This one isn’t about spanking…is that ok? You’ll have to let me know.
Happy Monday. I am avoiding work. Sort of.
I read 10 books in January, finishing 9 and 10 on January 31, when I took the day off for my mental health. Last year I fell behind on my reading and closed 2024 having read just 37 books compared to a clean 100 in 2023 and 92 in 2022. This year, I set a more modest goal of 50 and hope to surpass it. I have always been an avid reader and my undergrad was part of a self-designed degree program and titled “World Literatures” that allowed me to take classes at multiple colleges and across any department.
Anyway, January 2025 was an absolute shit month – not to mention LONG, too cold, with too much snow – but I read 10 books which is a great start to the year for me. I listen to a lot of audiobooks since moving out of the city because I spend so much dang time in the car, but I also read physical books and ebooks on occasion. I also purchase physical copies of my most loved books. I don’t actually read a ton of romance or fantasy. My particular favorite genre is historical fiction – especially WW2 novels, and then literary fiction with a focus on post-colonial lit. I try and read as few white men as possible. Alas, this month, two snuck in *wink*.
- Eddie Winston is Looking For Love was an absolute delight and a worthy second from Marianne Cronin who also wrote One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot, another favorite.
- Absolutely shit “self-help” book, a painful slog to get through the cliche and dumb advice. Do not recommend.
- Short stories by Fredrick Backman, the author of A Man Called Ove & Britt-Marie Was Here, two others I’ve read. His writing is literary and full of subtext.
- See 3!
- I didn’t love The Secret Lives of Church Ladies but it wasn’t bad – not sure it was my cup but I fell into some of the vignettes so I’ll look into more from Deesha Philyaw.
- In my opinion, The Enigma Game is the best of this series by Elizabeth Wein. I’ve read a lot of other novels about pilots and code breakers and the Enigma machine, and I enjoyed the unique plot of this one.
- I really liked the format and plot of Code Name Verity in terms of WW2 novels, but there was a bit much aviation jargon for me.
- Before The Coffee Gets Cold was my last book of 2024 and one I’d had on my TBR since December 2023 so the second book in the collection, Tales From The Cafe was a welcome addition. The concept of these stories does tend to get repetitive but not yet boring, so I’ll stick it out to the next one I think.
- In the turmoil of my January, my oldest (vanilla but in the know) friend sent me a quote from her “favorite” book, By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho, “Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering.” This really touched me and I cracked it open (ok, I downloaded the ebook from my local library!) and read. The story itself wasn’t for me, perhaps surprisingly, because I do very much enjoy literary fiction, but it had a bit much…religion, in it for me. Also, my first Coelho, so I promise to try again.
- The other white man to make it into my pile this month, Three Ordinary Girls was recommended based on my WW2 fiction reading history and since I know very little about the Dutch resistance (as opposed to the French, German, Italian, and British ones I’ve read about), I hopped on board. I also love real accounts. This was a fantastic and well researched look at the impact that ordinary people, teenaged girls even, had on the resistance during Nazi occupation.
Onward to February reading, which started off with a short story by Madeline Miller who wrote Circe (TBR) and The Song of Achilles (read & loved), Galatea – her retelling of the myth of Pygmalion, which the play My Fair Lady is based on.
What’s your favorite book, and what do you think I should read?
Reading is an escape, yes, but also another way of making it back to me. It feels fundamental.
-M
Of course, it’s okay for it to be on whatever topic you wish, marie. Thank you for the information. I am somewhat the opposite in that my genre loves are more fantasy and science-fiction with some noir mystery thrown into it. Historical fiction can be fun and I’ve read some.
I do enjoy *some* fantasy – there’s a fun historical fiction/fantasy/magic series by CJ Archer called Glass & Steele – it’s 13 books and there’s a spin off with some of the same characters and in the same world called The Glass Library. I just tend to gravitate more towards literary fiction usually – but can enjoy all kinds of books. I admit, I also tend to judge books by their covers, quite literally lol
Book covers frustrate me a little. Why do the men-targeted ones have to use covers any rational man would be embarrassed to be seen reading it? Women-target ones are so much more wise and sedate even though they contain the same spices, if from the other pov. Oh well, I know, I know…guys are guys but still. lol
Can you give me an example of a “man-targeted” one that’s embarrassing? I find plenty of covers to be ridiculous but I mostly enjoy creative and beautiful ones. Like the covers for Eddie Winston & Lenni and Margot really caught my eye.
Well, yeah I can…not sure where you want me to share them. I’ll post a few examples on my blog.
Oh that works, too – I thought you could just tell me a title or two and I could google them. Was just curious!
It’s posted. I referenced you as why I was writing it. I just sort of assumed to use your name in lower case. nora gets after me if I don’t do that to her name to emphasize she is a submissive. No offense meant.
I feel rather the opposite actually – I do identify as submissive but only with specific people and even then, don’t use upper/lower case to denote it. In truth, grammatically it also drives me a little nutty lol so I don’t subscribe to that convention. But I am looking forward to seeing your blog post all the same and happy to be reference and/or linked to!
One of my favourit books and one that I suspect you would enjoy is “Maidens Trip” by Emma Smith. It is a fictional tale based on factual experienced of the author running a Narrow Boat pair with two other volunteers, as taking her part to help out in WWII. It is an interesting book and Ms Smith is an unrecognized wordsmith of the highest quality.
Prefectdt
This looks like *exactly* the type of book I’d be into! Bit older so I’ll have to dig out a used copy online. Thanks for the rec!
Great list, Marie, thank you! I will share with you that my Sir and I are both readers. During our first three years together, he completely controlled my reading list. Each time I would finish a book, we would correspond about it, and then he would send me another. He introduced me to genres that I would have never considered, such as sci-fi, which I will be forever grateful. I ended up with a small library! We’ve moved on from this now (as he was running out of titles to send me), though he sent me some graphic novels at Christmas. One of my favorite books that he sent is Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Have you read it? If not, I hope you will. One of my favorite all time novels <3 XOXO
I’m not sure I’d be open to giving up *that* kind of control to someone, to be honest! I have read books recommended by friends of course, but there’s a lot of genres I don’t enjoy (after trying them) and wouldn’t be open to bothering with. Reading is so precious to me and I get such delight in choosing my next read. I have seen The Midnight Library recommended a lot – I wasn’t drawn in by the description, I must admit!
I totally get that, marie. I’ve read about some submissives giving their dominants control over what they post to their blogs and that is definitely a HARD limit for this girl. I truly enjoyed Sir controlling the novels I read and he really expanded my world in that way. But it is also nice now to wonder into a bookstore and pick out anything that sounds interesting. And he also allowed me to send him a book! I sent him Disclaimer by Renee Knight. If you haven’t read it, that’s another good one, all about perspective. I just pulled out my copy of Midnight Library and read the description. I could see not being pulled in by it. But the book itself is pretty incredible. Hope you give it a shot! XOXO
That’s a very reasonable hard limit! The only way I allow someone else to control what goes on my blog, is if someone I’ve played with doesn’t want me talking about it – and then, I’d want to have a conversation about it because my story and experiences are still my own. Disclaimer is described as a mystery & psychological thriller – I’ll have to see. I fear I’m coming across way pickier than I am…or maybe I don’t want to say I am very picky about books? Mystery’s and thrillers (and crime/true crime) can actually give me nightmares 🙈 Some mystery can work though, depending on the rest of the story. I get so engrossed in a story and they run like movies in my head as I am reading.
LOL…it’s okay to be picky about what you read, my friend! You do you 🙂 XOXO
A series I read that was sort of out of my norm and I was skeptical about, was Glass & Steele by CJ Archer. There are 13 books in the series and I read the first to appease a friend and then went through the first 11 in maybe 3 weeks? 🙈 so I CAN be convinced to go outside my comfort zone – Wayward also, I really didn’t want to but it was selected for a book club and had enough historical fiction aspect, I was like ok ok and it was great! I’m also not much for romance usually but when my friend recommended Sierra Simone’s Thornchapel series, I’m glad I did! It’s got so much kink, the writing is SO GOOD, the *story* is amazing.
I will definitely look into that… I could use a good kink series 🙂
The writing & attention to detail – and I am sure you’ll notice this, too – makes me think Sierra Simone is one of us 🤭 there’s consent discussions, appropriate terminology, etc. The New Camelot series is similar but it’s a modern political drama retelling of King Arthur. The audiobooks are great of all of these also.