Reviewing January/Previewing February 2013 Edition

image from partiallyexaminedlife.com

January was a great blogging month for me, but not a great reading month. During the course of the month I only read four books (and one was just wrapping up a book): I finished Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), I read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Smith), I read a few stories from A Good Man Is Hard To Find (O'Connor), I read Follow the River (Thom), Naked Came the Leaf Peeper (multi-authored) and I started The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Chabon). I was able to successfully review every book that I read this month (click on the title to go to the reviews).

January's book club book was my book! I selected A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash. We had a great discussion about the book and I was dejected to learn that not everyone in the group loved it. I have a rivalry with one girl in the club and she seems to hate anything I suggest, though, so other than her everyone either loved it or like it a lot. This month's selection is Follow the River and we will be discussing it Wednesday evening.

I knocked out my January 2013 TBR Pile Challenge hosted by Roof Beam Reader book which was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. This book also counted for one of my Classics Club Challenges!

I completed all of the Top Ten Tuesday's hosted by The Broke and The  Bookish
-Favorite Covers
-Anticipated 2013 Debut Books
-Settings to Explore Further
-Frustrating Characters

I completed the January meme question asked by The Classics Club: What is the best book that you've read for the Classics Club so far? 

I was really disheartened that I was only able to read four books this month. Work has been really crazy and I'm still trying to remember my promise to myself to leave by 4:15 every day (except Tuesdays and Thursdays and the other days that I have meetings that pop up suddenly the day of the meeting). I'm not counting on getting a ton read in February either. In addition to it being a short month I have a lot of things going on: Tuesday meetings, Book Club on Wednesday, Family Night at School on Thursday, Wiley Cash at the Literary Book Post in Salisbury next Monday, Tuesday meeting on Lincoln's Birthday!, Valentines Day Dance after school on Valentines Day then actually celebrating Valentines Day with Geoff, hair appointment on the 28th, and those are just the scheduled in advance things. Sheesh! I'll be happy to just finish Kavalier and Clay and get to March's book club selection (which I honestly don't know what it is...whoops!)

image from partiallyexaminedlife.com

So, like I said, February is going to be slam-packed for me. However, I am hopeful that I will finish my February TBR Pile Challenge book (Kavalier and Clay), read my March Book Club selection (???) and maybe sneak in another one- maybe finish A Good Man is Hard to Find? I'd love to start reading more short stories. I wish I had more time and I wound undertake a challenge to read a short story a day and write about it, or perhaps a poem a day? A poem is more doable than a short story.
I hope to get to all of the TTT lists this month (bookish memories, romances, characters in X genre, authors I automatically buy their books). I plan to get to the February question from the Classics Club: "What classic has surprised you the most so far, and why?" I also hope to get reviews up for Kavalier and Clay (which, by the way, I should have said this earlier, I am LOVING so far) and whatever book we're reading next for Book Club. And, believe it or not despite my previous rant on my lack of time, I am also planning on starting a new blog. A sister blog for Yeah, I Read it, Yeah, I Saw It will be a blog for the movie lover. Reviews, previews, news, and all the other ews I can throw at you. How I'm going to do it, I will never know. I was driving to see Hyde Park on Hudson today (which, by the way, I missed due to a parking shortage in Charlotte, but I'm planning to try again either tonight or tomorrow) and I realized I had no one to discuss this movie with. A few years ago, feeling remorseful that I had no one to discuss books with, I began Book Jackets and met a lot of new bloggers in the book blogosphere that I now connect with and so currently I'm hoping to do the same with films. We'll see how this goes! Wish me (lots and lots) of luck!