What to Read in February

Valentines Day is a couple weeks away. Some of you will choose to ignore this holiday, and that’s one way to do it. Others of you will take the opportunity to put a wreath of hearts on your door, make a reservation at a fancy restaurant, and curl up with some chocolates and a good book. Or a good movie. Here are some of my favorite romantic books, as recommendations.

Jane Austen’s Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey. Austen wrote six novels, but I have only read these four. As far as I can tell, everything she wrote is solid. I haven’t even reviewed Emma, despite its being one of my favorite books. But I love it. The writing is old fashioned, sure, as are some of the ideas, but millions of readers around the world still enjoy reading Austen and there might be more Austen fans than of any other writer. Perhaps. Her writing is complicated. Witty. Full of interesting characters and twisty plots. These are classics for a number of reasons.

Another one of my favorite books is Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. It’s certainly not just a romance, with it mainly being about revolution, injustice, and politics with themes of judgment and redemption. But among its winding storylines and large cast of characters, there is more than one love story. They might tend toward the tragic, but they are compelling, heart-wrenching romances.

I see that my Valentines reading recommendations tend toward the, well, not new. But I have long loved many of these books, ya know, like a good marriage. I read the Brownings’ poetry in high school (Elizabeth Barret and Robert), and my favorite was Sonnets from the Portuguese, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They are pretty darn sentimental, I suppose, or at least dramatic, but love can be sentimental and dramatic, or at least it’s fun to see it that way.  Perhaps it’s time I revisit this slim volume. Or Shakespeare’s Sonnets (especially, duh, number 116).

Perhaps you haven’t heard of it, but another favorite of mine is A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Van Auken who was a contemporary of C. S. Lewis. This book (with a Christian bent that is from another place and time) is a man’s mourning and celebration of his late wife. It is a recounting of an exemplary, special love and marriage. It contains letters from Lewis, and England, academia, lots of time on the water… and is ultimately about faith/spirituality, which means it is not for everyone. For me, it’s a perfect mashup of things, and while their love is idealistic and super contemplative, it might be time for me to revisit this one.

And now we make a massive leap to newer books I’ve read in the past few years, which are all actual romance novels (including some historical romance).

If I’m going to relax my brain on a vaca, unwind with a romance, my favorite author for that so far is Emily Henry. I am not at all alone. Yeah, we’re not talking great literature here, or anything the least bit experimental, but there’s something fun about a more-expected and clear, playful and sizzling book like the ones I’ve read so far: Book Lovers, Beach Read, and People We Meet on Vacation. It’s fun, too, because she’s probably going to keep pumping these suckers out for years to come.

I also enjoy a Madeline Miller book, which is the historical/mythological romance genre and is a much weightier read than, say, an Emily Henry. She has two so far, Circe and The Song of Achilles, and because of the research involved (and the writing style), she takes much longer to write them. But I’m looking forward to her next project, which is rumored to be about Hades and Persephone. It helps that I have always loved to read about Greek mythology.

I kind of fell into reading Betting on You by Lynn Painter, just a few months ago. But when it comes to a light, enjoyable read that fits snugly into the romance genre (and YA, to boot), I am already a fan. A traditional back-and-forth-POV, hate-to-love romance, I thought it had good chemistry despite it being quite obvious.

Sliding up the highbrow scale a little is the first book of a series (which can be read alone), Jenny Han’s To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. It’s another standard, YA romance. And it is written very well for what it is, has become very popular as a book and a movie. It’s cute, engaging, and goes down smooth.

There are a few Valentines-friendly titles that are coming in close on my radar/TBR, and those are Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, Persuasion by Jane Austen, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz. Persuasion has a newer streaming series (which I liked, despite some bad reviews) and Aristotle and Dante came out at theaters this past summer. It was a good movie, though I have no idea now close to the book it is.

Image from Amazon.com

Emily Henry also released a book last year that I haven’t yet read, Happy Place, and is set to publish another one later this year (which I will mention later in the year). Both of those will eventually go on vacation with me, most likely in the summertime.

Image from Amazon.com

Moving on from Valentines, I just went to see American Fiction at the theater, last week. I had been looking forward to it for months because it was about a writer and also because the whole idea seemed amazing: a Black writer can’t convince the publishing and marketing world that his historical/mythology books are sellable, so to make his point, he submits a novel that flaunts the stereotypes of African-American writing, from gangs and violence to slave-language and absent fathers. It was funny and thoughtful, worked on many levels (dealing also with relationships, secrets, and death), and was well-crafted and acted. I have a review of it coming your way, but I was for once excited about an Oscar nomination when that came not a week later. Not surprisingly, the movie came from an actual book (about a book), Erasure by Percival Everett. Written in 2001, it has great reviews and would definitely be worth a pre-Oscars, pre-American Fiction read.

Image from Amazon.com

And because of another movie, I am going to throw The Power Worshippers by Katherine Stewart out there. This month, the documentary (with Rob Reiner’s name on it) God & Country is coming to limited theaters, and I am looking forward to seeing it. It is about Christian Nationalism from both an outside-Christianity, and inside-a-dissenting-Christianity perspective, and it was based on the aforementioned book. If that interests you, then it’s a February option, for sure.

There are also a number of books that are causing pre-publication buzz, though I am behind on one of them.

The Atlas Complex came out a few weeks ago, the Olivie Blake trilogy conclusion to The Atlas Six and The Atlas Paradox. If you’ve been waiting, it is now your time. I do not see a date listed for the paperback edition.

February will see the publication of Tommy Orange’s Wandering Stars. While I liked There There, I didn’t love it. I was looking forward to seeing more of Orange’s writing, but was a bit disappointed that he went with a follow-up to There, There instead of a new story with new characters. Maybe his growth as a writer will be apparent, even so. The book world tells us we’re going to like it…

I have recently joined several-too-many book clubs. I was banking on some of them being duds, but so far, they are not, at all. I have choices to make. Until then, here are the February reads for the clubs I may or may not be in, in a month from now.

The City of Brass, S. A. Chakraborty (then The Kingdom of Copper and The City of Gold, to complete the Daevabad Trilogy; speculative fiction book club)Little Thieves, Margaret Owen (YA for adults book club) The Old Man and the Sea (literary/banned books book club)The Seep, Chana Porter (speculative fiction book club (again, because of a scheduling thing))A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende (popular fiction book club)Trespasses, Louise Kennedy (contemporary fiction book club)Stay True, Hua Hsu (So & So bookstore book club)

My favorite reads from my January reading are, drumroll…

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. It is bleak, yes. But I thought it was an amazing book, as did the judges over at the Mann Booker Prize. Relevant. Deep. About motherhood and a realistic, dystopian alternate history. Beautiful writing, if a bit unconventional.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, which is miles away from Prophet Song, in tone and style. It is a feminist book and there are some tough things dealt with, but the writing style is playful and I said it was like I was doing cartwheels while reading it. This one is concentrated on a strong and unique female character, a scientist in the ‘50s, and a surprise, single mother.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. And then I returned to a more literary read which also dealt with death and motherhood. For the love of Pete. A “novel of the plague” that is really about Shakespeare’s wife, almost completely made-up, but with a strong sense of historical fiction set in Renaissance England. I was very happy with most things about this book, including the writing style, which was both descriptive and active.

There’s a handful of movies coming out at theaters this month that I am really excited about:

God & Country (mentioned above)Argylle (which is about a writer of spy novels)Madame Web (which might just be me falling prey to Billy Eilish’s music in the trailer)Lisa Frankenstein (might be too gory for me, but we’ll see)Bob Marley: One Love

On streaming, I have just started Belgravia.

As for Valentines movies, the best rom-com of the past year (and maybe in awhile) has to be Anyone But You. Not perfect, perhaps, but both LOL, and a modern remake of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.

Here are the romantic movies that I recommend year after year, time and again:

Once Sense and Sensibility (favorite)William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (favorite)Ruby SparksEagle Vs. SharkSafety Not GuaranteedThe Princess BrideAmelieWayne’s World (comedy with some romance)Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (graphic novel action)Stranger Than Fiction (favorite)Bend It Like BeckhamCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (wire fu)Angus, Thongs and Perfect SnoggingGarden StateMuch Ado About NothingMoulin Rouge!Monsoon WeddingA Midsummer Night’s DreamThe Best Exotic Marigold Hotel(500) Days of SummerPenelopeGhost TownYes ManEver AfterNotting HillMy Best Friend’s WeddingWhile You Were SleepingAll About SteveReturn to Me50 First DatesThe Wedding SingerMy Big Fat Greek Wedding (the first one only)Cyrano (which should have one like 5 Oscars last year)