Sunday Salon: Reading Retrospective (March 2002)

It's time for this month's reading retrospective, looking back at what I was reading 7 years ago, in March 2002. We'd moved from Japan to England in the latter part of February 2002 so my reading that month was pretty minimal, which I wrote about in last month's retrospective. March wasn't a whole lot better, at the beginning at least, as we first had to find a flat, and then once we did, to get settled in. I'd ended February with a re-read of Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, and the first book I read in March was the sequel, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. In my books spreadsheet, I gave it an 8/10 and deemed it "sometimes ridiculous but great characters. A fun read!" Good ol' Bridget!

Next I continued my light reading with The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, which I'd actually got for free. One of those free books included with a fashion magazine. I'd never seen that before but you can imagine that I quite loved England for it! I knew I'd come to a land of literary goodness. I think I got the odd other book that way while we lived there but I soon realized that unless I actually wanted to read the magazine it wasn't such a great deal. LOL. Anyway, my first book acquired in England, but unfortunately I didn't think much of it. I only rated it a 4/10, and thought it was "interesting, but the stories didn't fit together smoothly, and the characters weren't very memorable." I can't even remember anything about it now, so I suppose that was true.

After that, I guess I'd had enough of chick lit for the time being, and I read my first book by Sarah Waters, Affinity. Seven years later, and although I've forgotten the details of the story, I still remember the mood, the fantastic spooky atmosphere. In my reading journal I wrote that it had great characterization, that the story completely drew me in, and was thought-provoking, and I gave it 8/10. I think it would be a lot of fun to read again. Another one for the 'want to reread someday' list. And I can't believe it's been 7 years already since I first read Sarah Waters. Just yesterday I was reading about her newest book, The Little Stranger, that will be coming out soon. I still haven't read The Night Watch yet, even though I've had it for a while, but I really must try to rectify that this year.

And that's it for March 2002. Only 3 books but not too bad considering we were just getting used to our new life in the UK and busy exploring.

As for this past week of March 2009, I didn't get nearly as much reading in as I would've liked. Not a slump exactly, but I think my intensive reading of the Twilight books and the Emma manga series, burnt me out a little. So I'm not too far into The Triumph of Deborah yet but I am enjoying it so far.

One of the other reasons I didn't read much this week was because when I had some extra time I spent it at the computer working on a new template for my blog, which you can see if you click over to it. I also added an About Page, and registered my own domain, so the address is now www.inspringitisthedawn.com. I'd appreciate it if you'd change the link in your blogroll or feed reader. I still have a few things I'd like to add or tweak but I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. If you haven't yet seen it, let me know what you think.

Otherwise, I hope you have a wonderful week. H and I have the day off tomorrow so I think we're finally going to take our cameras out in search of some blossoms.

Week in review:
Sunday Salon: Once Upon a Time III Challenge
Monday/Tuesday meme roundup
As Shadows Fade by Colleen Gleason (review)
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer (review)
Best 'Worst' Book, Friday Finds, and a new look
Emma, vol. 2 and 3 (+vols. 4-7) by Kaoru Mori (review)

Happy reading!