Week in Reading: February 29th

It's the last day of February, ahoy! I'm wrapping up what was a great personal month, but not a great reading month, and looking forward to some more balance in March. This will include finishing Alexander Hamilton (no, really), which is still on my stack this week. I think I finally kicked my semi-slump over the weekend, too: finishing up The Cutting Season, by Attica Locke, on audio (this was suspense done so, so right) and devouring all of the lovely, meditative Poverty Creek Journal in one sitting on Sunday, enjoying the sunshine (with the dog) after a ten-mile race in the morning.

Now I'm on to a new audio pick: Wild, by Cheryl Strayed (I checked the audio out from my library, but as I own the paperback, I'm counting this as part of Read My Own Damn Books), and have just jumped into Jane Steele, the newest novel from Lyndsay Faye (whose work I adore).

And, of course, I need to start picking up some weird reads for Outlandish Lit's Month-long Weirdathon, which starts tomorrow. First up, The First Book of Calamity Leek, by Paula Lichtarowicz -- which is blurbed as both "wonderfully strange," and one part Margaret Atwood, one part Roald Dahl. This will either be excellent or awful; time will tell.

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What are you reading this week?

Looking Back: The Best of February

This month was actually a bit of a slump for me. I read some great March releases in advance of their publication dates, but I totally slacked off on my own Clean Your Reader and Read My Own Damn Books efforts.

For new books out in February, I was excited to be over at Shelf Awareness talking about Youngblood, an incredible new war novel that tackles questions of leadership in the chaotic setting of Iraq, and The Black Presidency, a detailed analysis of the intersection of race and politics in the Obama presidency (from campaign through second term) from political analyst and correspondent Michael Eric Dyson. My review of Why They Run the Way They Do hasn't run yet, but people: this collection of short stories is damn near perfect.

In non-assigned reading, I struggled through Defending Jacob on audio (review to come; spoiler: I did not like this book), and was excited to start Attica Locke's The Cutting Season after that dud. So far, the latter has been everything I want from a novel of mystery and suspense. I'm re-reading American Gods as a buddy read with a friend, and still (forever) struggling through Alexander Hamilton.

So it was a bit of a slow book-reading month, but there were lots of other highlights. I finished training to become a literacy student and am just starting to work with my student. I wrote about running a mile a day and what it's taught me about habit-forming. I had a blast participating in BBAW and reconnecting with the rest of the blogging community. And I read lots of great stuff around the interwebs...

Elsewhere on the internet, the best things I read in February:

• Your Life is Busier and Harder than It Needs to Be (while this won't apply to everyone, I think it's important to regularly re-assess and determine how much of our busyness is self-inflicted)

• Katie at Cakes, Tea and Dreams reflected on kindness -- an important reminder of how meaningful small (and large) acts of kindness can be.

• Andi of Estella's Revenge is launching a new internet "hub", Noncompliance Network, for her writing that goes beyond books. I love her explanations of the role of dreams and writing in her life to date--and her hopes for the future. 

• Credit also to Andi in this post on indispensable apps, who in turns credits Shannon, for introducing me to the Note to Self podcast. I've seen several bloggers talking about their own Infomagic challenges; color me intrigued.

Book Review: Youngblood, by Matt Gallagher

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers.

This novel by a former Army captain brings a fresh perspective on the war in Iraq and explores the moral ambiguities of war and leadership.

In the opening pages of Youngblood, Lieutenant Jack Porter reflects on his time in Iraq and the challenges of explaining his experiences to those who weren't there. "What was it like? Hell if I know. But next time someone asks.... I'll answer crooked, and I'll answer long. And when they get confused or angry, I'll smile. Finally, I'll think. Someone who understands." What unfolds in the following pages of Matt Gallagher's debut novel is an exquisite story that perfectly reflects that crooked, long, confusing, angering explanation: the story of a young officer trying to maintain a sense of sanity and control in the face of a situation that defies both.

With the United States military preparing to withdraw from Iraq, Porter and his men have shifted from thinking of home as a place they've left to a place they're looking forward to returning to. But before they are redeployed, Sergeant Daniel Chambers is assigned to their unit--bringing with him an aggressive style born of three past tours and a host of secrets. As Porter is drawn into the stories about Chambers's dark past, he begins to question everything he thought he knew and understood about the war, his place in it and himself.

Gallagher draws on his experience as a former U.S. Army captain--which he wrote about in his war memoir, Kaboom--to offer a fresh perspective on the war in Iraq. Youngblood explores the moral ambiguities of war as well as the specific trials of what it means to be a leader in a place and time that defies logic and law.
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Thanks to the publisher for providing a copy of this title for review.

Youngblood | Matt Gallagher | Atria Books | Hardcover | February 2016 | Buy from an independent bookstore near you

BBAW: Keeping it Fresh

It's the last day of Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Hosted by Ana, Jenny, Heather, and Andi, the week is designed to "celebrate the hard work, dedication, and love we all put into this adventure we call book blogging." If you missed the rest of this week's content, you can see all the link-ups over at The Estella Society.

Guys, this week has been such a blast -- exactly the push I needed to reclaim some of my blogging oomph and reconnect with the greater community. There are so many of you out there doing incredible wonderful things, and talking about incredible wonderful books, and sometimes I forget that this little blog doesn't have to live in a vacuum.

Which brings us to today's prompt for BBAW -- the last prompt of the week!

One of the unfortunate side effects of reading and blogging like rockstars seems to be a tendency toward burnout. How do you keep things fresh on your blog and in your reading? 

BBAW: The Books that Book Bloggers Recommend

It's Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Hosted by Ana, Jenny, Heather, and Andi, the week is designed to "celebrate the hard work, dedication, and love we all put into this adventure we call book blogging." Check back throughout the week for posts on the joys of blogging, discovering other bloggers, and more!

Today's prompt is all about book recommendations... the books we've read (or, in the case of some of the below, plan to read) because other bloggers have pushed them in our hands and the books we've pushed into others' hands.

BBAW: An Interview with April of Between the Pages

It's Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Hosted by Ana, Jenny, Heather, and Andi, the week is designed to "celebrate the hard work, dedication, and love we all put into this adventure we call book blogging." Check back throughout the week for posts on the joys of blogging, discovering other bloggers, and more!

One of my favorite parts of BBAW is getting to know new-to-me bloggers. There's a biiiiig wide world of people out there talking about books and reading and everything in between, and I know my sad and cluttered Feedly stream only scratches the surface of that universe. So today I'm excited to have the chance to feature an interview with April of Between the Pages!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week: A Bookish Introduction

It's Book Blogger Appreciation Week! Hosted by Ana, Jenny, Heather, and Andi, the week is designed to "celebrate the hard work, dedication, and love we all put into this adventure we call book blogging." Check back throughout the week for posts on the joys of blogging, discovering other bloggers, and more!

Today's prompt asks BBAW participants to introduce themselves... using five books. In no particular order, here are five books I think could introduce me:

Week in Reading: February 15, 2015

It's Monday! (Again). It's snowing! (Again.) I've had a crappy week of reading! (Again.)

That crappy week of reading is the result of two things: a wonderfully full week of work and social events and a sadly disappointing slate of books picked up recently:

A Mile Every Day: What a Running Streak Taught Me about Habits

I ran every day between Thanksgiving and New Years.  

For some runners, this is nothing to write home about (or, in this case, write blogs about). But it was a big commitment for me, moving from my usual 3-4 runs a week to 7 runs a week.

The idea came from the Runner's World Run Streak: run at least 1 mile, every day, from Thanksgiving to New Years. (The RWRunStreak includes a plan for varying mileage that I did not follow--I just stuck with the basic parameters.)

While the run streak was an interesting experiment in running (I didn't crave a rest day, for example, nearly as much as I'd expected to), what was most interesting about it was the lessons it taught me about habit-forming:

Book Review: Fallen Land, by Taylor Brown

This review originally ran in Shelf Awareness for Readers. 

Taylor Brown's stunning debut sweeps readers back to the final, harsh year of the Civil War.

Looking Ahead: New Books Coming in February

First of all, how is it February? Second of all, how are we expected to read this many great books in the shortest month of the year??

Looking Back: January Recap

January was a great reading month for me in a lot of ways -- not least because of Andi's call to Read Our Own Damn Books. Of the twelve books I picked up last month, five were for assignments and six were books I already own. Not too damn shabby, if I do say so myself. Now if only I could get into the discipline of actually writing about those books of mine I've finally read... but perhaps that's a task for February.

Week in Reading: February 1

I'm a day late and a dollar short in getting this week's reading up, but c'est la vie. The reading stack is still promising for the week, though I'm not sure how much time I'll actually be able to set aside for some of these chunksters....