What are we reading in February?

I've started Voss, and the going is not nearly as hard as I expected. Not hard at all!

My goals for February:
-finish Educated
-finish Gaugin
Read: The Rape of Nanking, Burial Rites, Midwives, and The Case of the Flashing Fashion Queen. Once finished, who knows?

I'm starting off with A Long Way Home and hoping it's even better than the movie. I didn't manage to finish They Were Her Property, so I've got 3 more chapters to go in it. And I'll be reading Orley Farm all month for a group read.

Today I have a day off (it's term break) and outside there's still snow, so I'm on the couch with hot cocoa and Agatha Christie's Third Girl as a comfort read.

Yesterday, I started The History of The Hobbit by John D. Rateliff, which is a longterm project.

I'm going to start the month finishing Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu and I'm starting The Game by Laurie R King. I'm also expecting a few library books that are "in transit" to arrive soon.

I'm finishing up The Lightbringer Series with Burning White. Also, started Alice Payne Arrives.

I started The Coincidence of Coconut Cake by Amy E. Reichert yesterday and will most likely finish it today.

I am reading Below Stairs by Margaret Powell which is about her life as a kitchen maid and eventually cook during the 1920s. I am also just starting The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas but having a little difficulty getting into it.

>1 pamelad: Good to hear that Voss isn't too daunting, I am planning on starting it soon.

I am reading Before She Disappeared, which I think is the author's first stand alone in several years.

I am reading the latest Alexander McCall Smith in the #1 Ladies Detective series How to Raise an Elephant and also finishing Manhunt by Janet Evanovich.

Today may finally be the day I start Son of a Trickster, by Eden Robinson.

A few on the agenda:
Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker
In the Shadow of Power by Viveca Sten
In the Teeth of the Evidence by Dorothy L. Sayers
They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South by Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers
Elementary, She Read by Vicki Delany
Deadly Ever After by Eva Gates
Orley Farm by Anthony Trollope
Uncommon Church: Community Transformation for the Common Good by Alvin Sanders
Read It and Weep by Jenn McKinley (audio)

I've got a few more tentatively planned out and am finishing up The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler which I've been reading one story per day for awhile on. I've also got a 100-day devotional in process, a year-long Bible read, and a year-long daily devotional based on hymns. Oh - and I'll be reading several ghost stories in the anthology for the book club at work!

Still feeling the need of comfort reading, I have started rereading (via audiobook) Ngaio Marsh's Last Ditch. Also in progress are Balzac's The Magic Skin & American Dirt...

I'm about to start Belle: The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice by Paula Byrne. Looks fascinating!

Still haven't started Son of a Trickster because Killer, Come Back to Me, by Ray Bradbury, is due back sooner!

I read Mr Tiger, Betsy, and the Blue Moon, by Sally Gardner, which is a younger children's fantasy novel with many delightful illustrations, and was printed in a font supposedly more readable by dyslexic people. The girl protagonist Betsy goes on a quest with her dad who is an ice-cream maker, and her mum who is a mermaid, and a princess who has been turned into a toad, and Mr Tiger who is a circus ringmaster, and an extensive team of emigrant Gongalong acrobats who are all very small (and have very small ponies too). Whimsical. 3.5*

I'm reading a collection of short stories by Walter Mosley, titled The Awkward Black Man. My library hold for his latest Easy Rawlins came in also today, Blood Grove.

Rereading The Last Lumenian by S.G. Blaise because I have a feeling the second book will be coming out this year! Have any of you had a chance to read it? I would love to hear what others thought of the book.

I finished A Long Way Home last night. If you've seen the movie Lion, it was based on this memoir. I wanted to know more of Saroo's story after watching the movie, and this book answered my questions. It's an amazing story!

I finished Square Haunting, a biography of 5 women based on their residence in the same Bloomsbury square between the wars.
I'm now reading When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.

I finished Manhunt by Janet Evanovich which was a silly romance novel. I am now reading The Vatican Cameos which is a Holmes and Watson "adventure" pastiche.

I am currently reading The Gown by Jennifer Robson and The Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree by Tariq Ali, both books are holding my attention. I also started listening to Miss Clare Remembers by Miss Read which is a soothing escape read.

Thanks to the nudge given by >17 lsh63:'s reading, I checked out the 2nd Easy Rawlins book A Red Death from the library. I really liked the first book so I don't exactly know why it has taken me so long to return to this series...

I also listened to Muriel Spark's The Bachelors in audiobook which doesn't fit any of the CATs or KITs or even my personal categories but just something I saw in the Audible Plus catalog and decided to read. Not Spark's best work but well worth it!

I read The Ladies are Upstairs by Merle Collins, which is a collection of short stories set mostly on a fictional Caribbean island resembling Grenada. 4.5*

I finished The Vatican Cameos which is a Sherlock Holmes pastiche and I am now reading Dear Miss Kopp.

I've finished Voss and am now reading Henry Green's Doting.

I finished When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and, for a complete change, am now reading Mordew. Which is huge, in comparison.

Finished Dark, Salt, Clear: Life in a Cornish Fishing Town, and am following that up with The Secret Life of Lobsters (a long-ago book bullet from LittleTaiko).

I just finished Kein Ort. Nirgends by Christa Wolf, published in English as "No Place On Earth".
I'm also reading The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux for a bit of armchair travel.

I have finished a French mystery, Late Harvest Havoc, and a Shakespeare play, King Henry VI, Part 2. Still plugging away slowly at American Dirt and Voss...

I have started The Warden, my first ever novel by Anthony Trollope. I'm excited to discover an author I've come across so often but have never read myself so far.

I have quite a few long 'to-finish' books on my queue right now:
Sense and Sensibility by J. Austen
To Say Nothing of the Dog by C. Willis
The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

So my on-deck pile for February is mostly quick reads (e.g. graphic novels, novellas and Discworld). I'm hoping to get these out of the way in the next 3-4 weeks:
Supermutant Magic Academy by J. Tamaki
The City Born Great by N.K. Jemisin
Carpe Jugulum by T. Pratchett
Attack on Titan, vol. 1 by H. Iseyama

This year is probably gonna end up with me plowing through the metaphorical pile of manga that ended up in my ebooks library over the years and that I'd never gotten around to reading for one reason or another.

I read Tiare in Bloom by Celestine Vaite, which is a chicklit-style novel set in Tahiti about a middle-aged couple in their forties but told mostly from the husband's point of view and especially delves into the meaning and practice of various forms of fatherhood. It's technically the third novel in a series but it worked for me as a standalone. As ever with this relatively light-hearted style of social commentary, a reader is either in tune with the author's humour and perspective on life or not but I think this novel is easy to enjoy (and I'm not the target audience for this genre). 4*

I've now read at least one book from all seven GeoKIT areas!

>31 MissBrangwen: I love the Barchester series (in fact, I gave 2 of the 6 books 5*) but I almost missed out on it because that first book, The Warden, didn't appeal that much to me. I just mention this in case you have a similar reaction to it.

>35 leslie.98: Same here.

>35 leslie.98: >36 pamelad: I definitely see what you mean. I finished yesterday and while there were parts of the novel that I loved, a lot of it was a bit dry and the excursions into politics/media/church topics seemed quite forced. But I think I will go on with that series and it's great to hear that you had a similar feeling but liked the following books better! Thanks for telling me!

I have started Voss by Patrick White and with only two chapters read, I can see that I am going to be struggling with this book. I find it very dense and full of angst driven characters. To lighten the load, I am also reading Rich People Problems by Kevin Kwan, the third book in his Asian trilogy.

I've finished The Game by Laurie R. King, a very enjoyable installment in the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. I have two other library books I'm reading - Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and Monkeywrench by P. J. Tracy.

I read How to Avoid a Tragedy, by David Henry Wilson, 2003, which is a play script rewriting four Shakespearian tragedies to happy endings: The Moor the Merrier; Entente Cordelia; and Hamlet and Macbeth, All Hale. A couple of laughs, a couple of groans, and some shenanigans exiting stage alright.

Quote

"But if our words and actions caused offence,
We beg to plead the case for the defence:
By changing these existing tragic courses,
We do but what the Bard did with his sources."

Finally getting ready to start Air Bridge, by Hammond Innes. I need a cheesy thriller at the moment.

I'm currently reading Race Against Time and finding it hard to put down. Also still reading Orley Farm, which, at 3 chapters a day, I won't finish until the end of the month. And I've started In the Teeth of the Evidence, aiming for one story a day. That one should last through most of the month as well.

I read The Castle of Inside Out by David Henry Wilson, which is children's novel with glorious gothy ghastly illustrations by the inimitable Chris Riddell. 5*

I started Never Never by James Patterson and Candice Fox yesterday. I didn't like the beginning, but now it is quite thrilling.

I read Battlepug: War on Christmas by Mike Norton, which is a graphic novel sequel to his original excellent Battlepug webcomic with script and art all by Norton. This is the mighty tale of a barbarian warrior and his trusty steed the giant, erm, pug dog known as Battlepug (aka Sir Sprinkles Goodsniffer von Wigglebottom) and the friends they make along the way.... And, yes, it's every morsel as mad as it sounds. Full marks, despite the cliffhanger ending, but probably only if you've read the preceding five volumes (or the compendious Compugdium). 5*

Quote

"But the wind grows colder already. // Maybe we should stop somewhere and find some pants."

I blew through Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire last night, and now I'm starting The Hollow of Fear by Sherry Thomas.

I read Birnbäume blühen weiß by Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker in one go today, but I am not 100% sure what to read next. The titles on my February list don't really appeal to me right now, so I will see what else is calling me!

My 31st book of the year and my first completed BingoDOG card with a different book for each of the 25 squares. \o/

I read Time Song: journeys in search of a submerged land, by Julia Blackburn, which is a lightweight examination of geography, archaeology, and personal history, in this case in and around "Doggerland" the undersea bank and plains that have sometimes formed a land bridge between Britain and continental Europe. 4*

I still have a handful of parallel nonfiction reads going, but I really need some fiction for the weekend and I decided to start Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow by Peter Høeg this evening. This is a reread for me and I'm very excited!

I keep picking up and putting down different things. The most recent thing I've picked up is To Forgive Design, by Henry Petroski, which I borrowed back in December and which has kept being auto-renewed at the library.

I just finished The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree by Susan Wittig Albert and A Perfect Amish Romance by Shelley Shepard Gray. I am now reading Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie.

I've returned to the excellent YA series by John Marsden with the first book in the Ellie Chronicles, While I Live. Previously I read the 7 books in his Tomorrow series, and the Ellie books are a continuation of that. I also have started a non-fiction haunted house story with Grave's End by Elaine Mercado.

Air Bridge, by Hammond Innes, ended up being pretty good once I got stuck into it.

I've had Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., on the pile for a re-read for a while now, so I think I'll pick it up next.

I finished A Perfect Amish Romance and also The Darling Dahlias and the Cucumber Tree. I am currently reading Evil Under the Sun and Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland (which is a pastiche novel about jewel theft). So far I am liking both of these.

I have five cornerstone books in my February stacks:

Edward III (by William Shakespeare)
Edward III: The Perfect King (by Ian Mortimer)
Network Effect (by Martha Wells)
Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales #2; by Olivia Atwater)
Caste (by Isabel Wilkerson)

And so far, I've managed to only read one (Ten Thousand Stitches), a romance, and two audiobooks:
So Cold the River (by Michael Koryta; narrated by Robert Petkoff) and;
The Good Girl (by Mary Kubica; narrated by Lindy Nettleton, Johnny Heller, Tom Taylorson and Andi Arndt)

I've left the bookclub that had selected Isabel Wilkerson's latest NF title, which is just as well since the Edward III biography is also quite lengthly. Hopefully, I can get Shakespeare's Edward III tackled this week as well as the Murderbot novel by Martha Wells and; then tie up Ian Mortimer's biography by the end of the month.

I'm about to start The Survivors by Jane Harper. Life is too short to find the touchstone. It's a common title.

I read Ways of Dying, by Zakes Mda, which is a novel set in an unnamed city on the coast of South Africa, presumably based on Cape Town, in 1993-4, shortly before the transition to inclusive democracy . The protagonist is a professional mourner who meets a woman from his home village at the funeral of her son in the city about twenty years after he last saw her. Unusually the story has a third person plural narrator, a collective "we", the people of the city and the village who have individually witnessed events but are recounting them from a communal perspective (I think this is a nod towards collective oral traditions of narrative and also omniscient ancestors).

The usual "ways of dying" for each age group - accidents, violence, and illness - occur as natural events in various characters' lives. But each day means more when we understand we have so little time on this earth, and the saddest way of dying is giving up on life while you're still alive. 5*

I just finished Sherlock Holmes and the Thistle of Scotland which is actually a book that was published in 1990! Makes me wonder how long it has been on my shelf . . .. It is a pastiche novel in which Holmes and Watson are involved in locating a missing amethyst. I sort of guessed what had occurred, but not all the details, and there were some surprises and some clues that had nothing to do with the final outcome. I liked it!!

I am now reading A Year Like No Other by Pauline Lawless which is a book that showed up as a "You might also like..." on Amazon with the daily deals. This is a new author for me, and I started out by downloading a sample, and then got hooked on the story of four very different women who spend a year in Paris as part of a bank project, in one way or another. There were some bad reviews, but some very good ones too, and that made me determined to pop for the low price of $2.98 to find out if the book was really that bad/good/indifferent.

Finished Mordew. Cannot recommend it.
Now reading We, the Survivors.

Most recently finished The Inimitable Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse.

Most recently started Arsène Lupin contre Herlock Sholmès, by Maurice Leblanc.

I am switching back and forth between two excellent books, Network Effect by Martha Wells and Friday on My Mind by Nicci French.

I read The Serpent's Egg, which was Caroline Stevermer's first novel, and is a fantasy of manners set in a not-Elizabethan not-England. The author demonstrates at least a basic understanding of how her chosen social system would function in practical terms, but the plot didn't work for me and I didn't find any of the characters especially engaging. I don't want to spoiler anything that isn't immediately obvious from the beginning, but I note that the realm would be more peaceful if everyone with a francophone surname was arrested as soon as they appeared, lol, which I don't think was consciously intentional on the author's part. 2.5*

Yesterday I started A Perfect Match, the first book of the LLoyd & Hill series by Jill McGown. It is a short one and I think I will finish this evening. I really enjoy it, just like the second one of the series (that I read first).

Ten days later, I'm still reading Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart and Monkeywrench by P.J. Tracy. I've been working on a new quilt and am not reading as much as usual.

I'm rereading A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner and falling in love with this series all over again!

Today I'll be starting The Celtic Twilight, by W. B. Yeats, on Serial Reader.

I read A Lady's Ride Across Spanish Honduras by "Maria Soltera" (pseudonym), an 1880s travelogue reprinted from Blackwood's Magazine, about an English spinster travelling coast to coast across the country by mule to become a school teacher serving colonists in their new banana plantations. 3.5*

I'm continuing my read of The Truths We Hold by Kamala Harris which I had paused for a few weeks. I'll also start An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir today.

I'm reading Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen. It has started well.

I read The Black Sheep and other fables, by Augusto Monterroso, which is a collection of very short fables. 4.5*

Today I read Heinrich von Kleist - Ein preußisches Schicksal by Heinz Ohff, a biography of German author Heinrich von Kleist, in two sittings. Now I'll continue with An Ember in the Ashes. My February reading has finally picked up again!

I am reading The Thief of Blackfriars Lane for NetGalley

I was in a Regency romance mood, so I picked up My One and Only Duke by Grace Burrowes. Pretty good so far...I do love a marriage-of-convenience plot!

>73 christina_reads: Sounds like a good one for my wishlist. Is it a genuine Regency or does it have some steamy modern touches? I like the original Regency style novels and have been reading them for years, but the genre seems to have morphed over time.

Finished We, the Survivors which is thought provoking without being preachy.
Now starting Nordic Fauna

I've finished Infinite Jest (finally!) and am fighting the urge to fall down an internet abyss in order to make more sense of what I just read.

Needing something lighter after finishing Shuggie Bain, I decided on Plum Lovin' by Janet Evanovich.

Currently I am reading Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner, the 5th book in her Queen's Thief series. I have also started a historical romance with Desperate Duchesses by Eloisa James. I am enjoying both these books.

>74 LadyoftheLodge: My One and Only Duke is a modern Regency rather than a traditional one -- in other words, there are some open-door love scenes. So far I haven't come across anything super explicit, but it's not a chaste romance à la Georgette Heyer.

I'm reading, Edward III (by William Shakespeare; edited by Eric Sams) and listening to, Edward III: The Perfect King (by Ian Mortimer; narrated by Alex Wyndham). If I have time, I'll squeeze in the Arkangel recording of King John (by William Shakespeare) before the end of the month; but it looks like I'll have to defer Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5; by Martha Wells until next month/before #6, Fugitive Telemetry is pubbed in April!

>76 ELiz_M: Congrats on finishing! Well done :)

I'm bouncing around among several books. Today I started Think Like a Rocket Scientist, so I think I'll wind down the day with some fiction. The Big Book of Espionage came back from the library (I had to return it and re-request it) -- that will likely be my choice.

I've started A Life by Design by Siobhan O'Brien, my genre book for this month.

I'm reading my last book of the month for bookclub, What Could Be Saved by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz. I'm just a few chapter in but I think it's going to be a good one.

I am reading Killer Keys by Mildred Abbott, which is part of a series about a bookstore owner sleuth. I downloaded the books as they came out, but now I am getting caught up with ones I missed.

I finished Think Like a Rocket Scientist this morning, hurray! Next up from my library pile will be The Moth Catcher, by Ann Cleeves. And yesterday I started a Doctor Who novel: The Shadow in the Glass.

I read Family Album : three novellas, by Claribel Alegria, which is a collection of three translated magical realist novellas first published in Spanish between 1977 and 1985. 3.5*

I am currently reading An Amish Homecoming which so far is a hilarious send up of the contrasts between Amish and "English" cultures. Essie must cope with her three teenaged Englisher cousins who descend upon her Amish household with their cell phones, gaudy clothing, and constant talking.

I finished Nordic Fauna which was a very dark trip into the recesses of the human psyche.
Now reading Crossed Skis because murder always acts a light relief...

I finished An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, which was a fantastic read. Currently I'm reading Mortal Causes, the sixth Rebus novel, I'm about half way through.

I read A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson, which is a deservedly award winning poetry collection. The opening section memorialises the disastrous Grenfell Tower fire in London. The subsequent sections include poems about slavery, migration, Black Britishness or Black Britons if you prefer, and art. 5*

Eight titles for February! I'm always proud I get anything done in this, the shortest of months; but just a tad bit disappointed I wasn't able to squeeze in Network Effect (Murderbot #5; by Martha Wells)-- but I think I can re-seat it for April! :-)

• So Cold the River (by Michael Koryta; narrated by Robert Petkoff)
• Lord of the Ice Moons (by Michael Carroll)
• Ten Thousand Stitches (Regency Faerie Tales #2; by Olivia Atwater)
• The Good Girl (by Mary Kubica; narrated by Lindy Nettleton, Johnny Heller, Tom Taylorson and, Andi Arndt)
• Dirty Husband (Dirty Rich #3; by Crystal Kaswell)
• Shakespeare's Edward III (edited by Eric Sams)
• Hard Crush: A. Billionaire Romance (Back to You #1; by Mira Lyn Kelly
• Edward III: The Perfect King (by Ian Mortimer; narrated by Alex Wyndham)