February 2022 Reads
Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash
Here’s what I read in February…
A Fatal Grace (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #2) by Louise Penny
More gorgeous wintery atmosphere in a cozy town with delicious food descriptions enveloping a murder mystery. This was a delightful and pleasurable read, even if the plot was a bit over the top. Side note: I do not appreciate Penny’s references to fat bodies, but the book was published in 2007. My hope is these days she’s updated her language.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Historical fiction following a young girl, Esme, who grows up around the people creating the Oxford English Dictionary. I loved the descriptions of words, life in the early 1900s, and the thread throughout that the words left out (and the choices of why) influence culture just as much as those that were included (especially as the founders were mostly educated, older, white men). Esme is captivated by those left-out words and makes it her life’s work to preserve them. I found some of the characters’ experiences really sad, which put a damper on my reading experience, and the story went on a bit too long, but I’d recommend it to anyone interested in the making of a compendium of words. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
This was an audio book listen about the literal and figurative ways we winter. I loved hearing about the author’s experiences with traveling to see the northern lights and cold water swimming. I also loved the descriptions of saunas, the hibernation of dormice, and the exploration of wolves. It was more a musing about how all of life is cyclical and there is nothing wrong with us when we enter a “winter” period. That we shouldn’t ignore or rail against our winters, but prepare for them, support each other through them, and allow all that needs to happen during them. ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
I missed this 600+ page book being a February read by one day (February is the shortest month!). More on this in March’s post, but for now, I loved it.
Bonus: Station Eleven
Not the book, though, it is one of my favorites of all time, but the HBOMax limited series show. I wanted to include it here because it was so good: well made, engrossing, engaging and emotionally captivating. I cannot get over it. I was enthralled experiencing it with my eyes and ears. The acting! The set design! The music! Both the show and novel stand as amazing tellings of the same story. Brilliant. Each episode got better and better. I am sort of obsessed with it.
Full disclosure: it’s about a flu pandemic, but it’s actually about afterwards. It’s about connection, art, deciding what truly matters when you lose everything, healing trauma, making choices. Also, there is a book inside the book (an occurrence in Lost Words and Cloud Cuckoo). The most interesting part was the creators were making a show about a pandemic DURING A PANDEMIC, so I loved learning about the creation of the show. HBO has a Station Eleven podcast if you want to go deeper (spoilers). ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
The StoryGraph
I’m on Goodreads here, but I am trying to use The StoryGraph more for a few reasons: Goodreads is problematic (read this Time magazine article) and it’s owned by Amazon. And I like StoryGraph’s metrics much better, plus it was founded by a Black woman. So, I’m linking the books above to their StoryGraph page.