February has flown by, hasn’t it? What a great reading month though because I managed to finish seven books and three of those were outstanding reads. Here’s what I read:

Shelter by Jung Yun, Whitefly by Abdelilah Hamdouchi, Good Evening, Mrs. Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes, Faithless by Kjell Ola Dahl, The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs, My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante and Where the Wild Cherries Grow by Laura Madeline.

Favorites where Shelter, Good Evening, Mrs. Craven and This Bright Hour. The others were good reads as well with the exception of Faithless. Oh that one was almost a DNF for me. I still need to catch up on doing some mini reviews so I’ll try to get on that soon.

What I really appreciated about this reading month was that I had a mix of fiction, non-fiction, mystery and a short story collection. Also, three of my reads were translated works (Arabic, Norwegian and Italian).

The only disappointing part of this month was not being able to complete a book for Black History Month. I was started reading a collection of Geraldine Brooks poetry but it was due back at the library before I could finish it. Also I had checked out Hunger by Roxane Gay but didn’t get to even open that book before I had to return it. Of course I can read these books any time and I do plan to keep them on my list.

Oh yes, and I totally didn’t get to start Portrait of A Lady for Bellezza’s readalong either.

For March my goal is to continue my library ban that I just started about a week ago. I know it sounds terrible doesn’t it? I just think I need to devote a bit more of my time to my own books. Like many of you, my shelves (and Kindle!) are overflowing so I want to spend a bit more time with my books.

So that’s a wrap for February. What about you, did you have a good reading month and what are you excited about in March?

I hope you all had a great weekend. My husband made us a new breakfast to try, Bircher Muesli, which I really liked. Anyway on to the books because I went to Half Price Books and found some great books on the clearance shelf. Not new books but vintage books which I can upcycle and turn them into journals.

I know for some of you the idea of gutting a book is horrifying but as I’ve said before, I truly believe I’m giving forgotten/discarded books a new life. Granted, if the book is a rare find or something special, I won’t be cutting into it.

So on my visit I found three books which are so cool. One is a The Book of Knowledge which is a children’s encyclopedia book. The one I found is book five from the series and the copyright date is 1953. I love some of the pictures in this book even if they are mainly all black and white. The book is in pretty good condition so no plans to make anything with it. At least not yet.

The next book is Slip the Story of a Little Fox by Phoebe Erickson. This one is pretty tattered but I love the illustration of the little fox on the cover and as well as the illustrations inside but what really got me was in the inscription. It was to a granddaughter. The grandmother writes that this had been a favorite of hers as a child and she hoped it would bring her granddaughter a lot of joy. So why is it on the clearance shelf at Half Price Books?! I know, families move, relatives pass away, so many turn of events happen in a lifetime and books and other treasures end up lost but hopefully I can use some of the pages in a recycled book and someone else will get a lot of joy from this.

Now the other book I was thrilled to find is The Netherlands from The World in Color series. This is a 1951 edition and from what little I’ve been searching online it looks like there are many other books in this series. I thought oh this would be great to repurpose into a travel journal and honestly didn’t even look much at it other than the cover which has three little tulips embossed into it.

Once I got home and really started to page through the book, I discovered it was quite beautiful with gorgeous color illustrations and maps. I mean just look at those end papers!

What I would love is to find another copy of this book and turn one into a recycled journal while keeping one intact. We’ve been to several cities in The Netherlands and would love to go back again so I could just imagine having this book as my travel journal. Wouldn’t that be great? Anyway, now I am going to be on the hunt for some others of these books.

We have quite a lot of thrift stores in my area and now I feel like I have to go visit those and see what I find. How about you, do you have vintage books on your shelves? Any particular kind you collect?