Reading this month has ebbed and flowed around here. After the ice storm earlier this month, my phone/cable/internet didn’t return when the power came back on. It was a 5 day wait for the service tech to come out for the 5 minute fix. During those days and evenings, there was a lot of reading (alternated with a fair bit of knitting). Once I was “back online,” my reading slowed as I was sucked into the Olympics & did a lot of knitting while watching. For February, I “answered the challenge” to only read books from my own library. So, this month several books have become available at the library that I want to read & I am letting them go back to the bottom of the list.

• Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde – Another clever installment in the Thursday Next series – I think I’ll keep going with this series. #literaryhumor
• The Noticer by Andy Andrews – I picked this up during a good sale on Amazon around the holidays. A quick & delightful allegory about perspective. A good read for January that is staying with me. I may make this an annual read. I was highlighting so many times while reading this story. A favorite passage: ” Think with me here … everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you’ll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what’s a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination — our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life’s next peak.“ #ponderingperspective
• Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland’s History-Making Race Around the World by Matthew Goodman – The story of Nellie Bly was a favorite in the Value Tales I read as a child, so when I saw this book I immediately picked it up with my Christmas 2012 Amazon card and plunged into it. Then it languished for long periods of time. When the ice storm hit & I was semi-offline for 5 days, I picked this back up & finished the journey. The tales of their round the world journey (in opposite directions) were very interesting, as were the stories of their lives after those “80 days.” I am a fan of well-written narrative nonfiction and this delivers. #learnedalot
• South of Superior by Ellen Airgood – A read that sat dormant for way too long. I picked up this book when it came out & then it got put aside with the whirlwind of 2012 & 2013. A story of coming to a new place and initially feeling like a fish out of water and discovering that the new place really is your water and the people surrounding you really are your tribe. In addition to colorful characters, the along the southern shore of Lake Superior in the UP is a vibrant character – while reading the story I could picture the charming area where my sister & I had a “Sisters at the Shore” weekend in June 2010.  “She walked, and with each step she let another inch of the long furl of her expectations go. The place itself was like a steady hand, a low voice, a very old person who’d seen too much to get overexcited anymore. Stop now a minute, it said. Stop searching.” #missingtheuppermidwest
• The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion –  A quirky love story and comedy. The process & analytics side of my brain chuckled at some of the rationale ‘ approach the main character had in his quest to complete “the wife project.” It was in a similar vein as a favorite movie, As Good As It Gets. Parts of it read more as a screenplay. “You can’t go through life not listening to music.” #cleverread

Current active reads are The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbreth/J.K. Rowling & The Pun Also Rises by John Pollack & Crazy Love by Francis Chan. #alwaysplentymoretoread

Linking up with the monthly Twitterature round-up hosted by The Modern Mrs. Darcy.

What have you been reading lately?