February & March Books

I started February with the third Poldark book. Like the others, they hold my attention, and I mostly enjoy them, but they can get a bit depressing at times. 

One of our (Jennifer’s and my) favorite bloggers, Erin of SunnySideUp always talks about this book. Supposedly Mark Twain said that if the first thing you do in the morning is eat a live frog, you can go through the rest of the day knowing the worst is behind you. This book is just full of tips on being productive and making the most of your days. It seems to be written with business-people in mind, but it has tips that would work for anyone. So the frog tip would be, when you make a list of things to do for the day, highlight the hardest/most important and do that/those first. I just listened to this one. 

Another Poldark. I enjoyed it but took a break on the series after this and haven’t gotten back to it yet. 

I listened to this with the boys at night. It’s an imaginary history of an imaginary game from the Harry Potter books. Simply riveting!  (Not really.)


I read this one because it popped up without a wait on my library app, and it can be hard to find a book that you want to read that you don’t have to put a hold on. I think this book is supposed to elicit sympathy but my first thought was...Do something else if you don’t like it. Nobody told you you had to clean houses.  (I’m not saying every person on earth has options, but this lady had the education to write a publishable book for Pete sake.)

Now this was actually a good one!  Very sad!  Now if Stephanie Land is looking for people with hard lots in life, she should read this. This book is a collection of ten accounts of people telling their stories of being in slavery as young people. The stories are excerpts from full-length autobiographies. The complete autobiographies would be worth finding and reading as well. 

A friend from school gave me a stack of the Covington series to borrow, and while I don’t love them, I usually like them okay, and it sure is nice to have a stack of real paper books to just pick up and read. 

So these were the seven books I read in February. The crazy thing is that I only read four books in March and I was at home for Spring Break and quarantining for half the month!  You want to know why I didn’t read as much in March?  I will tell you. All my productivity rules got tossed out the window for the second half of the month. My most important rule for myself is no technology (Facebook/instagram/Pinterest/blogs/etc.) until 7 pm/the kids are asleep. I have got to get back to that for the rest of April!  

Another Covington book. Pleasant. 

The boys and I listened to this at night. Another one I picked on the library app because it was available immediately. This is serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions. Here’s an example of one of the questions: 

I thought it was over our heads, but the boys claimed to like it, so we listened to the whole thing over the course of many, many nights. I thought it would never end. Maybe they’ll be smart when they grow up. We will have to hide and watch. 

We also listened to The Swiss Family Robinson audiobook (and watched it on DisneyPlus) but the book is so very long that our two weeks ran out before we could finish it and we had to go back to the end of the virtual line to borrow it again, so hopefully we can finish it someday. Most memorable part for me, and also the one detail I remember from reading the book (probably an abridged version) as a kid - an anaconda swallowing a donkey. 

Another Covington book. They’re  all about these three older ladies who are best buds and they all live in this cool old farmhouse together and have a great time together.  Fine. My problem is, one by one, they fall in love with distinguished gentlemen who wish to wed them but none of them will (or they will but they will just visit their husband across the street occasionally) because it is so imperative that they keep living with their besties. I don’t believe it.  

Same. Nice not to have to learn new characters for a new book, but I’m not buying that these ladies aren’t getting on each other’s nerves after all these years and they’re not ready to go live with their new hubbies. Malarkey. 

Now just hold on to your hat and excuse my dull choices in March, because I’ve already read some zingers in April that will knock your socks off.