February Monthly Recap

Time for our February recap. Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we are most looking forward to in 2016. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts coming up in February and a glimpse of our upcoming content.

One randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read this month and what you look forward to reading next month. 

Jen: It has been a relatively slow reading month for me because life got in the way of my reading time. I read 6 books so while I did slow down my reading (New Year’s resolution), it was unintentional and not a purposeful slowing down to better digest my books.

Favorite book read in February: My favorite read of the month was a children’s/young adult book: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne.

Least favorite book read in February: Saturday by Ian McEwan. I didn’t hate it, but I found parts of it quite dull and boring. I gave it 3 stars for the quality of writing which was excellent but my overall enjoyment was more like a 2 star read.

New Year’s Resolution (and continued goals): So below were my new year’s resolutions and here’s how I’ve done so far. They remain my goals for March.

• Slow down my reading pace. I did this unintentionally but I don’t think it counts. I still felt like I was speeding through books even though I read less than last month.
• Read more books published in 2016: I read two books published in 2016 and am halfway through another galley for a book that comes out tomorrow –so that is an improvement.
• Clearing out my physical TBR before buying new books: I did a lot better with this goal. I read 6 books total this month. Three books were books on my physical TBR, 2 books came with my indispensable subscription so I don’t count those in books bought and I bought one (Saturday by McEwan).

Book Worm: 

Favorite book read in February:Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks (to be reviewed here soon). Honourable mention goes to The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.

Least favorite book read in February: I have actually had a really good February reading wise and all the books I have read have been at least 3 star reads so this month I am not going to name a least favourite.

New Year’s Resolution (& February goals): I have managed to read 10 books in February which is keeping me on target for my goal of 110 books this year, lets hope I can keep it up. I have not bought any more physical books which is a big bonus (I am not counting library books, the book lent by a friend or the odd kindle book I couldn’t resist, seriously I am not a saint)

I also managed to read all the books I aimed to read in February with the exception of The Crab Flower Club (Cloudsplitter took longer than expected).

Drum roll please… I also read a whole 1 book from my physical pile. This will now be making its way to the charity shop to add to someone else’s book mountain.

Looking forward to March my goal books are: The Story of the Stone, Vol. 2: The Crab-Flower Club, The Radetzky March, A Fine Balance and Death in Venice. If I manage to read these, I would like to get round to reading some of my physical books and reducing the overflow from the bookcase. I am going to aim to read 2 physical books doubling my February effort.

What can you look forward to on our blog in March? First off, we will be announcing the initial prizes for our Winter reading challenge. The second round of prizes will be handed out at the end of the year to give people time to finish all the items. Secondly, in mid-march we will be starting our March Madness challenge. Stay tuned because tomorrow we will be announcing our book brackets! We also will feature our recurring posts: Love it or Hate it, Read Around the World, Featured Author Ian McEwan (which we didn’t get to this month), Kid’s Corner, and Terrible Reviews of Great Books. Finally, we’ll feature regular reviews of both non-list and 1001 list books.

For more on upcoming content you can always check out our event calendar — featured on our sidebar.

March 2016 book releases:
The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell. Release Date: March 1
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne Valente. Release Date: March 1
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours by Helen Oyeyemi. Release date: March 8
At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier. Release Date: March 15
Lust & Wonder: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs. Release Date: March 29
The Little Red Chairs by Edna O’Brien. Release Date: March 29

We want to hear from you. So what are your plans for March? Which books were your favorites and least favorites in February? Are you sticking to your New Year’s reading resolutions? 

The winner of our follower appreciation is a wordpress follower: Mrs Hicks. In order to claim the prize you need to reply to this post or email me (jenlane3@yahoo.com) saying that you want to claim the prize! You must claim your prize before the end of the March otherwise it will go back into the pool for the next winner. Congrats, you win a $10 gift card to Amazon!

NOTE: winners are randomly selected from pool of either wordpress or email followers of this blog.

Stay tuned for the announcement of our reader-book match. If you want to be matched to a book speak up!! We are creating a list of people who want to do this. If we select you, we’ll email you a survey and when you send it back to us we (along with help from our followers) will create a personalized reading list for you.