Monthly Recap: January

 

What I Read:

I read two non-fiction books this month: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton (which I enjoyed, and will probably post about at some point), and The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger, which was a fascinating book about life around the time of the first millennium (the early Middle Ages happens to be one of my current favourite historical periods, but there aren't that many books about it, so I was glad to find this).

Fiction-wise, I re-read two books, Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince, a tale of marauding Scots, growing up and (maybe) romance in sixteenth-century England; and The Little Duke by Charlotte Mary Yonge, set in tenth-century Normandy. I also read The Long Vacation, also by Charlotte Mary Yonge, and A Portrait of Emily Price by Katherine Reay.

Reading Challenges:

Old School Kidlit Challenge: This month's theme was Award Winners; I was reading The Circus is Coming by Noel Streatfeild, which won the Carnegie medal in 1938, but I haven't got around to finishing it yet. I do still intend to, but it's not top of my reading list at the moment. Hopefully I will do better with next month's theme, which is Books You Loved in Childhood. I plan to re-read The Tanglewoods' Secret by Patricia St. John, which I really enjoyed at the age of about six or seven, but have never revisited. It's pretty short, so it shouldn't be too difficult to fit it in.

Mount TBR: I didn't actually get anything finished this month; but I've made progress on some books that I'm still reading, so hopefully I'll get some finished soon.

I also set a goal for myself to read 12 non-fiction books and 12 re-reads this year; I'm currently ahead on both of these, so that's good :)

Posts:

I joined in with Top Ten Tuesday, listing ten underrated books I've read recently.
I also posted a reading challenge sign-up post, and a list of books I'm looking forward to reading this year. I haven't read any of them yet, but hopefully will get to some next month!

Currently Reading:

As usual I have quite a lot of books on the go! I'm reading The Abbess of Whitby by Jill Dalladay, A Quiet Kind of Thunder by Sara Barnard, The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien, Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, L is for Lifestyle by Ruth Valerio, and Millennium by Tom Holland. (As well as a few others that I pick up occasionally.)

Ten Underrated Books I've Read in the Past Year

 

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week's topic is Ten Underrated Books I've Read in the Past Year. Here are ten books I read last year that I think deserve more recognition:

 

The Bard's Daughter by Sarah Woodbury

(review)

A short murder mystery set in medieval Wales, prequel to a longer series of mysteries, of which I've read the first couple.

 

Five Glass Slippers by various authors

This was an anthology of five novellas by different authors all based on "Cinderella". While I liked some of the stories better than others, overall I enjoyed this collection and the last two stories in it were both really good.

 

Alice-Miranda at School by Jacqueline Harvey

This book was aimed at fairly young children, but I still found it very enjoyable. It's the sort of book I'd have absolutely loved as an eight- or nine-year-old, and my enjoyment of it was probably partly nostalgia, but I do think it's a good book, too.

 

Happy and Glorious by Hilary McKay

A collection of entertaining stories about a young Queen, again written for younger readers, but enjoyable for older one too.

 

The Battle of Castle Nebula by Stephanie Ricker

This is a prequel to one of the stories in Five Glass Slippers, which was my favourite of the anthology, and this book did not disappoint. The sequel, The Star Bell, was also very good.

 

Escape from Rome by Caroline Lawrence

(review) 

The first book in a new series, which is a spin-off of one of my favourite series as a child. Obviously I was going to read it for that reason, but I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did; I think in many ways it was better than the original books! The second book in the series, The Archers of Isca, is also out and I enjoyed it almost as much.

 

A Cathedral Courtship by Kate Douglas Wiggin

(review)

A sweet romantic tale set in England in the late 1800's.

 

Mother Carey's Chickens by Kate Douglas Wiggin

A story about four siblings growing up in the early twentieth century. It's rather reminiscent of children's classics like Anne of Green Gables, and definitely deserves to be much better known. I enjoyed this book a lot.

 

The Story of the Other Wise Man by Henry Van Dyke

A beautifully written Christmas tale of the "other", forgotten wise man, who is accidentally left behind when his three friends when they go following the star, and has to make his own way to Bethlehem in order to seek the new King. The story didn't entirely go where I was expecting, but it was very good.

 

Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince

The story of a young girl living in the north of England in the time of Elizabeth I - a time of danger when the people live in fear of marauding Scots come to raid the borderlands, killing, destroying and stealing. A romantic/coming-of-age tale. I'm not sure why I like this as much as I do, but I've read it twice now and enjoyed it a lot both times. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, North Side of the Tree, soon.

2017 Reading Challenges

I've decided to sign up for a couple of reading challenges this year. First, Mount TBR, hosted by My Reader's Block, because I have a lot of books that I've bought but haven't got around to reading yet, and I really want to make some progress on the stack this year. I've decided to sign up for Mont Blanc, which is 24 books that I already own. This doesn't sound particularly challenging but it's twice as many as I managed last year, so it seems a reasonable number to aim for! I'm including Kindle books that I paid for, but not free ones.

 

I've also discovered the Old School Kidlit reading challenge hosted by Read-at-Home Mom. This sounds very much my sort of thing, so I decided to participate. The idea is to read classic or older children's books, with monthly themes; January's theme is Award Winners, and I will probably be reading either The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge or The Circus is Coming by Noel Streatfeild, both of which have won the Carnegie award, and both are currently sitting unread on my shelf, so this will also help my progress towards Mount TBR.

 

 

Besides these challenges, I'm also going to try to read one book from my Classics Club list, one non-fiction book and one re-read per month. I'm not sure how long this will last, but I'd like to aim for it! This month I'm reading The Two Towers for the Classics Club, L is for Lifestyle by Ruth Valerio for non-fiction (although I have several other non-fiction books on the go which may or may not be finished this month), and I've just finished re-reading Raider's Tide by Maggie Prince, which I recently got the sequel to but realised that I remembered very little about this book! I enjoyed it just as much this time around, and am looking forward to reading the next book, North Side of the Tree.

Books I'm Looking Forward to Reading This Year

I'm not very good at sticking to reading lists, but this is partly because I tend to list books that I feel I ought to read, because I've had them for a long time or whatever other reason, rather than ones I really want to read. While I'm still hoping to make a significant dent in my TBR pile and to read some important books this year, I thought for now I'd make a list of some of the books that I am currently excited about reading. Most of them are ones I already own, but there's a few I'll have to either buy or get from the library.

 

Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

The Shadow Things by Jennifer Freitag

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Graustark by George Barr McCutcheon

Jane of Lantern Hill by L.M. Montgomery

Further Chronicles of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

North Side of the Tree by Maggie Prince

The Lord Peter Wimsey series by Dorothy Sayers

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

Forged in the Fire by Ann Turnbull

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne

Once by various authors

 

I'm also intending to make re-reading more of a priority, since only three of the books I read in 2016 were re-reads and I would like it to be a few more than that this year, especially as my "to-re-read" list grows ever longer.