Book of the Month

It’s hard to ignore the pull of Jane Steele, Lyndsay Faye’s vivaciously dark riff on a theme from Jane Eyre. Reader, I loved it!

But there was a lot of other great reading this month as well, not to mention two fun blogging events, one online and one in person. Read on to discover more of my adventures…

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Reviews

• From my new favorite author Frances Hardinge, The Lie Tree was a delicious treat.
• For an author event at First Impressions Reviews, I talked about my first Georgette Heyer, False Colours.
• I took a brief look at Four 2016 releases I liked but didn’t love.
• For my Reading New England focus this month, I was delighted to discover a real hidden gem: the 2015 novel Hidden View from Vermont author Brett Ann Stanciu.

Other Books Read

• The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman – Reading New England
• Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter – Reading New England
• Ah, Wilderness! by Eugene O’Neill – Reading New England
• Idyll Banter by Chris Bohjalian – Reading New England
• A Man of Genius by Janet Todd – Review to come
• The Summer Guest by Alison Anderson – Review to come
• Lost in A Good Book by Jasper Fforde
• Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
• Soup by Robert Newton Peck – Reading New England
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher – Reading New England
• The Children by Ann Leary – Review to come
• The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery
• Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson – Reading New England

Other Features and Events

• My discussion question for the month was How do you deal with comments?
• I participated in Armchair BEA for the third time with daily topic posts; my personal favorite was Beyond the Books, in which I posted about some of the theatre productions I’ve enjoyed over the years.
• I interviewed Dede Cummings of Green Writers Press, an exciting new Vermont publishing company with an environmental mission.
• The long-anticipated New England Book Blogger Meetup took place, and was a lovely event. Let’s do it again sometime!

Shared in the Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer, the Month in Review linkup at The Book Date, and the Monthly Wrap-up Round-up hosted by Feed Your Fiction Addiction

One of my blogging goals this year is to write a monthly review post. Here I can keep better track of my reading overall, since I don’t post about every book I read. I would also like to highlight some of my favorite posts by other bloggers, and maybe some other fun things that I find. . . It will be an experiment! I’m planning to usually do it on the last Sunday of each month, so the “months” will be a bit off-kilter.

This month was the one where I “put the library on hold” to try to read the books that are piling up on my own shelves. There are still a few days to go, but it’s been a very successful enterprise so far. I would definitely consider starting out every new year this way.

I also joined the 2015 Book Blog Discussion Challenge to try to add more variety to my posts. Here’s this month’s discussion: What makes a great book blog design?. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll join the conversation.

Books I reviewed

• Bliss and Other Stories – My Classics Club Spin book.
• Wuthering Heights – A reread that made me look differently at a classic that has never been a favorite of mine. Thanks to Girl With Her Head in a Book for inviting me to read along!
• The Just City – A mind-bending new novel from the ever-inventive Jo Walton.
• Pinocchio – I looked at a beautiful Limited Editions Club edition, illustrated by Richard Floethe, in honor of the Classic Children’s Literature Readalong at Simpler Pastimes.
• Where Have I Been All My Life? – I hosted a stop on the TLC Blog Tour for this heartfelt memoir.
• The Nutmeg Tree and Cluny Brown – In honor of Margery Sharp Day, two fine entertainments by a unjustly neglected author.

Other books read

• The Hollow Land by Jane Gardam (reread) – Review to come in Shiny New Books
• The Rescuers by Margery Sharp (reread)
  
• Alias Hook by Lisa Jensen – Review to come
• How To Be a Heroine by Samantha Ellis – Review to come
• Possession by A.S. Byatt (reread)
• A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong – I need to read more in the Canongate Myths series, and may do a group review at some point.
• The Dean’s Watch by Elizabeth Goudge (reread) – Gearing up for Elizabeth Goudge Reading Week in April.
• Finding Zero by Amir Aczel – A pleasant mathematical read, but less substantial than I had expected.
• The Bees by Laila Paull – Review to come
• An Appetite for Violets by Martine Bailey – Review to come

Most popular ECBR post this month

• Checking Out My Own Shelves: A New Reading Year

Favorite posts from other bloggers

• River City Reading pointed out some interesting cover trends. I’m always meaning to collect these too…
• Calmgrove snagged a copy of Puffin Post Annual #1, which reminded me of my old Cricket magazines.
• Fleur in Her World packed a beautiful box of books for 2014.
• Leaves and Pages had a hilarious “worst of 2014” list (her “best of” list is also worth a look).
• I enjoyed a review of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and a preview of the upcoming BBC miniseries at Books and Chocolate. I really need to reread this book before the year is out.
• Behold the Stars offered a gorgeous gallery of vintage illustrations.
• A Charlotte vs. Emily debate came to (virtual) fisticuffs at Vulpes Libris. I thought I knew which side I was on, but after my recent Wuthering Heights reread I’m not so sure.

Some other cool things

• There’s a handy new page listing book fairs and conventions at The Bookwyrm’s Hoard.
• The line-up for this year’s Battle of the Books has been announced at School Library Journal. This time, I’m going to try really hard to read all of them so I can actually have an opinion about the winners.
• And I also want to read the finalists in the Cybils Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category. I feel very out of touch with this genre lately.

That was quite a month! What were your highlights?

Linked in the Sunday Post hosted by Caffeinated Book Reviewer