Sunday, 31 March 2019

A Month In Books - March 2019

Welcome to March's Month In Books roundup! I will link this post up with Nicole's Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up at Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

I read 17 books this month including both of my Books From The Backlog choices: Tortilla Flat and Minaret. I also read a collection of Hong Kong essays, a Malaysian fantasy, Nigerian noir crime, a Syrian war memoir, and a Chinese epic which turned out to be the longest book I think I've ever read!

Regular blog series:
In March I blogged Bookish Bingo and State of the ARC updates as well as a Cover Characteristics collection themed Looking Out To Sea. WorldReads featured books from Kenya and I will be 'visiting' Colombia for April's WorldReads on the 5th.


Now, on with this Reading Roundup!
(Clicking each cover image will take you directly to my Literary Flits review or Spotlight page)

My Reviews














Spotlights









My Book Of The Month could have been the brilliant My Sister, The Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite, but then I read The Old Drift by Namwali Serpell which just blew my mind!


I hope you have found some books to tempt you in this selection! You can keep up with my daily book posts on Literary Flits and don't forget all the Giveaways are listed in my Giveaway Linkup.

Friday, 29 March 2019

State Of The ARC - March 2019

I saw this State of the ARC meme over at Avalinah's Books blog in January 2018 and thought it would be fun to join in.

The idea is to keep track of all the ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) books I've got awaiting reading and reviewing, and to make headway through the overdue pile. For my State of the ARC, I am including all books sent to me for review whether they are pre-publication copies (as ARCs should be) or simply review copies of books already available publicly. I don't include books that I have purchased myself, book exchange swaps, or free downloads.

In March I blogged my reviews of these ARCs:
(Click the cover images to visit their reviews)





(The Pianist Of Yarmouk review will be blogged on the 31st March.)

Here's my State of the ARC numbers as of today:

Awaiting Reading

Read / Reviewed / Blogged

Overdue

NetGalley

14

1 R / 1 RRB

1

From Authors

1

0

0

Blog Tours

3

0

0

From Publishers

0

0

0


RRB (Read, Reviewed and Blogged) essentially means those book reviews are completed and I'm just waiting for their scheduled blog post date.
I knew March was going to be a busy reading month, but hadn't realised quite how long a book Empires Of Dust was going to be. It was easily equivalent to three of my 'normal' length books so I have slipped a little and have an overdue! It's The Other Americans by Laila Lalami which I'm looking forward to reading next.


No State Of The ARC would be complete without checking out the additions to my ARC stash. Only seven again this month. That's fewer than I read so yay me!!

Here are March's new arrivals





If you want to join this State of the ARC meme check out This Page at Avalinah's Books.