March 2012 Reading Wrap-Up
Books Read: 16
Pages Read: 3726
Hours Listened To: 0
Books read:
- Nefertiti - Moran, Michelle
- Masters of the Dew – Roumain, Jacques
- Complaints & Disorders: The Sexual Politics of Sickness - Ehrenreich, Barbara and Deirdre English
- Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America – King, Gilbert
- Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are – Walker, Rob
- In the Orchard, the Swallows – Hobbs, Peter
- Somewhere Over the Sea – Freihow, Halfdan
- The Book of the City of Ladies – de Pizan, Christine
- Strength in What Remains – Kidder, Tracy
- Abraham: A Journey into the Heart of Three Faiths – Feiler, Bruce
- Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy – Hedges, Chris
- Tortured – O’Brien, Caragh M.
- Prized – O’Brien, Caragh M.
- Cairo: My City, Our Revolution – Soueif, Ahdaf
- The Tent – al-Tahawy, Miral
- Hear Me Alone – Mgqolozana, Thando
Bloggers (and other online friends) visited: Rhiannon and Trish, locally, as well as Carina and Arablit while on vacation.
Places visited through reading: Egypt, Haiti, USA, Pakistan, Norway, France, Burundi, Israel, Palestine, South Africa
Places visited irl: Ohio, Florida, Istanbul, Egypt
Book Purchases: I received my first package from my Feminist Press subscription, and also had to use some of my Audible credits before they expired. I really must cancel my subscription there or listen to more audiobooks. Additionally, in Cairo I purchased two books at the American University in Cairo so far – Cairo by Ahdaf Soueif and The Tent by Miral al-Tahawy. My roommate said that books purchased on vacation if by local authors, are an acceptable exception to the buying ban!
Bonita Springs, Florida
Thoughts and ramblings: This was a really different month for me with two whole weeks at home catching up on life. When there is only a week or less home in a month I find that one week is usually full of obligations such as appointments, so having the second week is always a treat as it’s finally a bit of time to relax. This relaxing took a few different forms, as I watched a few documentaries I’d been holding on to, went to a screening of Miss Representations (I will post about it some day soon!), caught an all-black opera, Oheah Opera, saw The Hunger Games, and a few other random events.
March saw more news come out about the Book Blogger Convention, and what it will be like now that it is owned by Book Expo America. I can’t say I’m super thrilled about the news but I am super thrilled about the idea of a separate blogger run unconference instead. I can now happily report that I am once again excited about the upcoming trip to New York City.
I mentioned above the two weeks that I spent in Toronto. The first of these weeks was rather frigid, as I suppose is to be expected in early March. The second week, however, was absolutely gorgeous. We saw weather in the high teens to low twenties (Celsius, of course), which is both crazy and fantastic (in my mind). It was an early taste of summer that has me extra excited for when summer actually arrives. I love summer in Toronto as there is always so much going on.
Riding a camel around the pyramids at Giza
Most exciting about March is that the last week of March (and first week of April) is vacation for me, and I am spending it in Egypt with Carina. It took about two days to fly over which included a long layover in Istanbul. I did a quick city tour and can only say that I can’t wait to go back some day. I absolutely loved it.
After arriving in Cairo, Carina and I were able to catch a discussion by Arablit which was really neat. Since then we’ve been doing all kinds of touristy things including pyramids, riding camels, visiting mosques, a day trip to Alexandria, and of course eating great food! I am really enjoying Cairo, it is a fantastic city and we’ve been doing a lot of just wandering around. I highly recommend it!
And of course, multiple days flying plus vacation clearly equals a lot of reading time! Mixed in with all the tourist stuff is also time to relax and read, as can be confirmed by the fact that fully half of my reading was done in the last week of the month! 
Well, your reading slump is clearly over
Also, yay for your trip to Egypt!
Ah I just had more time to read Iris. I’ll be back to real life soon enough sadly!
Wow, I’m amazed you were in the same place two weeks in a row! Your vacation sounds wonderful!
Thanks Kathy
Hey, how come I don’t get listed with the bloggers visited?
Oops, that’s what happens when I try to update a post from my phone mid-vacation. It’s been updated now mlynx
That camel-riding picture is so cool!
I decided this week that I am going to come to New York for part of BEA week (but probably not BEA itself–just the Unconference). Look forward to seeing you then!
Thanks Teresa! It was a lot of fun. And that is awesome news! I look forward to seeing you as well.
must been great meeting Arablit love her Bolg ,all the best stu
Thanks Stu, it was truly awesome!
I love that camel picture.
I hope your Egypt trip keeps on being awesome!
Thanks Anastasia, it was great!
Hope you enjoyed “Cairo: My City” & Miral’s book. Also, I don’t know if you saw, but Miral’s most recent book (“Brooklyn Heights”) has been translated, by Samah Selim, and is out now. I think it’s insightful, with warm characters, and Samah certainly did a great job with the translation….
I really loved it, such a fantastic read mlynx. I’ve not read anything else by Miral but I definitely want to now. Thanks for the tip!
You look great on the camel Amy! Glad you had loads of fun. I wish I was there.
Thanks JoV!
I doubt I’ll ever make it to BEA, but I’m still relieved (from a distance) about the blogger unconference. Drooling with envy over your vacation!!
Thanks Nancy, you will have to go some day yourself