In the past, I used monthly themes to plan my reading. Then after a really bad reading slump last June or so, I started going through my unread books and prioritizing them. Do I want to continue this series? This title has been on my shelf for years, do I still want to read it? And so on. I pulled out a journal and started making lists of what I really wanted to read and wound up starting a monthly goal of two to four books from these lists that I wanted to tackle each month. It helped tremendously with my reading slump…plus, I just love making lists, there’s something immensely satisfying crossing items off as they are completed. I still plan on continuing my 31 Books of Halloween for September and October…I’m already putting together my reading list for that!
So, with that being said, here are my selections for April…
I have several library holds that should be coming in over the next few days, so I decided to keep my list down to two. Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong is fiction “…drawing on the author’s experience during the Cultural Revolution of the late 1960’s and ’70’s” (from the cover). A college student is sent to Inner Mongolia as part of a modernization movement. His admiration for the nomadic herdsmen and his fascination with the Mongolian wolf will soon be tested by government policies. I have been obsessed with Eastern Asia, especially Mongolia, ever since I can remember, and I’m really looking forward to this one.
I learned about Lenin’s Kisses by Yan Lianke through an online course I recently took, ChinaX Book Club. The plot is pretty wild: After a bizarre summer snowstorm ruins their crops, a village of mostly disabled people, led by their county official, start a traveling performance show to raise money to buy the corpse of Lenin from Russia so they can create a tourist attraction to compensate for the lost crops. Like I said, pretty wild. What really sold me on this book was the interview with the author that was part of the course. It’s something that I would recommend trying to find if you are interested in reading this book.
This month, I also want to make some progress, or actually finish, my other current reads…
I’m about halfway through A Court of Mist and Fury, so I should wrap that up in a week or so. I’ve been a bit disappointed with The Curse of Oak Island. I’m not quite at the DNF stage yet, I just keep hoping something interesting will finally happen. And as for Fucked Up? I’ve been working on that one for several months now. Not that it’s bad, it’s just been a lot to deal with. Once I hit page 300 or so, it did seem to pick up more momentum so I’m hoping to finish it by the end of the month.
What are your reading goals for April? Drop me a line and let’s talk books!
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Stay safe and Happy Reading!
