Books Read In February

15) Douglas Robinson (editor) – Becoming a Translator (Non-Fic)
16) Diego Marani – New Finnish Grammar (Fic)
17) ed. Charles Dickens – Doctor Marigold’s Prescriptions (Fic)
18) Cicely Hamilton – William – An Englishman (Fic)
19) Kate Atkinson – Life After Life (Fic)
20) ed. David Rose – Sexually I’m More of a Switzerland (Non-Fic)
21) Iris Murdoch – Something Special (Fic)
22) Peter Wildeblood – Against The Law (Non-Fic)
23) George Saunders – Tenth of December (Fic)
24) Celia Brayfield – Arts Reviews… and how to write them (Non-Fic)

Marcel Proust – Swann’s Way (Fic) (currently reading)

Failed the 100 Page Test in February:

John Sutherland and Stephen Fender – Love, Sex, Death & Words (Non-Fic)

Titles in green will be reviewed here on Alex in Leeds shortly.

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Books read: 10 /Books ‘Surfed’: 1 / Books marked Did Not Finish: 0
Fiction: 6 / Non-Fiction: 4
Female authors: 4 / Male authors: 4 /Multiple authors: 2

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February’s Highlights: I enjoyed everything I read for the first in ages and I can highly recommend Life After Life (historical fiction) and Tenth of December (short stories). What will stick in my memory though for years to come is the experience of trying Swann’s Way for the first time, I’m loving the feel of the writing.

February’s Low Points: Love, Sex, Death & Words disappointed me greatly, it’s a compendium of book facts, one per day, but while men are celebrated by publication dates, legal issues, birth dates and all sorts of interesting trivia the women are mostly mentioned on the days they died. It’s as if there was an attitude of ‘that’ll do for them’ in the research so I tossed the book aside in disgust.

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Other Reviews Posted In February

George Orwell – The Road To Wigan Pier

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Reading Challenges

Century of Books – 36/100 – Two more years knocked off the list, Swann’s Way will make three when I finish it. I need to have a reading week set aside for CoB titles I think, will have to plan something.

Essay Reading Challenge – Still going very strong and I’ve had fun digging into a wide variety of collections but I need to get some updates here on the blog and actually finish some of the books I have bookmarks in!

Claire Tomalin Challenge – I can’t wait to get started this month. I have her first biography (Mary Wollstonecraft) ready to begin and two companion reads to go with it.

Classics Club – 11/52 - Swann’s Way counts to this challenge when I finish it and I have another title lined up for March. I’m also planning swapping a couple of titles from the list, more on this in a separate post though.

Elsewhere On The Blog

I took part in the Literary Blog Hop (and later decided to give away all the books, not just the winner’s choice), I celebrated Valentine’s Day with some oddball personal ads and a look at how a landmark trial in the 1950s decriminalised homosexuality here in the UK. I told you all about what it felt like getting a personal genetics test done (and discovering links to Korea and Finland!) and I started a little mini-series of posts about reading journals and taking notes while reading. There weren’t as many book reviews as normal because I got swallowed up by Proust but it was still quite a busy month here as you can see.

Plans for March

I have two shiny new Persephone Books to try (No. 101 and No. 102) which I am very excited about. It feels like ages since I went to an author event but I have tickets to see both David Crystal and Kate Atkinson speak this month. I will be kicking off my Claire Tomalin challenge at last and I’ll be writing a bit more about the essays I’ve been enjoying recently, especially Kathleen Jamie’s wonderfully lyrical pieces of nature writing. Oh yes and I’ll hopefully be going along to a new book group… :)