Whew! I really didn’t think I could possibly outdo last month’s reading, but my Amazing Reading Streak of Amazingness (yeah, I’m going there) continued this past month. It didn’t hurt my reading binge that it’s still been ridiculously cold here and all I’ve wanted to do was huddle under a pile of seventy-three blankets and read while shivering away. (Don’t get me wrong; when it’s hot, all I’m going to want to do is sweat half to death and read, but I just don’t want to move at ALL when I’m so chilly! Doing anything that involves getting out of my cozy chair is an exercise in fortitude, I’m telling you.)
So let’s get this party started, with a recap of everything I’ve read this past month!
Books I Read in March 2019
2. Bread Is Gold by Massimo Bottura and Friends
3. When Dimple Met Rishi- Sandhya Menon
4. Call Numbers by Syntell Smith
5. Welcome to Halcyon (Dead Mawl #1) by S.G. Tasz
6. Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks
7. Daughter of Gloriavale: My Life in a Religious Cult by Lilia Tarawa
8. Duped: Double Lives, False Identities, and the Con Man I Almost Married by Abby Ellin
9. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
10. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
11. The Truth Book: Escaping a Childhood of Abuse Among Jehovah’s Witnesses by Joy Castro
12. I Hear the Sunspot by Yuki Fumino
13. An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler
15. Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat Well When the Power Goes Out- Jon Robertson and Robin Robertson
16. Make Do and Mend: Keeping Family and Home Afloat on War Rations (foreword by Jill Norman)
17. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (no review for this one, I read it out loud to my daughter at bedtime, and we watched the movie with Johnny Depp this past weekend, when she had a stomach virus)
18. The Cider House Rules by John Irving
19. On the Come Up by Angie Thomas
20. Lessons in Letting Go by Allison Janda
21. Bell-Bottom Gypsy: A Jessie Morgan Novel by Maggie Plummer
Phew! That was a lot of reading! And so. many. great. books!!!
Book Challenges Update
I haven’t made any progress with the Modern Mrs. Darcy 2019 Reading Challenge this month, so it still looks the same as last month.
But I’ve done pretty well when it comes to Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge, ticking off six categories. Here’s what my challenge looks like now.
Books I Acquired in March 2019
Aren’t they lovely? *wipes away a tear*
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley came from a thrift shop and is my pick for Book Riot’s 2019 Read Harder Challenge: Cozy Mystery. Once again, something that’s totally outside my normal reading genres, so this should be interesting.
And speaking of Book Riot, How to Make Friends With the Dark by Kathleen Glasgow came from a Book Riot giveaway! Totally made my day when I got the email letting me know I won. Thank you, Book Riot!!!
And the other book…see below.
Bookish Things I Did in March 2019
One of the libraries around here has a book sale every few months, and of course I had to stop by! It was there that I acquired Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlanksky. Two of my friends on Goodreads have given this five stars, so I’m expecting to enjoy this as well. I also grabbed a copy of Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her?: Surviving Away From Home by Kent P. Frandsen, to give my son for his birthday. He’ll be 17 and (sniff!) it’s time to start thinking of the days in the future when he’ll be off on his own.
I also made it to my library’s book discussion group again! This month, we discussed The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. I seemed to enjoy it more than everyone else did, but as I said in my review, I don’t often read in this genre, so it may be that their more experienced tastes found flaws that I didn’t. (I do have to say, though, some of the criticisms of Lo stung a little bit, since I was able to identify with her anxiety so strongly! Those of us with anxiety aren’t trying to be annoying, we promise…)
Current Podcast Love
I’m still adoring All the Books! from Book Riot (lot of Book Riot love in this post, huh? I seriously adore them). I’m somewhere around the 130’s (out of 200), so I still have a ways to go before I can catch up their episodes about the newest releases. Liberty’s enthusiasm for reading is so infectious, and Rebecca has such an informative manner about her when she’s talking about the books she loves (she and I have really similar tastes, so I really look forward to hearing about her picks and have added several to my TBR list). I’ll be sad when I’m done with all the back episodes! (Image borrowed from Book Riot’s website for the express purpose of being eye-catching and advertising the fact that they have a bahzillion awesome podcasts. Go check them out!!!)
Real Life Stuff
Busy month ’round these parts! We registered my daughter for kindergarten; we’ll go for orientation in early April. Seems like just yesterday I was miserable and pregnant with her (pregnancy and I are NOT friends). My cat scared the crap out of me with her constant vomiting, which required a vet trip (she’s fine and is currently covering my pillow with fur during her day-long nap, and I let her because I love her that much). I attended a play with my son, and attended one of my son’s choir concerts- seriously, his school is AMAZING when it comes to their Fine Arts program. Every production is practically professional (they did Cats a few years ago and you wouldn’t have any idea that this wasn’t some big name theater. They’re THAT good). Still cold here, so nothing has been planted yet in our Lazy Backyard Garden, nor have I been able to attack the jungle of weeds and overgrowth that is my backyard, but that’s also in part thanks to the flare-up of dyshidrotic eczema I’ve been experiencing on my feet. It’s slowing down now, but at one point we counted and I had 45 blisters on my feet (which made wearing shoes very, very painful- but not wearing shoes hurt as well). We ended the month with my daughter puking on pretty much every surface of the house, which resulted in so. much. laundry (which in turn killed my lower back). Bodies are so fun, aren’t they?
In good news, we did have a resolution of a major problem that has been causing a LOT of stress for the past year. I don’t want to go into details, because it’s a seriously long story, but it involved bank card fraud with the account where my son’s college money is stored. YEAH. That was about as fun as you’d might expect (especially since the company wasn’t exactly helpful about it), but everything was resolved in our favor mid-month, FINALLY, and I am so, SO thankful for it, because it was for a LOT of money (like, so much that it could potentially cover all of my son’s community college costs. THAT much money). So hurray! 🙂
Looking forward to April, I’ve got a stack of library books to get to (four more books for that Read Harder Challenge!), and several review books that sound pretty awesome. I still haven’t started the book for my library book discussion group either, and the meeting is on the 18th, so I need to get on that! My daughter will turn five, my son’s school is putting on a performance of Romeo and Juliet, and hopefully the weather will start to warm up so I can stop shivering!
How was your March??? What are you looking forward to in April?
She's probably at the library... 