Literature: March Books

Instead of writing individual reviews for all the books I have read, I am just going to condense them into what I have read each month.

At the beginning of 2019, I set myself the task on Goodreads to read 120 books this year, which means I need to read about 2 a week. In January and February, I read 21 books. Which was a good start.

Throughout the past month I managed to read 10 books which now brings me to 31.

I love reading across genres, and this month the genres I have read are:

• Crime
• Biography
• Christian
• Psychology
• Short Stories
• Children’s
• Self-Help

The 10 books I have read in March are:

• Closed Circles by Viveca Sten
• The Test by Brian O’Driscoll
• Northanger Abbey by Val McDermaid
• The Invisible Child: Tove Jansson
• The Ministry of a Messy House by Amanda Robbie
• If I Can’t, God Can by Catherine Campbell
• He Fights for You: Max Lucado
• The Power of the Other: Dr Henry Cloud
• A Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart
• The Fourth Man by Lee Child

So what genre fits what book?   Well one of them fits two genres as The Fourth Man is a short crime story which is the next chapter in the life of Jack Reacher. This short story sees Jack going to Australia which is unusual as normally he travels around America trying to stay out of trouble, though as trouble has a happening of finding him, he isn’t good at that!

Also under the genre of crime fiction, I read Closed Circles which is the second book of the Sandhamn Series by Viveca Sten.  This series is set in Sweden and one I have recently been getting in to. It is great and looking forward to reading more.

The Christian Books I read were The Ministry of a Messy House by Amanda Robbie, If I Can’t, God Can by Catherine Campbell and He Fights for You by Max Lucado. All good books but the best one of the three of these was Catherine Campbell’s – telling well known stories from the Bible alongside stories of real people – it was very interesting and I highly recommend it.

I have previously read Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and loved it, so when I saw that Val McDermaid had written a modern version of the book I was intrigued and decided to read it. It’s the same story as the original book but it is set in Edinburgh during the Fringe Festival and uses social media for the main means of communication.

The best book I read this month was The Boy Made of Blocks by Keith Stuart which tells the story of a father who has an autistic son and his inability to cope with that and childhood memories led to the breakdown of his marriage and moving from the family home. Over the course of the novel, he connects with son using Minecraft. It is a lovely story about family, growth, and love.