February Preview

Hi all. We’ve made it to February, which is usually a short but busy month. After a warm week here, it looks like winter will be returning and snowflakes are forecast. We could use the snow as the snowpack here has been so little this year.

I’m still working on my sky photos as can you tell. I like posting ones with different colors, though the content of our front area looks about the same. It’s been a quiet week and a bit somber with news of the terrible plane crash in D.C. and the looming tariffs against Canada of all places — how outrageous — among other things. I once lived in the Virginia/D.C. area for over 15 years, so it’s awful to see such a tragic disaster there. Heartbreaking.

In this month’s new releases, there’s a lot coming out. It seems everyone wants a piece of February. Such popular authors as Jojo Moyes, Linda Holmes, Curtis Sittenfeld, Anne Tyler, Eowyn Ivey, Nickolas Butler, Victoria Christopher Murray, and Marie Benedict all have fiction releasing.

And in nonfiction, memoirs by Bill Gates, Rick Steves, and particularly writer Geraldine Brooks’ book Memorial Days (due out Feb. 4) about the tragic loss of her husband writer Tony Horwitz and her bereavement looks moving and I hope to get to it, though I’ll be focusing here on some other novels that I’m adding to my TBR.

First off is Ali Smith’s dystopian novel Gliff (due out Feb. 4) about two siblings, ages 11 and 13, who get separated from their mother and end up squatting with others in an abandoned school trying to navigate the cruelties of a digitally advanced surveillance state.

You might recall I said I wouldn’t be reading dystopian post-election, but now that Scottish author Ali Smith has added her clever wordplay and humor to it, I’m unable to resist. I have not read her popular Seasonal Quartet books, so this is my chance to give her writing a go. Have you read any of her books?

Next up is Australian author Charlotte Wood’s novel Stone Yard Devotional (due out Feb. 11), which was shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and is finally coming out in this part of the world. It’s about a burned-out middle-aged woman who leaves Sydney to return to the place she grew up, joining a cloister of nuns in rural Australia, even though she’s an atheist.

Then a few things begin to interrupt the secluded life there, which plunges her back into the past. It’s said to be a meditative and finely observed story and one from a new-to-me Australian writer whose writing I’d love to try.

Much praise too has been heaped on Irish writer Roisin O’Donnell’s powerful debut novel Nesting (due out Feb. 18) about a Dublin-based mother of two young daughters (with a third child on the way) who decides to flee a violent household and try to start over.

According to Publishers Weekly, it examines the mother’s daily struggles and hard-won triumphs in a crystalline and lyrical prose. I’m usually not one for such domestic abuse kinds of tales but this one comes highly touted and appears to be mostly about the narrator’s efforts at rebuilding her life. So we will see.

For a different kind of action, there’s Jack Wang’s novel The Riveter (due out Feb. 11) about a Chinese Canadian who fights prejudice and falls in love during WWII, where he takes part in the invasion of Normandy and the inland fight to liberate France and Holland.

From the description, the novel seems a bit like a typical WWII love story — albeit from a minority’s viewpoint, but it’s received several starred reviews that say it’s particularly compelling, so I’m game for it, especially since the author grew up in Vancouver, B.C. (now works at Ithaca College in N.Y.), and I’m always looking to read more Canadian authors.

For more action reads, I’m looking at Callan Wink’s novel Beartooth (due out Feb. 11) about the struggles of two brothers living on the margins in the Beartooth mountains of Montana … who being desperate for money take on an outsider’s dangerous proposition that will change their lives forever. Uh-oh. But what more could you ask for in a Montana read?

There’s also Allen Eskens’s latest crime mystery The Quiet Librarian (due out Feb. 18) about a middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who finds out when her best friend is murdered that her past from the mountains of war-torn Bosnia has returned and someone is out to get her. I mention the book as I know various bloggers have liked several of Eskens’ other novels as have I. He has a good ear for storytelling.

On the screen this month — in addition to the Grammys on Feb. 2 and a little game known as the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 — there might be some good escape viewing in crazy TV shows like The White Lotus (Season 3 on HBO Max, starting Feb. 16), Yellowjackets (Season 3, on Paramount+ with Showtime, Feb. 14), or Reacher (Season 3, on Prime, Feb. 20). We have seen the earlier seasons of The White Lotus, which get pretty crazy but have not watched Yellowjackets or Reacher — has anyone seen these? This time The White Lotus is set at a resort in Thailand so hopefully the show will have some great shots of the country.

But maybe a calmer bet is the 10-part nature documentary series The Americas narrated by Tom Hanks (on NBC & Peacock, Feb. 25). Apparently it was filmed over the course of five years and 180 expeditions across North and South America. The Americas takes viewers from pole to pole on an 8,700-mile journey looking at landscapes and encountering the plants, animals, and people who live there. It’s said to be an unprecedented series, so we’ll be checking it out and hoping that it can induce those on the planet to save nature instead of decimating it.

In movies this month, it’s best just to catch up on all the Oscar nominated films that are becoming available for streaming, but if you need something totally silly or mindless there’s the Amy Schumer movie Kinda Pregnant (on Netflix starting Feb. 5) about a woman (Schumer) who being envious of a friend’s pregnancy starts wearing around a fake pregnancy belly, and Renee Zellweger in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (on Peacock, starting Feb. 13) which finds Bridget trying to manage as a widow and single mom. I guess that’s about the fourth movie in the Bridget Jones series — I have not seen them all … but the first one made me laugh.

Lastly in music releases for February, there’s new albums by Sharon Van Etten, Inhaler, The Lumineers, Sam Fender, and Basia Bulat among others. These all seem decent, but I’ll pick the self-titled moody album by Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, which you can hear the song Afterlife from here and the song Trouble here. I first heard her on SiriusXM.

Speaking of which I’ve just watched snippets so far of the FireAid L.A. benefit concert on YouTube but it’s pretty awesome — touching with some great performances from a wide variety of wonderful artists that’s still raising money for wildfire relief. It’s been a happy plus this week.

That’s all for now. What about you — what releases are you looking forward to this month? Happy February everyone.