March Monthly Recap

Time for our March 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 a list of books due out in April and a glimpse of our upcoming content. 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.

We are taking a brief hiatus from awarding gift cards since last month someone attempted to steal the card from the true winner (by creating a fake email account with that person’s name and emailing me to request the gift card to that fake account). We will restructure this make it more difficult for this to happen and should be up and running again next month.  

Jen: I had a really slow reading month due to life and work getting in the way. I did put up a Little Free Library and that took a lot of my free time. I am really excited to share some of our photos (coming soon).

One thing I’d like to do here is keep track of the diversity of my books (something I track on a personal spreadsheet). I finished 6 books in March but three of those books were books I had started reading before March. Two books (33%) were written by women, three (50%) were written by authors born outside the U.S. (Afghanistan, Germany, Ukraine), and three (50%) were set outside the U.S. One was a translated book. All 6 books were written by White authors.

Favorite book read in March: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Kaled Hosseini. I was “assigned” this for a book swap in one of my reading groups. I probably wouldn’t have picked it up without the recommendation since I find his books emotionally very draining although important and beautifully written.

Least favorite book read in March: I didn’t dislike any book I read in March. Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell was probably my least favorite, but I didn’t dislike it. You can read my review here.

Future Goals: So below were my new year’s resolutions and here’s how I’ve done so far. They remain my goals for April.

• Slow down my reading pace. Once again, I did this unintentionally. I read more slowly but not necessarily more deeply. My goodreads progress bar keeps reminding me that I am 7 books behind schedule for my 2016 reading challenge.
• Read more books published in 2016: meh. Only 1 book I read was published in 2016 but another was published in 2015.
• Clearing out my physical TBR before buying new books: I did terribly with this goal. Two of the books were netgalley books so at least I didn’t pay for them but I requested them as opposed to focusing on books already in my possession. The other four I bought.

Book Worm: 

Favorite book read in March: The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes

Least favorite book read in March: Like Jen, I didn’t actually have a book I really didn’t like. My least favourite book was The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth. It wasn’t was a bad book, just an average one.

New Year’s Resolution (& April goals): I managed to read 9 books in March so I am bang on target for my aim of 110 books this year, sadly I failed miserably in clearing my TBR pile. In fact I broke my “no more buying books” rule as I had to buy House of Leaves for a reading group — giving me a net gain of physical books of 1.

My goals for April are to finish The Crab Flower Club (which I managed to start in March), read The Holder of the World (which I have had to buy), and to reduce my physical TBR pile by at least 3 books — giving me a net total of -1 books. I am hoping A God in Ruins will arrive at the library soon as April is a light month on challenge books and that would tie in well.

What can you look forward to on our blog in April? In addition to our regular posts, we’ll be featuring our first reader-book match. We hope you help us out! Our March Madness Challenge continues through June. All the brackets are a disaster so who will put it out for the win? For more on upcoming content you can always check out our event calendar — featured on our sidebar.

April 2016 book releases & Book events:
Our Young Man by Edmund White. Release date: April 5
Now and Again by Charlotte Rogan. Release date: April 5
Hystopia by David Means. Release date: April 19
My Struggle: Book five by Karl Ove Knausgaard. Release date: April 19

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?