In the Storm

What I've been reading | March 2023

Just a few more books than last month, but still now up to par in my reading life. Due in large part to - life. It also wasn't a grand reading month either by way of the books that I read and the quality of good reading. A friend commented that she'd had a similar reading slump with a bunch of 3 star reads, even less. I think fabulous reading lives are seasonal for us and they're not really slumps, it is just the seasons of life were in. I also know that some books I read now and are not for me, may, in a different season of life be - better. And, of course, maybe not. Thankfully, we'll never run out of books! We simply need to read more to find those really good books that stick with us.

Here's what I read in March 2023:

What I've been reading | February 2023

It's been a minute since I've posted what I've been reading. Doing a bit of catch up. Life, you know. It has taken it's toll on my reading life as well. After reading twelve books in January, I read five in February. Dramatic difference, for me, for sure.

What I did read, however, were fantastic.

I gave every single book I read in February, 5 Stars. Just like that. Oh, there were more than a few caveats to each 5 Star book but I enjoyed them enough and thought about them enough that they were 5 Stars in my - book. Here's what I've been reading lately,

What I've been reading | January 2023

My reading goal this year is, once again, to read 100 books. I didn't find, this past year, much space for reading more books. I did notice, however, that I read most often during the week and way less [read: almost never] on weekends, except for those rare times when both my husband and I take a leisurely weekend where part of that leisure is reading books. I have an exorbitant amount of time - at work - I'm happy to say, for reading opportunities, given the nature of my job, but less time at home because of other endeavors.  So, 100 books in 2023, it is. 

If you've followed my READ posts over the past year or so, you'll notice I'm changing up these posts slightly, giving 'what I've been reading' a cleaner aesthetic. We'll see how I like it as the year progresses. But, what I'm not changing is documenting what I read. I'm creating, once again, a 4 x 8 album using a Citrus Twist Kits Life Crafted album and each month I will create, generally, a 2-page scrapbooking layout about what I read that month.

In January I read 12 new books, 6 fiction books and 6 non-fiction books. I expect to see an uptick on non-fiction books because I've challenged myself to read about all things JOY, my One Little Word® for 2023. This month I read 4 books on JOY! My favorite of the four is probably Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss, although none of the four captured my - JOY - enough for 5 Stars, but hers was close. My husband and I read together every morning from the Bible and a spiritual formation book. In January we finished up the one we'd been working through at the end of last year, A Gentle Answer by Scott Sauls.

I read just a couple 5-Star books, and one of those was a short novella, Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. A powerful telling of a true life story.

I am still hosting a book club in my home and our January book club read was Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng. It garnered lively discussion. I'm pretty sure everyone rated it 4-Stars, as we all liked the book a lot.