Hullo, Flora Poste

March Madness is a month long read-a-thon, hosted by Cedar Station. Normally I at least try to stay away from reading challenges. I don't do well under pressure, and a month-long reading marathon looks like a recipe for disaster. In regular circumstances, setting a monthly goal would only make me angry and frustrated and would force me to spend the rest of the month ignoring books entirely and reading fanfiction or watching Sailor Moon (I know 'cause that's exactly what I've done in the past). But this March is special. It might be the last time I have so much free time in my hands and I plan to *invest* it in reading as much as I can.

Most of my TBR is in my Nook, so a picture wouldn't be terribly helpful. But here it is, anyway...



As you can see, my physical TBR pile includes:

• The Water Beetle by Nancy Mitford


• The Foundling by Georgette Heyer


• Heroines and Harlots: Women at Sea in the Great Age of Sail by David Cordingly


• Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers


• Love From Nancy: The Letters of Nancy Mitford edited by Charlotte Mosley


• Middlemarch by George Eliot (!)


• A Friend From England by Anita Brookner

Sadly, I'm still afraid of Middlemarch and it's only on my list because part of me knows that if I don't read it know I'll never have the time again, so I'm approaching it with my "at least I'll read 10 minutes a day, that can't hurt neither of us, right?" reading strategy.

And not pictured in this image (though you can see my Nook), these are my other options:

• Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis


• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee


• Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones


• The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (ha!)


• Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym


• Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers


• Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson


• Consider the Lobster and Other Essays by David Foster Wallace


• The Invention of Love by Tom Stoppard


• Among Others by Jo Walton


• The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley


• Among the Janeites by Deborah Yaffe


• Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the Workd edited by Anne Jamison


• The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald


• Attachments by Rainbow Rowell 03/04


• The Whitefire Crossing by Courtney Schafer


• The Warrior's Apprentice by L.M. Bujold


• The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey


• Kivrin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset


• Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie


• Shaking a Leg: Collected Journalism and Writings by Angela Carter


• Remake by Connie Willis


• Passage by Connie Willis


• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

That's... a lot of books. The only reason I picked so many is because I need to have a lot of choice or I start feeling claustrophobic. (ETA: Now that I think of it, I still want to read L.M. Montgomery's The Blue Castle and at least one book by Graham Greene. And Wilkie Collins! And Trollope! And Montaigne's essays! AND HAWKEYE!) I think my choices are diverse enough, overall, though lacking in writers of the male persuasion... I'm mixing genres, time periods and length hoping I won't get bored by a constant rhythm.

I'm not setting a goal (again: pressure! claustrophobia! Sailor Moon!), I just hope to be able to stick with the challenge. Baby steps.