February Wrap-Up and March Plans

Once upon a time, I thought today was February 29th. Well, folks, apparently I have not gotten used to the Western calendar in all my years of life.

Anyway, this month wrap-up was meant to be published in the month of February...I've decided that since I really like to read other people's monthly wrap-up posts, I thought maybe I would do the same. Nice way to keep on track with reading goals.

Books finished this month:
Ivanhoe
Great Expectations
Charles Dickens (biography)

Events I participated in:
Celebrating Dickens

Favorite book of the month:
Great Expectations

I just barely finished Great Expectations in the nick of time to review it for Celebrating Dickens. I expected to be able to read more during February, but I made the mistake of getting myself knee-deep in two chunksters (albeit smallish chunksters) at a time. Not so good. After feeling like I had been smack in the middle of both Ivanhoe and GE for weeks and weeks with no end in sight, my motivation started to decline just a bit...so next month (it's February 29th, remember? Work with me) I'm taking a break from chunksters! No need to beat myself to death with books; it's about having fun, right?

Right. So this month, as per A Modern March, I'm going to immerse myself in modern literature, allow myself to read some other stuff for my other challenges (and just for fun), and challenge myself to get through as many books as I can!



I went to the library and got out a bunch of books today...

The three on the bottom are from a previous library trip; the five on top are from today

From the bottom to the top:

The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had - Susan Wise Bauer
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life: How to get more books in your life and more life from your books - Steve Leveen
Library: An Unquiet History - Matthew Battles
Off the Beaten Path: Washington, D.C. - William B. Whitman
In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto - Michael Pollan
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce
A Room With a View - E. M. Forster

Will I be able to actually finish all these in March? I hope so. I often underestimate my own reading power, so I'd like to think I can. (And I've actually already gotten partway through the first three.)

I finally decided to read The WEM after reading so much about it from other bloggers. I'm pretty impressed with it so far. I will say that I definitely won't be going through her "program," per se, since I'm studying literature in college right now so I'm kind of getting that kind of education, even though it's not in exactly the same way. I also took a reading class last semester and I'm surprised how much I already know.

The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life has not been super impressive to me yet. I'm not actually sure whether I'll finish it, but it's so short and I'm already halfway through, so I might as well.

The Washington, D. C. book is for my own personal pleasure (and also fits the Nerdy Non-Fiction challenge) and I'm reading it because my husband and I are planning on taking an east coast trip in a couple years. I figure if I read enough about it and get myself really, really excited, then it will really happen, right?

The last three, of course, are for Modern March! I'm excited about all of them, although I've heard that The Sound and the Fury is quite difficult. We'll see. If I'm too baffled by it, I may read SparkNotes online or get a guide out of the library.

I also need to read The Old Man and the Sea in March for the Classics Spin, but they were out at the library. (My local library is quite well-used.) So I'll probably get it out at the school library the next time I'm there.

Well, this has turned out to be quite a long post, but as you can see I'm excited for March! (Even though I'm still reeling that it's not February 29th.) What are your March reading plans?