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Rearview Mirror // February 2021

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Well friends, we are better than halfway through June and I’m still super behind!! Part of me thinks I should just skip ahead but… I just can’t quite bring myself to do that!!  The good news is that work has calmed way down and I don’t start at the orchard until the beginning of August.  So I have over a month to get my life completely organized and caught up!! I’m confident that’s going to happen.  :-D

Favorite February Read

Even thought 1984 and Murder on the Orient Express technically rated higher, I think I’m going to go with The Electric Kingdom by David Arnold.  Something about the story and the characters just really drew me in, and it’s one I definitely see myself rereading, looking for more clues about the mind-bendy bits.

Most Disappointing February Read

Definitely The School for Good & Evil.  This one just gave me the weirds super hard, which is a shame because the concept sounds really good.  But it was not for me.

Other February Reads

February Stats

  • Total Number of Books Read:  17 (1 Kindle, 16 physical)
  • Total Pages Read:  6196
  • Average Star Rating for September:  3.5
  • Longest Book: Of Beasts & Beauties (810 pages) although it feels like a bit of a cheat since it’s an anthology haha
  • Shortest Book:  Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them (88 pages) and actually I never reviewed this one because it was just… there lol
  • Oldest Book:  Murder on the Orient Express (published 1934)
  • Newest Book: The Electric Kingdom and You Have a Match (published 2021)
  • Number of New-to-Me Authors:  10

February DNFs

Only had one DNF in February, a book that’s been on my personal shelves for a long time – The Covered Wagon by Emerson Hough.  I’ll admit that I wasn’t completely in the mood for a pioneer story, but this one, published in 1922, was absolutely absurd.  I read over a hundred pages and it was a complete soap opera, with two dramatic young men in the wagon train competing for the hand of a beautiful young woman.  I finally gave up when she wandered away from the camp, then looked and saw a prairie fire.  In order to alert the wagon train… she STARTED A FIRE AND USED SMOKE SIGNALS.  TO ALERT THEM ABOUT A WILDFIRE.  I just couldn’t deal any more!

TBR Update

This I keep updated as I go, so it’s current as of today, rather than as of the end of February. Still a million years behind on reading blog posts, though! :-/  I’m sure I’ll get caught up over summer break, right?  RIGHT?!

For those of you who don’t know, I’m weirdly obsessive with organizing the TBR, and have it on a spreadsheet divided into six different tabs:

  • Standalones:  513 (holding steady)
  • Nonfiction:  127 (up two)
  • Personal (which includes all books I own (fiction and nonfiction), but lists any series I own as only one entry…):  649 (up eleven!)
  • Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series):  251 (down two)
  • Mystery Series (each series counted separately, not each book within a series): 115 (holding steady)
  • New Arrivals – (I have a lot of books that I have been gifted or that I pick up somewhere and they get put on my “oh I’m so excited about this shiny new book” shelf… and then of course don’t actually get read.): 137 (up nine!)

Current Reads

I’m doing multiple buddy reads on Litsy.  I should finish a reread of Emma this week.  I’m about halfway through The Magician’s Nephew (CS Lewis) and maybe a quarter of the way through Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (and yes, Harry is just as obnoxious as ever in this one).  I’m also reading Russian Magic Tales as part of the Food & Lit Challenge where we “visit” a different country every month.  June is Russia, and since I’ve had this one on my TBR for a while it felt like a good fit!!  I’ve also been reading a Nora Roberts romance series and am almost finished with the last book, Considering Kate.

Up Next

The probable next five(ish) reads…

  • The Other Typist by Suzanne Rindell is due back at the library, so I need to get it checked off!!
  • The Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer is my June book for the traveling book club, so also due soon haha
  • The Perfect Horse by Elizabeth Letts has been on my shelf (from the library) for literal months now and it’s about time to actually read it!
  • I’ve also had the first five books of the Leaphorn & Chee mystery series checked out for quite some time.  If I enjoy them, there are 24 books in the series sooooo
  • The World of Pooh is the next book on my quest to read every book I own.

We’ll see what happens!!!  Hopefully coming soon – March minireviews!!!