February in review

I'm not promising to do a monthly round-up every month, but as I've stopped keeping track of every single book I read, buy and borrow on the blog (because life is too short and who's going to scroll through that list except me?) and as I've actually had a really good bookish month after about three months of reading slump, I thought I'd give a quick summary of what fictional (and real) worlds I've been inhabiting lately.

So I left my job at the beginning of the month, which coincided with the re-readathon, two very excellent things to re-kindle my love of reading. Then on the 18th, was the second London Bookshop Crawl, which was a much bigger affair than last year's. Bex did a wonderful job of organising the day, and although it was a little crazy, it was a great time once more. It was good to catch up with Ellie W, Louise and Elena again, though they were in different groups; Laura was there with her tall boyfriend, and Hanna and Charlotte came down from Leeds (so I've now met all the members of our little circle.) I tried to be more restrained this year, but somehow, with loans, swaps and purchases, I still managed to bring ten books home at the end of the weekend.

I've been dabbling a bit in the Marvel comics universe, borrowing a selection from my sister's best friend: Civil War, Avengers Versus X-Men, and the very excellent 1602. I picked up the first issue of a new Avengers series, Occupy Avengers on the bookshop crawl, which followed on from some huge changes to the Marvel universe in Civil War 2, so of course I had to work backwards and borrow that one from the library to find out just what had been going on. It's all been happening in Marvel!

In February alone I read five 5-star books in quick succession (not that I usually remember to give star ratings, it's not that kind of blog.) 2 of which I have reviewed: the aforementioned 1602 and The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, Aliens, a non-fiction book edited by Jim Al-Khalili in which a load of very clever scientists hypothesise about whether there might be life on other planets, what it might be like, where it might live and if there are any circumstances under which we might discover each other. I've forgotten most of my GCSE chemistry and biology, but I half-understood most of it, and although, realistically, I'm quite sceptical about the existence of aliens (other than maybe bugs) it made a fascinating read (and very useful should I venture into writing hard science fiction.)

Then there was Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero, which I read as part of Bex's Discworldathon, one of only (I think) three Discworld books I'd never read before. I'd been putting it off for years, because I'm not a big fan of the wizards and Rincewind sub-series, and this one essentially follows after Interesting Times, the only book I've read by Pratchett that I actively disliked. So it was a pleasant surprise to enjoy it. It's a short novel with full-colour illustrations by Paul Kidby, and its story - an elderly band of barbarian heroes seeking revenge on the gods for allowing age, decay and death - had an added poignancy after Pratchett's own demise in 2015. Plus, there was the Discworld's own twist on space travel - rocket wizardry with dragons! - and of course Pratchett's inimitable wit and truth. I reached the end feeling quite bereft: only twice more will I read a Discworld book for the first time (though I am sure I will reread my favourites many, many times over, and I haven't touched his Long Earth series with Stephen Baxter.)

And I bought a comic anthology called Love is Love from Orbital, after not buying it on the Bookshop Crawl because I thought I'd find it elsewhere. It's a collaboration of short one- and two-page stories, poems and artwork written in honour of the victims of the Orlando massacre last year, and it was very powerful stuff. A very slim volume, but it took me a while to get through because each page was beautiful and devastating. I think it broke me a little bit.

I've just finished Juno Dawson's latest book for teenagers, Margot and Me, in which Fliss, a teenager from London moves to Wales to live with her stern grandmother Margot. Fliss finds Margot's diary from the Second World War, and comes to realise that her 15-year-old self in the 1990s, and 16-year-old Margot in the 1940s had a lot more in common than she initially realised. It's a powerful book, two stories in one, and in the 400 pages, Dawson deals with bullying, being a young carer, teen pregnancy, sexuality, romantic love and practical love, compassion, grief and loss. It could so easily be an "issues" book, but instead it is all about how messy life can be, with rounded and lovable characters, and an emotional heart. It is very different from her previous book, All of the Above, and yet Juno Dawson has a distinctive narrative style that stands out from similar books in the contemporary Young Adult scene.

All in all, I've had an outstanding reading month.What about you? Have you read any of these books? What did you think?