January 2021 Month-in-Review

It has been another hectic month in casa del martes, but things are finally settling into a routine of the new, new (new?) normal.  The holidays are over and grandparents have been exorcised from the house.  My new semester has started.  no-angel is finally—after over 10 months!—back in daycare (although she is laying on the couch beside me, home sick, as I write this). Regular snowfalls keep us from missing the Rust Belt too much.

All that didn’t keep me from blogging.  In fact, I had my busiest month in a long, long time, posting nine(!) book reviews.  Two Vintage Science Fiction Month reviews helped.  I have also been working my way through a backlog of unreviewed books across both blogs, and I posted a couple pre-blog Amazon reviews to Hillbilly Highways.

After basically skipping Vintage SF Month last year, I am glad I dove back in this year.  Every month is a good month for vintage SF, but it is nice to focus your reading and blogging from time to time, especially since I have gotten away a bit from my Throwback SF Thursday posts.

I don’t have a blog focus for February, but I do have a reading focus.  If I am remembering correctly, Jacob from Red Star Reviews in his podcast gave me the idea for Finish February.  The idea is to focus on finishing books you have already started.  Since I have a bad habit of taking months to finish some nonfiction books, February is a good excuse to finally knock those out.  Taking months or . . . 18 years in one case.

I’m not just going to finish off the books I have been quasi-actively reading, I am picking back up The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton, a book I read three-quarters of in 2003.  Recent events have me convinced that far too many Americans lack a good foundation in civics.  The easiest response is to do something about my own education.  I have a pretty good foundation in American history, but I am rereading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton biography and plan to finally read The Federalist Papers in their entirety.  Mostly, though, I am focusing on classical studies.  Hence The Greek Way.  I am listening to Mike Duncan’s History of Rome podcast and The Great Courses The Foundations of Western Civilization (really a lecture series rather than a book, but Goodreads and Litsy have it listed like a book so I counted it) and plan to read Mike Duncan’s The Storm Before the Storm and The Odyssey.

I acquired a stack of books in January (two audiobooks and two reviews put me behind the eight ball), but I finished enough books to keep at TBR parity.  I also acquired three more books in the first two days of February, so I better keep reading.

 

January Reviews

• Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle (Hillbilly Highways)
• Return to Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Vintage SF Month)
• The Lions of Al-Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay
• City of Hate by Timothy S. Miller (Hillbilly Highways)
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (Vintage SF Month)
• Uncanny Collateral by Brian McClellan
• Hill of Beans: Coming of Age in the Last Days of the Old South by John Snyder (Hillbilly Highways)
• Black Heart on the Appalachian Trail by T.J. Forrester (Hillbilly Highways)
• A Moon Full of Stars by Jon Mollison (Throwback SF Thursday)

 

Books acquired

• The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry, narrated by Nick Offerman (audiobook)
• Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America’s First Frontier by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (review copy)
• Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews
• The Foundations of Western Civilization by Thomas F. X. Noble (audiobook)
• The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman (review copy)
• Grounded: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America by Jon Tester

 

Books started

• Flourishing Faith: A Baptist Primer on Work, Economics, and Civic Stewardship by Chad Brand
• Hamilton by Ron Chernow (reread)
• Uncanny Collateral by Brian McClellan
• The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry, narrated by Nick Offerman (audiobook)
• A Reaper of Stone by Mark Gelineau & Joe King
• Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews
• The Foundations of Western Civilization by Thomas F. X. Noble (audiobook)
• A Moon Full of Stars by Jon Mollison
• Grounded: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America by Jon Tester

 

Books finished

• Uncanny Collateral by Brian McClellan
• Flourishing Faith: A Baptist Primer on Work, Economics, and Civic Stewardship by Chad Brand
• A Reaper of Stone by Mark Gelineau & Joe King
• Boomers: The Men and Women Who Promised Freedom and Delivered Disaster by Helen Andrews
• A Moon Full of Stars by Jon Mollison
• Grounded: A Senator’s Lessons on Winning Back Rural America by Jon Tester

 

Mount TBR Counter

• January: +0
• Year-to-date: +0