My laptop stayed off all day yesterday. Aside from using David’s computer to check email briefly, I spent a rare day of being unplugged from the ‘net. I went to church, cleaned (parts of) the house, had friends over for dinner, finished Fantasy in Death (just in time to count towards February’s reads) and turned in early (for me). Lovely!
Now I’m back to post my reading roundup for February. I managed to squeeze in six full books and two half-books. Not bad for a short month!
Here they are:
- The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick (my review here)
- Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma (I’m a homeschooling mom. ‘Nuff said.)
- The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett (This secondworld fantasy of manners combines elements of Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice. Good, though sometimes the pacing lagged, some of the characters were underdeveloped, and the antagonists were not well-defined. There’s a sequel coming out later this year, which I will check out, but I’m not on pins-and-needles for it, either).
- Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown, with Christopher Vaughan (review forthcoming)
- Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson (I read this book in bits and pieces since last November. This is fun stuff, appealing to both the chemistry geek and the history/worldbuilding buff in me. I appreciated the writers’ balanced views of some of the more controversial molecules (like CFCs and DDT) they covered. Now I feel nostalgic for my organic chemistry classes!)
- Fantasy in Death by J. D. Robb (The speculative element of a futuristic New York appeals to me, especially since it’s not unremittingly dystopian and grim. I like how the mystery, and not the romantic relationship, is paramount in the books I’ve read so far in this series. These are fast, gripping reads.)
Two books made it to my BLITS list this month. Both were non-fiction and there wasn’t anything egregious about them. I just wasn’t as interested in the subject matter to keep going past the halfway mark. You just can’t please everyone. *grin*
Edited to fix typo in one of the titles.
Congratulations on all that reading! At some point, I’m going to snag a couple of those (once both funds and opportunity serendipitously coincide) and read them. :shakes head at self: At some point too, I ought to do one of these. Hmm…
I think I’m bad at getting books reviewed. 😀 That’s okay. I’ll just read your reviews when I don’t feel like writing my own!
I’ve felt so self-indulgent with all my reading recently! Revision has taken a back seat to all that, but I’m back to work now. I just can’t stand to be more than a few lessons behind (the competitiveness in me coming through!).
We homeschool too! And yes, math is a bear.
I keep meaning to read Magicians and Mrs. Quent
Awesome! I love to meet other fantasy-loving homeschooling moms. Those two circles don’t tend to overlap too much.
The Magicians and Mrs. Quent is an interesting read, if only for how the writer blends genres. He keeps the social conventions of the Regency era, while making them fit the context of his fantasy world.