March in Review

Newsworthy

It’s hard to imagine that the first quarter of the year has flown by! The blogging is less consistent now than it was at the beginning of the year, but I am still sticking strongly to the two reviews a week. Do you notice what days of the week my reviews are posted? I was trying for specific days of the week, but now I’m a bit more lax. If it matters, let me know what days of the week as well. I’ll aim for that!

I’m heading to the Caribbean mid-April for a chill week of relaxing and beach time. Obviously, that will mean a lot of reading (I hope)! I have a collection of books I’m taking to the beach in both paperback and Kindle format. This downtime will hopefully mean catching up on some reading that I wanted to do, as well as some general blog clean-up. I’m a bit behind on a few non-review related blog things, and I want to catch up on those as well.

Nothing like a vacation to finally work on your hobbies! 🙂

List of Reads

March was a good month for reading in retrospect. In like a lion, out like a lamb– and I definitely felt like I petered off by the end of the month. But, 17 books isn’t too shabby! I read 6 graphic novels, which is fewer than I thought I read, and surprisingly less than half of my books. Seeing this makes me feel good about where my reading currently stands.

March Books:
Read – 17 books

Currently Reading – 2 books

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Influencer: The Power to Change Anything by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

You MUST READ this month:
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Wat Shot By the Taliban. If there is one thing this book does really well, it’s show you how insignificant your troubles are. This is the inspiring story of a brave girl who stood up for women’s rights for education in Pakistan. She was shot and survived, and this is her tale. Malala won a Nobel Peace Prize– the youngest ever to win a Nobel. In her book, she is quite modest, and I’ve heard some people say that this is false modesty– but I disagree. It’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story of just trying to keep going. I strongly recommend this to anyone.

DANGER! Avoid this month:
Descendants. I knew going into reading this that I would dislike it, but I tried really hard to appreciate it for what it is. This book was read for my Kids Lit Book Club, and I’m certain I understand why this is a “gateway book” for kids who don’t normally read. That said, well, it was more-or-less a script with “He said” “She said” and the occasional line of description. Unless you’re a tween who doesn’t read yet, I don’t recommend it.

Challenge Update

My monthly challenge for March was #ReadWomen. While it is almost universally acknowledged that women read more than men, and books by female authors are published in roughly the same numbers as male authors, female authors are more often overlooked. They are the overwhelming minority for book reviews, as well. For example, the New York Times book reviews in 2011 reviewed 724 books. Only 217 female authors were included. (Check out the data here) Once these statistics became widely known, #ReadWomen was born!

For my March challenge, I was given a list of 11 criteria for books and I was supposed to select a subset to read– but only those written by women. I read more women this month than I have before, but not all my books contributed to this challenge. That said, it was surprisingly hard to meet the challenge! In the end, I read 4 books which met the challenge, and an additional 4 with women authors.

Check out my challenge statuses as they update here.

Tsundoku Life

It wouldn’t be tsundoku if I didn’t have a gigantic pile of books waiting for me!

My library addiction is getting worse. Yikes! I think it’s time to stop reserving library books for a while. Perhaps I give myself a limit of what I can have checked out at once? I hope that will work. I also need to read books people have let me borrow. That should be my focus for May, now that I think of it…

TBR Library Books

• The Sandman, Vol. 5 by Neil Gaiman
• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
• Feathers by Jorge Corona
• Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac
• Girl Genius, Vol 9 by Kaja Foglio
• Girl Genius, Vol 10 by Kaja Foglio
• All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Anders
• Luke Skywalker Can’t Read by Ryan Britt
• East of West by Johnathan Hickman
• Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office by Lois Frankel
• Pocketful of Rye by Agatha Christie
• Blankets by Craig Thompson

TBR Planned Reads for April

• Book Clubs
  • Our Shared Shelf – All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hook and How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran
  • Kids Lit – All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
  • West Side Stories – Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  • Books n’ Booze – The Bees by Laline Paull
  • Brunch Books – Red Rising by Pierce Brown
  • Friends Kinda – Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Challenge Books
  • The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  • Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
  • The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Some months feel better than others. For some reason, I felt like I didn’t do much reading in March as the days went by. And yet, when I did this summary, I found that I read even more than last month! It looks like I need to have more faith in myself.

Do you ever feel that way? Like you aren’t accomplishing something at all, and yet you really are? If so, for what?

Happy Reading,

Jackie B.