Read:
Wed Wabbit – Lissa Evans (Scholastic, 2018)
Familial Hungers – Christine Wu (Brick Books, 2025)
Lady Macbeth – Ava Reid (Books on Tape, 2024) (narrated by Imani Jade Powers)
The Anxious Generation – Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Press, 2024)
I Hope This Finds You Well – Natalie Sue (Harper Collins, 2024) (narrated by Nasim Pedrad)
To Have and Have More – Sanibel (8th Note Press, 2025)
Dream Count – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf Canada, 2025)
Rental House – Weike Wang (Penguin Random House, 2024) (narrated by Jen Zhao)
A Year of Last Things – Michael Ondaatje (McClelland & Stewart, 2024)
The Last Exiles – Ann Shin (Park Row Books, 2021)
The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemingway (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961)
River East, River West – Aube Rey Lescure (William Morrow, 2024)
In the Shadow of my Heart – Ruth Dirks Klaassen (self-published, 2024)
Present Tense Machine – Gunnhild Oyehaug (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022) (translated from Norwegian by Kari Dickson)
Follow Me to Ground – Sue Rainsford (Scribner, 2018)
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban – J.K. Rowling (Raincoast Books, 2000)
All the Other Mothers Hate Me – Sarah Harman (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2025)
Did Not Finish:
We Are Already Ghots – Kit Dobson (DNF on page 14)
Currently Reading:
The Collected Short Stories – William Trevor
The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self – Carl R. Trueman
Sankofa – Chibunda Onuzo
Beowulf – trans. by Seamus Heaney
Show Don’t Tell – Curtis Sittenfeld
2025 Goals: (Quarterly Report)
2025 Reading Goals:
Pages Read: 8, 160 (3, 579 in March)
Hours Listened: 129 hours, 20 minutes (26 hours, 47 minutes in March)
Goliaths Conquered: 4 (none in March)
Translated Works: 5 (Present Tense Machine from Norwegian)
Pre-2024 TBR: 10 (Wed Wabbit from 2019, The Last Exiles from 2021, and Follow Me to Ground from 2020)
Current TBR: 202 (previously 203)
Being now three months into 2025, it seems a good time to take a look at how I’m doing with my reading. This might also simply be my opportunity to brag because, you guys, I’m nailing it. I’ve read 39 books which I’m pretty sure is my record for this point in the year and I’m also decently on track with hitting my reading goals for reading books I already own, reading books that have lingered on my TBR for years, and reading translated works. I’ve been trying to find a balance between reading new releases and older books and reading a variety of voices at the same time. Already I’ve got 16 countries represented by the authors I’ve read. Searching out audiobooks on Spotify and Libro and not just having to rely on what’s available through the library app has helped. It also means that I can listen to longer audiobooks since I’m not limited to the 21 days the library gives me. I’m trying to be discerning about the ARCs I say yes to and so far I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve had the chance to read. Over the next 3 months I’d like to lean a little more heavily on reading more of the books already in my house.
As for March specifically, I read 17 books and there was a great variety in there. I read some poetry, I read some non-fiction, and I read a lot of novels. Somewhere in the middle of the month, I realized that several of the books were looking at racial minorities in North America or the idea of being a racial outsider. It was interesting to see how various authors approached this subject – there was the humour of I Hope This Finds You Well, the cross-cultural marriage in Rental House, the teen drama of To Have and Have More, the mixed race main character of River East, River West, and the poems in Familial Hungers. All very different but often touching on some similar ideas. (I’ve got reviews of all of these scheduled for April so I hope if you read them, you’ll chime in on your thoughts!)
What’s Next:
I have to confess that amidst all the talk of tariffs and Buy Canadian and stores pulling American products off the shelves, I had a moment where I thought, “Should I stop reading books by American authors?” I quickly decided no and for a few reasons. First, I think that most of the books by Americans I’m drawn to read are probably not by authors who are huge supporters of either Trump or his policies. The bigger reason though is that I truly believe there is power in Art and I want to support artists. Yes, I want to support my country and I want to support and maintain the unique artistic voice of Canada. But if we’re going to make it through these weird and confusing times, we need to uphold artists on both sides of the border. I’m for Canada, yes, but more than that I’m for beauty and truth and the power of the written word shared. Books can be that. For a long time now I’ve done my very best to access my books through libraries and independent bookstores and that’s not going to change.
My pile of books to read in April has a few overlaps with my pile from this time last month (I’m always getting interrupted by library holds coming available).
Karissa Reads Books 
I’m surprised by your answer to the American authors quandary. My instinct would be to double down on reading all things Canadian because your country actually supports the arts. Last I read, Trump fired the Kennedy Center board and is controlling it himself, cancelling all the performances, etc. I’m also supporting libraries and independent bookstores. When I couldn’t order this one niche book from the bookstore and only saw it on Amazon, I paused and released, “Oh, I can buy this directly from the publisher!!” Why do I not think of that?? I even night one ebook from Amazon because I couldn’t find it elsewhere, backpedalled, cancelled the order, and bought the ebook from the publisher.
The thing I landed on is “Where does my money go?” Most of my books come from the public library, secondhand, or if I buy new, I get it through my own store. I want to keep supporting those places. American authors need to get paid too and it doesn’t look like the Trump administration is going to be supporting the arts much. And certainly not elevating the voices I want to hear. So I probably will start leaning more heavily on Canadian authors and publishers but I don’t want to cast away American authors quite yet. Getting direct from publishers is a great way to do it too, especially smaller presses.
The Kennedy Centre was in the news here too. Louise Penny is a prolific Canadian mystery writer and she pulled out of doing events there when Trump took over. She’s also said she won’t do any book touring in the US.
Good for Louise Penny. Taking away business helps create change. Two governors ago, we had Mike Pence, who was hell-bent on keeping out the LGBTQ+ community. So many musicians and comedy shows and anything that travels, really, refuse to come to Indiana. Therefore, that policy was dissolved, if I remember correctly, because it affected the economy in my state so much.
A financial blow is often the most noticeable. A lot of Canadians right now are choosing not to travel in the US or buy American products. In our local grocery store, you can no longer find US produce because no one was buying it anyway. It’s nice to hear of an instance when those actions did change policy.