I really do love book lists.

So I decided that this year, I will be better about keeping one of my own. I tend to avoid resolutions because I feel bad when I break them. Therefore, this is an idea, not a resolution. So, if a February book list doesn’t end up anywhere on this blog, all will still be right with the world.

The month began with The Gift of an Ordinary Day by Katrina Kenison. This book had been on my To Be Read list for so long that simply reading it would have felt like an accomplishment. More than that though, it has given me things to think about the whole month long.

My mother loaded Joan Didion’s Blue Nights on to the Kindle that she gave me for Christmas so this title was next in line. I was both excited and fearful to read this book. I read Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking right as my dad was dying so I was a bit nervous about reading another of her books about death. Upon reading it though, I realized that it was much more a book about life. As I suppose all books truly are.

The Anti-Romantic Child tells the tale of a mother coming to terms with marriage, motherhood and the world of raising a child with autism. Thought-provoking and funny at the same time, this was a good read. That said, I tend to have issues if I read too many memoirs in a row. It was time to move on to fiction.

Reading Divisadero was rewarding while challenging. The author is a poet and his prose reads as such. Beautifully haunting, I had to take breaks from reading at times, the language so much richer than what I typically read.

Perhaps this is why the month ended with middle grade fiction. That and because we traveled in to the world of the Metropolitan Museum of Art this weekend.

From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was just as wonderful as I had remembered it as a child. My friend Nicky read it again this week too and commented that she could actually remember specific lines of the story from reading it in childhood. Now that is a well written book. More to come on this fantastic title….

And here’s to equally happy February reading…