Best Reads of the Year: February

The month of February is over in less than a week (ack! I am not ready yet!), so start compiling your list of the best reads!

Here are mine:

Nonfiction: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind and The Path to Power

Fiction: All Clear and The Return of the Soldier

Young Adult: Marcelo in the Real World

February was not a banner month for me. I will endeavor to improve in March.

Fiction: The Serpent's Tale, Grave Goods, and The Murderous Procession by the late great Ariana Franklin

Nonfiction: none read

Young Adult: none worth recommending

How sad is this?

I didn't finish a ton of books in February, but I'd have to say that Cleopatra: A Life was the clear winner; it was a great balance between scholarly caution and literary vividness. My thoughts here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/105255#2506734

I'm going to hold off on naming mine because the one I'm reading currently is definitely a contender for the best in fiction and my next up could be for non-fiction (based on other reviews).

Mine include:

Novel: Karen Russell, Swamplandia!

Historical Mystery: Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death

Short story collection: Elizabeth Berridge, Tell It to A Stranger

YA: L M Montgomery, Emily Climbs

I reserve the right to amend this post, though!

I refuse to admit that the month's end is near!

I didn't read as much this month as last, but here are mine (subject to revision):

YA: Sisters Red

SF/Fantasy: The Name of the Wind

I may be able to add something next week, but I've already had a great reading month, and almost all the fiction I read was a "best."

Doctor Zhivago -- the new Pevear/Volkhonsky translation
Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem
Conquered City by Victor Serge
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead by Barbara Comyns
Matigari by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

Probably won't finish any nonfiction by the end of the month.

A month when you read Conquered City and Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead has got to be a good one (I don't know 2 of the others)

Who Was Changed and Who was Dead is indeed excellent!

My best this month:

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald
The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

Otherwise not a particularly good reading month.

#9, I had the good fortune to be on vacation for a week and to have a round-trip train trip to Washington DC this month, both of which allowed me lots of reading time!

YA: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Fiction: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson and The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Those were definitely my favorites of the month.

I read so many books this month. Sadly, not many of them were very memorable.

YA: The Hunger Games trilogy. Only finished 2 of the 3 so far. Mockingjay is waiting to be picked up from the library.

Fantasy: The Name of the Wind. I just started reading this yesterday. It is very good so far - getting really hard to put down.

Today I ended my February readings and wil start with my Mystery March.
The books I enjoyed most this month:

Fiction:
Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman

Non-fiction:
The Hill of Kronos by Peter Levi
The Pearl: A True Tale of Forbidden Love in Catherine the Great's Russia by Douglas Smith
Sergej Diaghilev: een leven voor de kunst by Sjeng Scheijen

So far have managed to finish a grand total of two books in Feb. (though I abandoned a couple and am in the middle of about 3 more). Both were good, but I think Bridge of Birds is the better of the two. I'll edit this if I finish anything else in the next couple of days and it turns out to be best.

Even though we have a couple of days remaining in the month, I feel comfortable now posting my "best of" for February. My current read which I will probably finish this month is definitely not in competition for this award. Anything else I begin will probably be finished in March.

Fiction - It's a tie. I gave 4 stars to both:

Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley

Non-Fiction - The clear winner at 4.5 stars is:

The Good Daughter by Jasmin Darznik

So far in February I've only read The Small Hand by Susan Hill and The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. Though Small Hand was very good, especially on a nice cold rainy afternoon, my clear winner was Doctor Faustus.

Both selections for this month are

YA / Fantasy
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman ★★★★★
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman ★★★★★

Might be premature for this one, since I'm far from finished, but am nominating:

Fiction
The Eye in the Door (2nd in the Regenerations trilogy) by Pat Barker

Two "9s" for February

Fiction
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip
Soulless by Gail Carriger

I am adding the fascinating, multilayered The Lost Steps by Alejo Carpentier to my list of favorites in post 8.

As I am not going to finish my current read before the month is over, I guess I can do this now.

There was definitely an overall drop in quality between January and February, plus a split between the books I enjoyed, and the books that were well-written; so I've divided my 'Best Fiction Of The Month' into two to accommodate a read that was So-Bad-It's-Good:

Non-fiction:

Censorship And Interpretation: The Conditions Of Reading And Writing In Early Modern England by Annabel Patterson (1984)

Fiction:

Best-written: High Table by Joanna Cannan (1931)
Most enjoyable: Valentine by Anonymous (1790)

My favorite new read for February was...
The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett.

My favorite reread was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
by Robert Pirsig. I'll be thinking about it for the next 35 years!

Nonfiction: Summer of Shadows: a Murder, a Pennant Race and the Twilight of the Best Location in the Nation by Jonathan Knight

Fiction: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

The good news is that I posted too soon and I do have two memorable reads for Feb:

Fiction A Red Herring Without Mustard by Alan Bradley - book 4 of the Flavia de Luce mysteries

YA The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud - a prequel (of sorts) of the Bartimaeus trilogy

Fiction: These Three Remain by Pamela Aidan - actually the only adult fiction I read all month, but it was a 4.5 star read
Nonfiction: Little Princes by Conor Grennan
Young Adult: Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness

Best Book of the Month: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

Other Contenders:
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Something Missing by Matthew Dicks
Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko
A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

My favorite February read was Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson.

My favourite for February will have to be A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini.

My favourites for February: Dark Fire by C. J Sansom and An Unfinished Business/The German Mujahid by Boualem Sansal.

My best were:

Children's/YA:
Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud
Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

Fiction:
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Non-fiction:
Terry Pratchett: Guilty of Literature edited by Andrew M. Butler

My favorite reads in February:
Fiction: Friendship Bread by Darien Gee
Non-fiction: Objects of Our Affection by Lisa Tracy

Mine were:

Children's/YA

Wither - Lauren DeStefano

Fiction

Rogue Angel: Solomon's Jar - Alex Archer

Non-Fiction

Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know - Alexandra Horowitz

Did not get much read this month. Guess it would be a toss-up between Arundel and my ER read, The Nobodies Album which was quite good.

My favourite read this month was:

Linger - Maggie Stiefvater

I had a rather unremarkable February; most books were good reads but nothing special. The two that stand out are A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr and The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski.

I loved A Month in the Country!

From the order of third favorite, the second favorite, to favorite of February.

3. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

2. The Walking Drum by Louis L'Amour

1. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

My best reads of February (4-1/2 stars or higher) were all nonfiction books:

Match Day: One Day and One Dramatic Year in the Lives of Three New Doctors by Brian Eule
Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak by Tarek Osman
Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure by Paul A. Offit, M.D.

I had a fairly good reading month in February, with these two at the top of the list:

Best Fiction: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

Best YA: The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

#35,36 - I loved it too!