Review a book or talk about books in progress and the state of my reading plans for February? Well, since we are almost a week into the month, let’s talk about the latter. The book review can wait.

So for the last couple days I’ve been moaning quietly to myself about how January was a terrible month for reading, that I read hardly any of the books I planned to. Then I looked at my January plan and realized the month was significantly better than I thought. I finished four of the seven books I was in the middle of. Not bad, right?

The carryovers:

• The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker. Even though I like this book it keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the in progress pile. I mean, nothing against Pinker, but when it’s between him and Roxanne Gay, or him and Ann Leckie, or him and Patrick Rothfuss, Pinker loses every time. Right now he is losing out to Mallory Ortberg. I do want to finish the book, I really do.
• This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change by Naomi Klein. I got halfway through this very good, hefty book before I had to return it to the library because my three weeks were up and there is a long line for it. I checked the university library system where I work and there were a couple copies there checked out but with no holds and both due soon. So I put in a hold request. Now, a mysterious disaster has struck.

  When I arrived at work Monday morning I discovered that the book was supposedly on the hold shelf at my library. Hooray! I went to retrieve it and it was not there. Hmm. The computer says the hold arrived on Saturday so I questioned my Saturday colleagues and none of them knew what I was talking about, there had been no book courier delivery on Saturday. So I emailed the circulation person at the library from which the book was sent. She checked her shelves. The book was not there. We thought perhaps a student worker had goofed and the book might still be in transit through the courier. Monday and Tuesday came and went and it still did not arrive. Today I sent out a system-wide email to all the library circulation departments asking if the book might have ended up on their hold shelves. Nope. So the book is AWOL.

  Here’s the bad part, if the hold expires before the book makes its way to me, I lose my chance to have it and have to place a new hold. While there were no holds when I put one in a month ago there are now four hold requests for two books one of which is now AWOL. University checkout periods are much longer than at the public library. My fingers are crossed the book arrives before the hold expires and I have to get at the back of the line.

• A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. If I hadn’t made it to part two of the book when I did, I was going to stop reading. The first part is so raw and horribly violent it was making me sick to my stomach reading it. People on my metro train were probably wondering what was wrong with that scowling person reading her Kobo. Was her breakfast not agreeing with her? Did she have a bad day at work? Even though I am past the first part, the book still presents a problem: I don’t like it. Intellectually, I can see why it is considered an important book. Emotionally it is all kinds of messed up. But I keep reading because intellectual me says my discomfort is probably a good thing. Thank goodness the book is short and I only have about 100 pages left.

Then there are the two ongoing project books: John Keats’ Complete Poems and Proust’s Guermantes Way (which is suffering from the same problem Pinker is).

Got all that?

Now for new books in February. I am laughing my way through Texts from Jane Eyre at the moment. I like to read it before bed. I have frequent outbursts of laughter and sometimes I interrupt Bookman’s reading to read to him. This book will probably be done by the end of the weekend. The next one that gets picked up will be Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness.

I just got notice today that waiting for me to pick up from the public library is On Immunity: An Innoculation by Eula Bliss. I’ve been waiting my turn since November and now my turn comes in the midst of an ever growing measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in California a couple weeks ago. I am safe from measles, I have been vaccinated against them twice. Once as a child and then again when I was 18 and heading off to college. At that time you had to provide proof of vaccination in order to attend and exceptions were rarely granted. For whatever reason my childhood health records did not show I had been vaccinated. The university needed proof in writing, not my mom’s solemn promise, and so I had to get vaccinated again. Ow. There’s a reason they give all these shots to kids, it’s so you don’t remember how much they hurt! The book will no doubt be even more interesting now given how relevant it is proving to be at the moment.

Finally, I have a new book to read and review for Library Journal. It is one that makes me very happy. It’s called First Ladies of Gardening: Pioneers, Designers and Dreamers by Heidi Howcroft. It is filled with gorgeous color photos of beautiful English gardens and teeny tiny print about the gardens and the women who created them. I began reading today and is it ever wonderful.

Well that should do it for February plans. Since it is still winter here I have lots of hours of reading under a quilt with the cats to look forward to.