February 2022

  Had a good second month of 2022.

So here are the February reads:

• Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum. Great book. Read this with Audible. Scary what Stalin and his cronies did to their own people. And to other people. Twice a mention of the Esperantists thrown into the gulag to die. Based on this one, I'll probably read more from her. 
• Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory, by Martha Wells. A Murderbot short story, and yes, I'm going to count it. Fills in from where Murderbot saves a team that he ends up liking and to when he disappears. Next up: Network Effect. Will probably read that one in March.
• Embassytown, by China Mieville. Another great one by this master of world building. I hope he's got more Embassytown in the future. Loved the characters and his idea of what constitutes an ambassador. 
• Who Killed Homer? by Victor Davis Hanson, et al. Read this in the '90s. Reread it with Audible. Still great. Expect to see many classics in my reading future!
• The Good Soldier, by Ford Maddox Ford. Wasn't what I thought it would be. Quite good, but strangely written. 
• Frankenstein, by (the genius) Mary Shelley. Picked by my wife for our family book club based on our youngest having to read it for her freshman English class in university. I love this book. So unlike any of the movies. 
• The Lords of Discipline, by Pat Conroy. Had no idea till the end this was a true story. Movie pales in comparison. This is one helluva book. 

And here are my purchases for February:

• Carry On, Jeeves, by PG Wodehouse. This'll be the March read for the PG Wodehouse Book Club on FB. Collector's Wodehouse version. 
• Orlando, by Virginia Woolf. This book is on my 50 Classics list, and look at that! It showed up as a Kindle deal for two bucks!
• Red Mars, by Kim Stanley Robinson. Read the trilogy decades ago and loved it. We already have Green Mars in our Kindle. Couldn't pass this up for two bucks.
• Pandora's Star, by Peter Hamilton. Heard he's a great author, so why not? Again, two bucks.
• The Classical World, by Robin Lane Fox. You had to expect this after my reading of Who Killed Homer.
• Napoleon's Symphony, by Anthony Burgess. Can you pass up a Burgess novel for, you guessed it, two bucks?!
• The Omen, by David Seltzer. See the pattern yet? Two dollars!
• Frankenstein, by Shelley. Hey, look at that?! A book I bought and read in the same month!
• The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. Heard he (she?) was good. Three dollars!
• Greene on Capri, by Hazzard. Nice little bio on Graham Greene. Hardback with good dj. 
• Something Light, by Margery Sharp. Read a great review of Margery Sharp so thought I'd try one of hers. 
• Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh. I've got a permanent search in Abebooks for 1st ed. Waugh books, from Chapman in London. This one came up for 20 clams and I couldn't resist. Pretty good dj. Added to the collection. (This is his best work, best comedic work. Read it, dear reader!)

Not so bad, seven books read. And practically done with Rabbit, Run; maybe 50 pages left. 

Language-wise, I did my Russian DLPT and OPI, earning a 3/3 and 2+ OPI again. I've gone back to the Middle Egyptian course I started back in November. I'm catching up to the class, since I stopped submitting homework in December. I've caught up so far to around the first week of February. A couple more exercises then some reading and I should be with the class again. 

Also reading/listening Esperanto. I've got the advanced class coming up first week of July. So slowly getting back up to snuff in the language.