march nick hornby copycat

Books Bought This Month
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel by Helen Oyeyemi
Running for Mortals: A Commonsense Plan for Changing Your Life With Running by John “The Penguin” Bingham and Coach Jenny Hadfield (really)

Books Received/Acquired This Month
The Seventh Child by Erik Valeur (Kindle First)
The Young Visiters by Daisy Ashford
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by danah boyd
The Tastemakers: Why We’re Crazy for Cupcakes but Fed Up with Fondue by David Sax (Netgalley ARC)
Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell (Edelweiss ARC)
The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon (Netgalley ARC)
Pills and Starships by Lydia Millet (Edelweiss ARC)

Books Borrowed This Month
Divergent by Veronica Roth
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (audiobook)
Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken Setterington
The F- It List by Julie Halpern
Searching for Sarah Rector: The Richest Black Girl in America by Tonya Bolden
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond by Brenda Woods
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Cokal

Books Finished This Month
Ask the Passengers by A.S. King
Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia by Jenny Torres Sanchez
One Teen Story #12: Soundproof Your Life by Tara Altebrando
Branded by the Pink Triangle by Ken Setterington
The Here and Now by Ann Brashares
One Teen Story #13: Phenomenon by Julie Buntin
Hollow City by Ransom Riggs
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (audiobook)
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Searching for Sarah Rector by Tonya Bolden
A Book of Books by Abelardo Morell
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Advice to Little Girls by Mark Twain and illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky
Aviary Wonders Inc. Spring Catalog and Instruction Manual by Kate Samworth

So it would seem I picked up two new hobbies this month – one is reading the picturebooks and art books we have at work, and the other is I had a stroke and signed up for a 5K, and nothing is real until I’ve read a book about it (why go out and actually run when I can read books about running? Visualization, right?). So that’s what I’m up to. It’s all good, because being dedicated to exercising like six days a week is really, really good for me. I was like that once before, and it was the best I had felt in ages, and that was even before giving up all my trigger foods, so if I were to do it now and get super in shape, conceivably I would be unstoppable. But I also need to find time to write and, of course, as always, to read more.

All the books I wanted from the library came off the hold list at the same time, AND I’m trying to read books that I might booktalk for the kids next week, AND I am trying to read things for a post for the Hub, so….yeah. That will go down in some sort of way. Because I can totally read four books this week. I mean, I used to be able to do things like that, but I also didn’t work 40+ hours a week. Or exercise, like, ever. Occasionally I brought a book to the gym, but there was also Food Network there. I really went there to watch cable.

I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Helen Oyeyemi, a couple weeks ago, and I will have a post about that! I also wrote about Death, Dickinson, and the Demented Life of Frenchie Garcia for Forever Young Adult, which was a lot of fun, and also, if it’s not clear from the review, I really liked the book. I have some other stuff in the works at other places and at here, so I will have more feels and thoughts and opinions about books, NEVER YOU WORRY.

I would like to make picturebooks and art books more of a regular thing in my reading. And poetry (still working on Rita Dove) and graphic novels, though I’ve been decent at keeping some of that in the rotation. It’s good to use a different parts of your brain, I hear. There are so many ways I would like to use my brain, but I have to work on one habit at a time, I guess, and I sadly chose exercising. June 1 for my 5K! Better get back to reading about how to run.