You wouldn’t really think that February being routinely two days shorter than the other months would make that much of a difference, and yet, every year I find myself surprised that it is March already! But since March brings us longer days with more light and just a hint of spring to come, I certainly won’t complain about it getting a bit ahead of me! I will try and keep this month’s reading report short and snappy, in part because I have other things to do today besides sit and write and also because I have a lot of books to cover this month. So, let’s get right into it the books I finished in that abbreviated month of February.
February Finished Books
The Daughter of the Commandant by Alexander Pushkin: This book, as I mentioned last month, was my February pick for the Tea and Ink Society Classics Challenge. I am glad I picked it for the Russian novel prompt because it wasn’t too long to finish in a month, and the story was much more straightforward and easy to understand than, say, Dostoyevsky. I would definitely read more Pushkin in the future, and I think he is a great place to start if you are new to the Russian novel as a genre of fiction. This story is of a young Russian officer who makes some poor choices in his early adult life and falls in love along the way, as well as falling from grace with his family. The young man learns by experience that you can’t trust everybody, but the old family servant is a faithful friend who helps him through many a difficulty, even though he often doesn’t deserve it.
The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong: I didn’t expect this to be a story about community and friendship between generations of people, but I am so glad it was. This book feels a little slow to get through at times, but in the end it isn’t so much about getting that crazy wheel up on the school as it is about building relationships and bringing people together around a common goal.
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles: I said last month that the jury was still out on this book, and now that I have finished it, I am still uncertain as to the verdict. I think Towles is a masterful storyteller, and I thoroughly enjoyed the style in which the book was written. But it’s the story itself which left me feeling unsatisfied in the end. One description that keeps coming back to me is that it was morally ambiguous, and that bothers me. This book definitely comes from a secular viewpoint right out of the gate, but for some reason I still kept waiting for each main character to come to a place of reckoning with their choices. And I never quite felt like that happened, at least not for the majority. Everyone did something rotten at some point in the story, but in the end, they all still lived pretty happily ever after. I don’t know…there was just something about this whole book that felt off to me, even though it was extremely well-crafted.
Utopia by Thomas More: This was a re-read for me but a school read aloud for my son. It was entertaining to discuss the Utopian’s unrealistically perfect society with him. I think More presented some very worthwhile ideas in this book, but others fail to account for man’s inherent sinfulness.
The Clockwork Crow by Catherine Fisher: I checked this out for my kids and ended up reading it myself over the course of an evening. It was a fun little middle-grade novel with a bit of magic and fairy fae. If you like books such as The Secret Garden, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Christmas Doll, or The Little White Horse, you will probably enjoy this book as well.
March Current Reads
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope: We picked this book as our next read in the mini-book club I am part of. We are a very informal little group that meets weekly for hikes with our kids and can’t stop talking about books along the way! Trollope was one of Charlotte Mason’s favorite authors, but I had never read any of his work before. I believe most of his novels are considered satirical works, and I can definitely feel the sarcasm oozing out of this one. However, since the story centers around the Anglican clergy, and I am not at all familiar with all their titles and roles in that denomination, I finally had to find a glossary of titles to help me sort out all the archdeacons and canons and prebendaries and deans and what-not!
The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly: I chose this as our new family read aloud before bed, and it has been quite interesting so far. Set in medieval Krakow, Poland, there is actual historical tradition about the trumpeter of Krakow and the church mentioned in the book that we found fascinating! We are maybe a third of the way through, and we have met a variety of interesting characters, some friendly who seem trustworthy and other who have a more sinister aspect. I look forward to seeing where the story goes!
The Pastor’s Wife by Sabine Wurmbrand: This title has been on my TBR for a while now, and I decided to check it out on audio through my library. It is by the wife of Romanian Jewish Christian pastor, Richard Wurmbrand, who was captured by the Communists after World War II ended and the Soviets occupied Romania. Their story of faith amidst the worst persecution is encouraging and challenging.
The Betrothed (I Promesi Sposi) by Alessandro Manzoni: This is another school book of my son’s from the AmblesideOnline Year 8 literature list, but we are listening to a modern translation on audio. I had originally planned to read it aloud from a lovely vintage copy I found online, but the plethora of Italian names proved cumbersome within the first few pages. Too many chapters were assigned each week for me to reasonably keep up with as a read aloud anyway, so now it is our lunchtime audio book instead. It follows the story of a young couple who are prevented from being married by their cowardly village priest after he is threatened by some bad actors. But there are also some intriguing side characters whose stories the author fleshes out along the way.
I also did dip into both Dakota: A Spiritual Biography by Kathleen Norris and World Enough and Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwan this month, but have not gotten very far with them yet. Hopefully I will have something substantial to say about them both next month!
I have yet to begin reading Letters of a Woman Homesteader by Elinor Pruitt Stewart, but I am putting it here because it is going to be my pick for March’s Tea and Ink Society prompt “a classic about immigrants or pioneers.” I think it will be interesting as Stewart left Denver as a young widow and mother, determined to homestead in Wyoming a little after the turn of the century. She must have had some spunk and grit, and I look forward to getting a peek into her life!
Wrap-Up
So much for that being short and snappy! I told you I had a lot of books to share about! By the way, I haven’t shared my Goodreads link in a while, so if you want to follow me over there to see what books I am adding to my TBR or what notes I highlight in my Kindle books, here is my profile.
