Tag: February 2021

Monthly Wrap-Up – February 2021

Posted on by

Welcome to today’s second monthly wrap up post for February 2021! It’s a bit later than I anticipated originally. You may have heard that the Island is now back in lockdown again, just a month after the last one. As a result, I have been working from home. I must confess the last thing I feel inclined to do is spend my time sitting at a laptop in the evening to blog when I am spending my days staring at a laptop for work! Never mind, it is what it is. 

If you read last months wrap up post, you will know that I’ve recently changed the way in which I’m writing my blog for this year. Instead of setting a monthly TBR at the beginning of a month, I am instead writing a retrospective review of what I’ve done at the end of the month. That way it takes the pressure off and I can really get back to my roots of enjoying the books I pick up, rather than feeling obliged to complete a certain number of books which at times takes the enjoyment out of it!

The decision to do this was twofold; on the one hand, I wanted to take a bit more relaxed approach to blogging given that I had such a busy year personally last year. On the other, it gives me the freedom to pick up books as and when I want to, so I have more flexibility in my choice of reading at any given time. This way I am more likely to pick up books of different genres on my TBR and so make more progress with clearing the backlog! And boy is there a backlog…

 

Books Read

This month has been a bit of a strange one. I started it by actually taking a very short break from reading whilst I did some last-minute revision for an exam I sat. It’s weird to think about that actually; I sat the exam on the 3rd of February but it doesn’t feel like it was a month ago… I would actually say it feels like a lot longer!

After that short break, I picked up Fire & Blood by George R. R. Martin for a few nights before bed. Still, I haven’t made much progress on this book this month. Why? Well, because I started reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling on impulse. Yes, it is part of my re-read, but I picked it up because I really felt like I wanted to. I really enjoyed reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher‘s Stone last month and I was eager to continue with the story. Since picking this up I have taken a break from Fire and Blood by George R. R. Martin. Rest assured, it’s still sitting on my bedside table and I plan on picking this up again soon!

I then moved onto my current read, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It’s a funny coincidence that I picked this up when I did; about a day after I started reading it I was channel hopping for a film to watch (it was a Friday night and I wanted something substantial to watch). Lo and behold, what film did I find on Film4? You guessed it – The Book Thief!

I’m still chipping away at this, I towards the end of the month I actually deviated towards listening to my audiobooks than actual reading. As of last month’s wrap-up update, I was listening to A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I don’t know why particularly but I caught the bug for this and I managed to finish the audiobook this month! I will definitely be continuing with listening to series over the course of the year. It’s going to be a long one as I can testify by how long it took me to do a physical re-read, but what can I say… I just can’t stay away!

Last but not least I moved onto one final audiobook before month-end. I have started listening to The Toll by Neal Shusterman; I can’t wait to see how this final book in the trilogy ends. Of course, I have gone on to listen to this more over the past few days, but more on that in next month’s wrap-up. As of month-end I had only really just started this.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the amount of reading I have done this month. I’m also making more of an effort to enjoy other hobbies, as well as reading and blogging. I have made a good deal of progress but equally, I haven’t forced myself into doing it when I really fancy doing something else. It’s a lot healthier balance that I was achieving last year and I feel a lot better in myself for it.

 

Blog Posts

As I did last month, I’ll be sharing the posts I published last month in case you missed any! Here are the posts: –

 

That’s all my updates for February! I hope you have enjoyed today’s post! If there is anything else you would like to see in my monthly wrap-ups, please let me know!

What books have you read recently?

 

signature

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads