March was a fairly decent reading month (despite the rest of it feeling like it was falling to bits). I made a few long-haul flights at short notice to visit my auntie in Australia, which meant little sleep but lots of books, plus had some down time while down under to catch up on stuff.
I’ve finished my uni reading list for the semester, which technically means no more uni reading for the rest of the year, as it’s all writing from here on in till the end of the course. I’m still ploughing through a side list of children’s/young adult fiction as I try to work out whether or not one of my projects will fit that genre or whether or not I should pursue the other project I have in mind. And I finally managed to squeeze a play and a poetry collection in for variety.
- ★★★☆☆ Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin
- ★★★★☆ Spoonface Steinberg by Lee Hall
- ★★★☆☆ Personal Kanban: Mapping Work Navigating Life by Jim Benson
- ★★★★☆ Rise of The Circle by Tom Reynolds
- ★★★★☆ All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven
- ★★★★☆ The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
- ★★★★☆ Big Change for Stuart by Lissa Evans
- ★★★☆☆ I Murdered My Library by Linda Grant
- ★★★★☆ Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
- ★★★★☆ Sitting at the Edge of Two Worlds: Reflections on Dying by Alia Kazan
- ★★★★☆ The Whispering Muse by Sjón
- ★★★★☆ Rising Strong by Brené Brown
- ★★★★☆ The Many Worlds of Albie Bright by Christopher Edge
- ★★★☆☆ Landline by Rainbow Rowell
- ★★★★☆ My Brother Is A Superhero by David Solomons
- ★★★★☆ Hiroshima by John Hersey
- ★★☆☆☆ Dumplin’ by Julie Murphy
- ★★☆☆☆ Crash by J.G. Ballard
- ★★★☆☆ Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh
- ★★★☆☆ A Boy Called Hope by Lara Williamson
I’m 19 books ahead of schedule on my Goodreads Challenge and still on track to beat my personal best target of 200 last year.
I ticked a few more boxes on the big list too. Firstly, I discovered I’d read a Pulitzer Prize winner last month (The Snow Child) and not realised it was one! So, that is now correctly ticked off, though All the Light We Cannot See is still hovering on my to-read list and would have meant I got to tick it later anyway. I got through a play (Spoonface Steinberg), a book translated from the original Icelandic (The Whispering Muse) and (given I’m still ploughing through a reading list of young adult fiction, unsurprisingly) ticked off several set in high schools. I could have ticked off another two, I think, but I’d really be stretching the criteria, so am saving them for another month and will try and find something that matches a bit closer!
- A book set in a different country
- A Pulitzer Prize-winning book
- A book set in a high school
- A book that was originally written in a difrerent language
- A play
My favourite book this month was probably The Sense of an Ending from my uni reading list. I can’t really even say 100% why, other than it just really worked for me. If pushed to elaborate, I’d say I liked the narrative voice and the twisty bits of plot that chewed their way around the concept of the fallible memory. Maybe I was just in the right mindset for it when I read it, and it got me more than some of the others I picked at during the month.
I expect April to be a slower month. I have a LOT of writing to get through and deadlines galore. I’ll make up for it though with another good reading month in May. I think I’ll plan ahead and actually work out what I’m going to read in advance from the backlog rather than just picking away at whatever takes my fancy as I get ready to start something new.