Reading, Writing, and Me

I wasn't going to write a February wrap-up this month because January's was so long , I'm not sure we need one every month, and I've spent most of February in a real slump. While that has somewhat regulated in the last two weeks, I just haven't been as excited about reading and the bookish internet in general (see also, content creation on the current platforms we have at our disposal) in February as I was last month. Well, it's the morning of February 28th and the sun is shining for the third day in a row, so I suddenly feel like talking about my reading life again. We're going to do this month a bit differently, though. Think of it more like a reading journal entry rather than the typical wrap-up style that's a bit more intensive.  I was surprised to discover that in February I read 13 books. That came out way higher than I expected, and I've realized that even when I feel like I'm moving through a book like molasses, it's usually like four...

Kairos  by Jenny Erpenbeck Overview: Katharina is 19 in East Berlin in the late 1980s when she catches the eye of a man on the bus and proceeds to fall into a complicated affair. It turns out this man is Hans, a married man ten years older than Katharina's own father. They begin to see each other in secret, when Hans's wife and son were away, and the affair expands to cover years of Katharina's life. At the onset of the book, Katharina, now a full-grown adult, is looking back on this affair by digging through the artifacts she has of her and Hans. This acclaimed novel, translated from German, won the International Booker Prize in 2024.  Overall: 4 Thoughts: You might notice I'm writing this review a little differently because I truly don't know how to review Kairos , and the conventional number rating system isn't working in my brain in regards to this book. I am glad I read the book. I can't really say I enjoyed it, but I'm glad I read it. I feel like I...