What I Read – February 2022

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A short month with a lot of great books in it! I also got to attend the Life, the Universe and Everything Symposium for the first time since presenting at it as a student in 2008. I learned a lot from the panels, met up with some online acquaintances, and made some new writing friends who I’m hopefully going to start a critique group with. Lots of writing to do this month, so let’s get on with the reviews!

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Writer in Review: 2021

One of my favorite parts of the Brandon Sanderson fandom is his yearly State of the Sanderson post, which gives an overview of his year and sets out what projects he’s working on next. So I decided I should start doing my own. I haven’t yet come up with a clever alliterative title using my last name, so for now, Writer in Review it is.

And yes, it’s February and I’m writing a year in a review post. I blame omicron. Hopefully in future years I can post these on my birthday in January instead.

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What I Read – January 2022 & 5×5 Challenge

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New year, new reading challenge! This year, I’m trying out the 5×5 Challenge (via the Scholé Sisters homeschooling community). The premise is to pick 5 categories or topics you want to read about more in-depth this year, then select 5 books for each category over the course of the year. It comes out to about 2 books a month. I’m hoping this will be a way to balance my need for structured reading with the ability to still pick up random books from the library (or more realistically, the new Brandon Sanderson novel).

My five categories for 2022 are:

  1. Old Testament Context – Our church’s Come Follow Me curriculum this year is on the Old Testament. In addition to reading a new translation, I want to get some background on how to get your head around the Old Testament. Some of these will be LDS-specific and some more generally Christian or even Jewish (I hope to pick up Robert Alter’s Psalm translation.)
  2. Mormon Lit Backlist – Filling in some works by Mormon authors that have been on my TBR pile for a while that I need to get to.
  3. Stoicism – It’s been a rough year for me coping with the new political environment in Utah (really, several years and the whole country would also work here). I’m hoping that reading about stoicism will give me some tools to both act according to my conscience while not drowning in anxiety and anger.
  4. Reading the Hugos – Working my way backwards through the novel winners that I haven’t read yet.
  5. Books Becoming Movies – Because I like to have read the book first, plus my other categories are so serious that I felt like I deserved a break.

Now on to the reviews!

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What I Read – December 2021

Happy New Year! The holidays were a stressful time, but I still got through a few great reads. I also have several that are halfway done that will be carried over to next year, which drives my INTJ personality insane.

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What I Read – November 2021

cake on white ceramic plate on top of a book
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Not many completed books this month due to hosting Thanksgiving and a lot of stress. I do have a lot of half-finished books on my pile that I’m trying to get through by the end of the year. Gotta start the new year with a clean book slate. Anyway, here’s what I read in November.

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