February 2023 Reading Review

This weekend was full of time outside in the snow – it was wonderful (and exhausting)! Last week was winter vacation here in New Hampshire so we had very little structure, but it snowed nearly every day so there was plenty to keep us busy. And this morning was an awkward start — I accidentally overslept and needed to get a loaf of bread and a batch of biscuits into the oven, so my morning quiet time was spent in the kitchen instead of at my computer. After getting Colton on the bus, I had to jet out to the DMV to renew my license and when I returned home, we decided to get our homeschooling day started by baking a big batch of gingerbread cookies and working on an art project. It was a nice way to ease into this term, for sure.

All of that is to say that my day is all a-kerfluffle and this monthly reading round up will be short and sweet. You’re welcome!

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February was a tremendous month for reading; it was wide and deep and I can’t even begin to narrow down favorites or categorize anything. And it makes sense — there’s nothing better on a cold winter’s day than to curl up with piles and piles of books and February’s pile was exceptional. I started this post over the weekend and have deleted and restarted it multiple times — I have been paralyzed about how to write about all of these books. There’s no possible way I can summarize everything I loved, so I won’t. I’m going to be incredibly simple and say that I loved everything this month, except for Norwegian Wood. I can’t recommend that to anyone.

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March Plans:

I have a lot of plans for March but doubt that I’ll get to everything. After reading months like February, I always slow down quite a bit the following months. That’s probably healthy and helps to keep me balanced, so no complaints here. But here’s what I have written in my notebook for this month, if you’d like to join in on anything:

• Finish War and Peace
• Finish Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Finish A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
• Finish What are People For? by Wendell Berry
• Finish The Master Butchers Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
• The second section of Essentialism by Greg McKeown
• The Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
• The Bingo Palace by Louise Erdrich
• The Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Muratata
• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
• Nathan Coulter by Wendell Berry
• Craft in the Real World by Matthew Salesses
• A Dangerous Business by Jane Smiley
• 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (reread)
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing by Katherine May
• The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb
• Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

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I hope to be back on Wednesday with a reading update… but so far I haven’t finished anything since last week’s update! So my reading post might look a little different than it usually does, and that’s okay. Take good care until then!