February Recap 2018

It has been a crazy month in Boston! We’ve had temperatures in the mid 70s (low 20s for you C people), and then have had it snow the next day! Both of the photos to the right are from two of the warmer days.

The top photo was the day it hit nearly 75° and I went for a walk that morning. It was sad to see how gross the harbor walk was and that I couldn’t walk the whole thing.

The bottom photo is from when I went out to do a resume/cover letter workshop with the group my sister works for, it was a beautiful day and by time I left after a few hours most of the snow was gone. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t gotten sick with all of it this year!

In addition we’re getting ready for our move (less than 10 days) and so that has added additional chaos to our lives which we don’t really need, but will be so worth it once I’m sitting on one of the decks in a chair reading a book and sipping a lemonade.I know all of us, both our roommates are moving with us, are just ready to be done. I took all the photos down over the past few days and didn’t realize how bare our walls would look without them. Things really kick into gear this weekend when we start taking (more) furniture apart and then have the packers and movers come!

Books and Bookish Things
I didn’t read nearly as much as I thought I would but a lot of that was due to The Self-Love Experiment dragging out for most of the month. I just couldn’t make myself read it and I probably should’ve abandoned it but I wanted to give it a chance. The other two books were much more interesting and I squeaked in my one non-fiction book at the end of the month which now has me asking our Amazon Echo Dot about Earthquakes at least once a day.

536. The Self-Love Experiment – Shannon Kaiser
537. The Drawing of the Three (The Dark Tower #2) – Stephen King
538. Quakeland – Kathryn Miles

Quakeland was interesting but also fascinating for a couple of reasons in that she had a weird way of writing numbers in that under 10,000 she excluded the comma and above 10,000 she included it. And she mentions Massachusetts/New England multiple times about their chance of earthquakes!

Recent Acquisitions
I picked up a couple of library books, turned down 5-6 galleys/ARCs and am miraculously sitting on about $100 in various bookstore gift cards. We’ll see how long that lasts.

Books on Social Media
In non-reading books things I came across this on Twitter, someone I follow retweeted it and at first I just nodded at it and was like YAY Austen.

Full of humour, wit and scathing back-handed compliments, P&P is set in a time of tight breeches and heaving bosoms, and follows the marital aspirations of The Bennets, a middle-classed family that has produced five daughters. #janeausten #Literature #book #bookworm #avidreader pic.twitter.com/A6pVyqHdRI

— What to Read Next? (@Nicklovestoread) February 26, 2018

However, like most things, the more I thought about it the more enraged I became. I mean sure I’m glad it’s another person reading Jane Austen and sharing their views, but to see them reduce it to “tight breeches and heaving bosoms” pissed me off. This stereotyping reductionist tendency is why so many men refuse to read any of Austen’s works.

Does Austen write romance? Yes. Does Austen write domestic fiction? Yes. This being said, Does Austen write scathing social criticism? Yes. Does Austen lambaste the treatment of women of all ages? Yes.  UGH. I didn’t even respond because I guess whoohoo at least he’s reading it, but come on don’t be sexist and reductionist about it. I can offer numerous bodice rippers/heaving bosom/tightly packed breeches that ACTUALLY have those things and most of them are historical fiction, not classic novels.

After that I saw all of the announcements about Dolly Parton’s 100 Millionth book donated to children and that made me happy:

Culture Corner
This isn’t really cultural, or it kind of is, but mostly it just made me happy. At work this month we did an elementary school valentine’s day party:

It was a lot of fun and we had entirely way too much sugar. We talked about playing MASH (MASH+ website, seems not to be too ad loaded) in and retro video games and watched clips from movies/YouTube during lunch in the conference food.

What’s Next?
I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to read this month with the move, but I’ve got a couple of library books I’m working on and am still trying to get through my backlog of ARC/Galleys (I think I’m up to December 2017 now). I’m kind of enjoying The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, but at the same time it feels like a debut novel and I was shocked to find that it wasn’t her first. We’ll see where it goes as I’m about half way through.