Thursday, April 6, 2023

What We Read in March

I'm interrupting a string of posts about how stressful work/life has been lately to talk about something fun - reading!! March was a blur but I still managed to get some reading done - I finished 6 books. 3 were excellent, the other 3 were pretty good to just ok. But first, the highlights:

In Love by Amy Bloom was our March book club book. It's a memoir about the author's husband's decision to seek out assisted suicide in Switzerland after getting diagnosed with Alzheimer's. This was  a sad, but powerful read. My FIL died from Alzheimer's and everyone in my book club was personally impacted by someone who is currently struggling with or had died from Alzheimer's which added to the discussion. Signal Fires by Dani Shapiro is the first novel I've read by this author (I've read and loved her non-fictio). I loved it. The book opens with a car accident involving teens and then over the course of the novel, we see how that accident impacts the survivors' lives. It was so good and so beautifully written. Lastly, I read the latest installment of Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series. I don't know how she keeps cranking out excellent installments of this series. I loved this book so much!


The next 3 books were good to just ok. I liked the Genova book but read it on the tails of "In Love" so was probably burned out on reading about Alzheimer's. It had some good nuggets in it about memory but overall wasn't my favorite book by her. I'm at the whim of when books become available at the library - in hindsight, I should have deferred Remember. I think it's still worth reading - just not on the tails of a book about a similar subject. 

The biggest development on the boys' front is that Will is suddenly VERY INTO BOOKS. This is a very exciting development as he was slower to warm to books and I feared that I had messed up and not read to him enough in the early months of his life. To be clear, we always read at bedtime/naptime and he got a lot of "second hand reading" when I was reading to Paul, but he just did not love books like Paul did. Others had assured me it would all work out - and it did. His favorite book is one that Kae gave to Paul when Will was born - it's called "A Long Winter Nap." It's about a tortoise that does not like winter and keeps trying to find places to hibernate but gets interrupted by others who are enjoying winter. At the end, he finds a flat resting place - which is a sled. And then whoosh! He's off on the sledding adventure of his life and realizes he actually DOES like winter. There are days I have read this book 5 times. He is obsessed and thinks it is SO FUNNY when the tortoise lays down on a sled to sleep. It's very cute to see him get so excited about a book. 

What did you read in March?

11 comments:

  1. I read Remember a few years ago and really enjoyed it at the time.

    I haven't read much in March, but I'm okay with that!

    Love, love, love that Will is getting into books. This happened with my son, too. I really did despair he was never going to sit still/enjoy books, and then almost overnight he fell in love with being read to. Such a special time to share with our little ones <3

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  2. This makes me really eager to read Signal Fires! I got it for Christmas, I think, and I haven't cracked the cover yet.

    So exciting that Will is becoming more interested in books! My daughter was always too busy to read. She would let me read to her at bedtime, but otherwise she had no time for it. I was always pretty anxious about that, but she has since come around to loving books.

    That book is one of our old favorites. Such a good one!

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  3. OMG your job must be so stressful and crazy right now. Fingers crossed things will calm down soon.
    I read a TON on my vacation - will be posting soon. I think I read close to ten books! Lots of good ones, some bad ones, and a couple meh. The best one was a recommendation from Suzanne, The Glass Hotel. I loved it!

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  4. Yay for Will enjoying books! Hopefully that's a trend that continues.

    I feel like I had a streak of reading books about childhood trauma last month, sort of like your Alzheimer's streak, and it really stressed me out. Ha! I'll have to be careful this month to avoid books where kids are abused.

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  5. My favorite March reads were Love & Saffron by Kim Fay and Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan. I'm definitely in a period where I can't take anything too dark, and these worked really well for me.

    Such good news about Will getting into reading!

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  6. I'm just thrilled that Will is loving books now. I know how much reading means to you and Phil and it's terrific to hear that now BOTH boys are into it. Thanks for the reviews. March was a slow reading month for me. Maybe April...

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  7. Wow, those first two in your favorites section sound kind of intense! But very good! And I really need to continue trying Louise Penny's books. I read the first one a couple falls ago after Kelsey from Rising Shining included something about it as a "cozy fall mystery". I remember liking it! But then I never continued on reading any other ones.

    And I'm sooo glad Will is loving that book! Ironically, it is not even one that I had ever read with my one boys I don't think- it was just one that I spotted in the bookstore and thought looked cute! :)

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  8. Signal Fires sounds good- I want to read it. I have a lot of catching up to do with Louise Penney. I think I read the first five books, but then stopped for some reason. Now I have to go back and figure out where I am. So I guess the good news is I have a lot of her books still to read.
    I'm impressed that you read six books last months, considering how crazy your life was!

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  9. I also read (and loved) In Love in March! It was definitely heavy but was very interesting, especially some of her insights into the emotional roller coaster that comes along with making the decision that they made. I think this book may be hard for some people to stomach, but I also gave it a very resounding five stars. I am sad that the Genova book was compared and not as well liked, as I found it very interesting, and also encouraging, since both I and my loved ones have been sometimes starting to "forget" things, and I hope it is just the age of the cell phone and not something more sinister.

    I also gave five stars to All The Broken Places, which did live up to the hype, and I Must Betray You, which provided a glimpse into the communist regime of Romania in the 90s, which I will admit I did not know much about.

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  10. How does Louise Penny continue to write such amazing mysteries? I think her newest release is one of her best. So suspenseful!

    Hooray for Will loving books finally! That must feel like a relief for you.

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  11. Love that Will is loving reading! Persistence pays off, and all kids are SO different in how/when they show interest in certain things.

    On another note, I think I am the only person on the face of the planet who does not like the Inspector Gamache series. I tried the first book and just could not get into it! Oh, well - there are enough books to read, so I think I'll be okay. :)

    Here's hoping you get less work and more reading this month!

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