TSS: Belated monthly wrap-up: January 2014

I do realize that we’re a third into February, but I wanted a chance to sum up January anyway. I’ve learned that when I’m away from home on the weekend, blogging doesn’t really happen, so here we are on the following weekend looking back.

As the start to 2014, January wasn’t great. Another family member landed in the hospital for serious reasons and most of the goals I had for the year got derailed already – primarily the ones involving doing things that weren’t reading. I’ve had a lot on at work and in general I have not been getting on as well as I’d hoped. The weather in this part of the world certainly hasn’t helped. While my family and friends at home in the US have been buried in snowfall after snowfall, it’s merely been grey and rainy in the UK, almost every day its seems. As a result it doesn’t feel much like winter – a season that’s going to go away eventually – but instead an endless trudge of cold, wet, and dark.

Fortunately at this point, the above-mentioned family member is out of the hospital (by far the most significant), there are signs of the sun rising earlier and earlier, and I’ve buried my sorrows by acquiring a slightly ridiculous number of new books, so there’s hope yet.

I read:

Fiction

• Ironskin, Tina Connolly
• Clean Sweep, Ilona Andrews
• Demon Angel, Meljean Brook
• Life After Life, Kate Atkinson
• The Countess Conspiracy, Courtney Milan
• We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo
• The Iron Witch, Karen Mahoney
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
• Deadshifted, Cassie Alexander

Non-Fiction

• Edward III and the Triumph of England, Richard Barber
• The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard P. Feynman
• Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman

That’s 12 books, which is pretty high for me. The eagle-eyed amongst you will also note that most of my long-awaited reads actually got read. The only exception was Empress, which will probably be read this month, as it’s in the middle of the immediate reads pile.

I also hit all of my reading goals for at least the first month. We Need New Names is set in Zimbabwe and by an author of color (these don’t have to coincide but they happened to this month), I acquired Demon Angel and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay pre-2013, and I read 3 non-fiction books.

Favorites of the month

I couldn’t choose between the three fiction books, so have all of them. I loved all four of these books.

All those other goals

As I mentioned above, I haven’t been doing terrifically well with my other goals. Exercise and cooking have both been sporadic, but I’m taking the fact that I’m doing them sometimes as a small victory.

How was your January?