . This was a spillover from January. I know I want to read this book one day, but I need to get off my scifi/fantasy kick first. Deadpool Class...

And just like that, we are into February. January review I got some reading done in January but it wasn't as much as I wanted to. Most of the first half went into reading There There , which I hoped was a quick read but turned out to be a book I could only read a few pages at a time. By the time I finished it, I was in real danger of being in a slump, but thankfully I gave The Fifth Season a few pages - that one pulled me in from the beginning and never let go. I'm still in the book hangover and cannot wait to read the sequel. This is what I planned to read in January: There There by Tommy Orange - read The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin - read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - currently reading Hotel Du Lac by Anita Brookner Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Deadpool Classic Vol. 2, 3, 4 Other books read: Are We There Yet? by Nina Laden Frozen Olaf's Night Before Christmas The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard Saga issue 55 by Brian Vaug...

April... so many things happened and it all whizzed by! Much of what didn't happen is now May's problem along with a ton of new things planned for May. May reading plans This month, I have more than my usual number of ARCs to read. I've been slowly reentering the galley world and doing much better at either picking the right books or actually finishing them. The first one is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, which I have already started. Ryland Grace wakes up from a deep sleep, not remembering who he is, where he is, or why he is where he is - which is pretty far away and leads to several freak-outs. Eventually, he remembers that he is somehow supposed to save humanity but he just doesn't know all the little details. So far I am loving it as much as I did The Martian .  Another book coming out this month is The Plot by Jen Hanff Korelitz. A teacher and former novelist hears about his student's idea for an upcoming book but the student dies before the story could be ...

And it happened, just like I worried. March is usually the first proper month in my reading year - the adrenaline of a new year has vanished, goals start getting measured against reality finally, and I realize just how much I want to do and how little time I have. Somehow this also causes my reading to slow down or hit a slump, so March wasn't a great month in reading.  But that usually means I'm better prepared for April and I have a lot of exciting books to look forward to.  April reading plans This month, I'm going for a one-book-a-day goal. I've got a ton of middle-grade and graphic books I've been hoping to read so I just need an excuse to get through those books. We'll see if that ends up killing my reading mojo but so far, I have finished one book a day this month.  There are two new releases I am looking forward to reading -  Something Unbelievable by Maria Kuznetsova follows Larissa and her granddaughter, Natasha, as Larissa recounts her family's S...

Even if February is the shortest month of the year, it felt way too long to me. Some of it is because we have settled into a routine and work got less busy, so time didn't seem to "fly". But also, my reading slowed somewhat. There were days or rather, lots of days, when I didn't read anything. March reading plans I don't have any specific reading goals for March. There are some interesting books coming out next month but nothing that has jumped to the top of my TBR just yet. So I'll look at catching up on some of the books that I've been doing the 'Deliver Later' on in my Overdrive account. Right now, that's these three books - Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters, Artificial Condition by Martha Wells (book #2 in the Murderbot series), and The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen.  One thing I'd like to do is read a little out of my comfort zone as well. I just started reading a book of poetry this week - If I Tell You The Truth by Jasmin Kaur,...

I can't believe we are already into February. Another month and we'll have hit the one-year mark (in the US) since the lockdown started. In so many ways, it still feels like March 2020 around here, minus some of that initial confusion, but plus a lot more frustration and angst.  February reading plans On the reading front, I've been eyeing a few books that I'd like to get to. Some of these are new releases and others are books I want to read for a challenge. That said, for the most part, this month, I want to finish all the books I've started and not finished so far. Every few days over the last few weeks, I kept getting a library hold come through and that messed with my reading plans. This means, I now need to finish So You Want To Talk About Race , Black Buck , and The Bad Muslim Discount . In addition, I need to make progress on A Promised Land (which is a long-term read). There are two new and recent releases I'm hoping to get my hands on - Detransition, B...

A full month of social distancing and stay at home life with limited time outside — that’s got to be a first for most of us and a first for the entire world to be partaking in at the same time. It’s been an interesting and challenging experience for sure but it’s also been a form of drastic change that took quite a bit of getting used to.  Life has been insanely busy over the past two months. Not how it used to be when I’m very busy at work, then drive home at a late hour after one of us maybe stops for groceries or to buy dinner, pick the girl from her school, and then start the dinner, family time, and bedtime routines at home. After everyone’s in bed, I may spend an hour or two catching up with reading, blogs, or personal projects, while also super exhausted and fighting sleep. This #stayhome month has been a different kind of busy. I’m spending more time at work and doing “schoolwork” with the girl, but I don’t have to deal with commute anymore and getting dinner on the table...

I tend of think of February as a short unplanned stop in a year's journey. It's the month that takes everything for a toss, the month when you stop following your resolutions or your best-laid plans but then halfway through you want to fix it but it's too late, so now you just wait for March and do a reset. Happens year after year. Even with the leap day this year, or especially because of it, this month felt as if it ran longer than it should have, like when you plan that long vacation expecting every minute to be enjoyed but then the last day comes along and you just want to go home. It's the month my reading always fails and from all the posts I've read so far, it was no different for many of you. Funnily though, this year around, I read a lot more this February than in any month over the part four years. In a way, February turned out to be a break from normal routine. Or at least it made it possible to squeeze in more reading than I am usually able to. ...

Reading I barely read a book in January. Even though I started the month with very good intentions, by the time the first week was over, I pretty much abandoned my reading. It's not that I passed through a rut but other things came up and I found it easier to just put aside my books and, at the end of each day, watch TV. So that's what I did. I did finish one book though - Michael Pollan's Food Rules , which I blazed through in less than an hour, while the baby toddler napped. It's that short. Besides, this is the first time in a long period that I carved out some time to read a physical book. Of course, that was in the first week of January, followed by three weeks of nothing. Ha! I'm not complaining, honest. This is what worked for me in 2016 - I had months when I read nothing and months when I read a ton of books. So I expect more of the same this year, and frankly? I liked that approach much more than when I used to plan my reading. Blogging Blog...

May and June were probably my slowest reading months this year, which I expected them to be. There were a lot of things to take care of these past few months plus a book wasn't always the respite I was looking forward to at the end of the day. Luckily, I enjoyed all the books I did read these past two months, which doesn't happen often. My favorite read was Lean In , which had never been on my radar until I picked it up impulsively and decided to give it a try. A Visit from the Goon Squad  comes a close second - another book I may not have read this year if not for a readalong . Even though my reading was somewhat patchy, I did blog quite a bit. All the reading I did during the first half of the year built up a huge review backlog that I wanted to take care of. I still have three reviews pending, so the hope is to write them this week and schedule them. Blog highlights from March and April Two readalongs in May On early morning reading in bed On true equal...

Both March and April were somewhat slow months for me in reading. Part of it is probably because of the return of some of my TV shows, but a busier work and life is also to blame for some of that lack of reading. I spent part of March in Toronto, Quebec city, and Niagara and spent very little of that vacation reading anything at all. April ended up being a recovery month from some of that vacation, plus I have a vague feeling of decluttering something this whole month. So it isn't until the readathon at the end of April that I really got into a reading spree. These are the books I read the past two months. I loved many of these books so it makes it hard picking any kind of favorite. The Cellist of Sarajevo was very thought-provoking, The House at the End of Hope Street was quirky, Expecting Better was informative, Relish was fun, Dept. of Speculation was hard to put down. The Magicians and French Milk were sort of bummer reads - the former suffering from execution a...

At the beginning of the year, I promised not to make any goals and just let my reading take me on its own journey. I did have a little hiccup in January trying to decide what to read next. Even when there are no goals, or especially when there are no goals, I find it very hard to decide what I want to read next. I got through only 3 books in January, but by February, I had a scheme set up which worked very well for me when it came to deciding what to read next. The "scheme" involved a little bit of random.org but mostly building a running list of recommendations I get every day through blogs or book sites. I managed to read 8 books in February in the end. My favorites of the 11 books are Stuff was quite fascinating - more than I expected it to be. Family was a moving book to read. The other books I read during these two months are: Letters in the Attic by Bonnie Shimko Lost in Shangri-La by Mitchell Zukoff ( Nonfiction ) The Strange Library by Haruki Mura...

After a long season of minimal reading, I finally had a month of a lot more reading, though not quite where I want to be. Still, no complaints, it's good to just be reading something most of the time. Fall is the season of TV and it's no different over here. The Voice, The Vampire Diairies, The Walking Dead, and Once Upon a Time are what I mainly watch. I'm still catching up on Supernatural, so that is more in the category of binge-watching. (On a side note, it's funny that I watch shows I would never read about on books. Magic? Vampires? Zombies? Give me a book having one of those and I will groan heavily.) Last month I read... Wish I could read this again: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman The dud: Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish  by David Rakoff. Reviews posted... The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman How to be a Good Wife by Emma Chapman Attachments by Rainbow Rowell Oth...

I didn't quite see the point of putting up a monthly recap post, considering I've had a few patchy months of reading. When I resumed blogging yesterday, the husband even jokingly asked me if I even had anything to blog about since I haven't sat down with a book in a long time. But I do like these recap posts a lot - they can be a kind of milestone marker when I can pause and feel pleased or disappointed in my reading, and also make a lot of reading plans for the next month, every one of which I forget about as soon as I hit 'Publish'. Both March and April were slow reading months for me and May is likely to be the same thing. I'm hoping that June will turn things around. But if not, never mind. These are what I read in the last two months: Three of those books were seriously awesome. I couldn't quite get enough of The Dinner . Night was so profoundly moving that I immediately went to B&N to buy the next two books in the trilogy. As for The ...