February Recap

Please stop snowing.

It's hard to believe that March is already upon us! I'm glad that this brutal winter is almost over and we can actually spend some time outdoors without freezing to death. February was a busy month for me, both in my personal life and reading-wise. Considering my hectic schedule, I somehow managed to squeeze in a fair amount of reading even though it was mostly short-stories. I returned to blogging from a three year hiatus in mid-January with the intention of slowly getting back into reading and writing reviews again. The Deal Me In Challenge has certainly helped a great deal with rejuvenating my love for literature, especially short-fiction. 52 cards in a deck, 52 weeks in a year so that equates to one short story a week. Initially, that seemed like a very reasonable goal without feeling overwhelmed although I did not anticipate that reading short-stories would turn into full-blown obsession. I am now way ahead of schedule and actually thinking about trying to read 365 short-stories for the year! Do you think this is feasible or a fool's errand? Getting burnt out by reading so much over a short period of time is always a risk. Nonetheless, I have had the pleasure of discovering fantastic stories along the way as well as some new favorite authors, most notably Haruki Murakami:

Handsome fella.

Favorite short-story so far: The Year of Spaghetti by Haruki Murkami

Least favorite short-story so far: Poor Yorick by Theodore Sturgeon

I have also decided to take on the Back to the Classics Challenge, which is an extenuation of the Classics Club Challenge that I started on this blog back in 2011. Yikes, that feels like ages ago. There are several intimidating titles on my list such as The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoeyevsky and Moby Dick by Herman Melville but I am still excited to read them. These hefty tomes have been weighing down my shelves for years. Speaking of lengthy works, I am currently reading:

Thick.

Tolstoy's writing is impeccable or maybe that has something to do with the amazing translation by Peaver and Volokhonsky. This is a slow burn and the author is meticulous in exploring the psychological complexities of the many characters. In terms of plot, nothing has really happened yet but the novel is still deeply engaging because it is such a rich character study and there are many interconnected story-lines occurring simultaneously that keeps the narrative momentum flowing. Throw in some compelling philosophical, religious and political discourse along the way and you got me hooked. For me, Levin has established himself as the more interesting characters among the massive cast and I am curious to see how his story-line develops. However, I can do without Kitty's annoying histrionics. Despite my short-attention span when it comes to reading novels with 800+ pages, I am actually making decent progress and surprised by the accessible language, which is making for a quite the captivating read. I am only on Part II and sitting at 25% according to my kindle. Not too shabby. Only 16 hours and 4 minutes to go!

Let's hope March proves to be another productive month of reading and posting on this blog.