February is here, bringing with it a month-long event hosted by Benjamin of Literature & Lofi. The premise is super simple: only read books written by women. And yes, I know, that’s not exactly unusual round here but I’m always ready to help balance years of male domination of my favourite genres. So what will I be reading this month?
I’ll be layering #FebruarySheWrote on my reading challenges for the year, which frankly still gives me a lot of leeway this month.
The Bookish Valhalla Backlist Challenge has Time as the February prompt – and the interpretation is as broad as I could ask for (a historical tale; time travel; alternative history; a title that reflects time in some way; or even memories as a theme). This is almost certainly going to be And This Is How To Stay Alive by Shingai Njeri Kagunda, a time travel novella about saving your loved ones and the dangers of defying the past.
Conveniently, the Womble’s #TidyTheTBR prompt for February is Valentine’s Day Gift – read a book from your TBR by an author you love, but haven’t read yet. Brilliant. This could be any one of far too many books on my shelf, so this one will be all about mood reading in the moment. Some possible candidates are:
I never got to my Vintage Sci Fi Month reads in January (I know, I know, I never do), but I absolutely still want to get stuck into them. These would get me started on my own Contrition of Bad SF Fan book bingo – plus I have a stack of slightly younger midlist classics set aside for that too! Expect me to dip into one of the following:
But there’s also some new releases coming our way this month that I won’t even try to resist (if I get my hands on a copy in time). Sisters of the Forgotten Stars (Lina Rather) and The God of Lost Words (AJ Hackwith) will laugh in the face of my ‘try not to acquire so many books this year’ aspirations, but I’m not going to let a little thing like that get in the way of getting back to two of my favourite series. Besides, The God of Lost Words would complete Hell’s Library, which is part of my Great Series Read Project. Bonus! Although I should also add Our Lady of Endless Worlds to the Great Series Read Project now I know it is a series…
While we’re talking great series I need to get back to, there’s some brilliant options there depending on my mood: for light-hearted diversions, I’ve got two of The Invisible Library books by Genevieve Cogman to catch up (…which won’t bring me up to date with the series, but will get me further through it); if I’m strong enough to handle a dystopia, there’s The Book Of Flora by Meg Elison to complete The Road To Nowhere trilogy; if I’m after a softer landing I could return to the Lady Astronaut series by Mary Robinette Kowal.
All these options and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the possibilities on my shelf for this month. After all, I might just ignore all the challenges and hoover up some of the awesome Goldsboro SF Fellowship releases I haven’t got round to yet instead…
…or I might read something else entirely. Let’s find out!
What will you be reading this month?
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