Read:
The Singer’s Gun – Emily St. John Mandel (Vintage Books, 2015)
The School for Good Mothers – Jessamine Chan (Simon & Schuster, 2022)
Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter – Heather Fawcett (Penguin Random House Audio, 2026)
The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965)
Here for a Good Time – Kim Spencer (Tundra Book Group, 2026)
Heads of the Coloured People – Nafissa Thompson-Spires (37 Ink, 2018)
The Finest Hotel in Kabul – Lyse Doucet (Allen Lane, 2025)
A Theatre for Dreamers – Polly Samson (Harper Collins Publishers, 2020)
Currently Reading:
The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Remembered Soldier – Anjet Daanje
So Long, See You Tomorrow – William Maxwell
Kin – Tayari Jones
Thoughts:
I was surprised, at the end of the month, to find I had read 8 books in March. I brought 3 books with me to Hong Kong plus others as ebooks and I didn’t finish a single one. (Peter finished the book he brought and so I gave him one of my extras to read.) 8 is a perfectly respectable number and I don’t regret a single minute I spent not reading in Hong Kong. I was pleased with myself because I thought to borrow an e-copy of The Return of the King on Libby and so we were still able to do our family chapter book time before bed, although we didn’t do it every night of the trip.
What’s Next:
In a similar manner, I didn’t write a lot of book reviews in March. I had scheduled ahead of time and then sort of lost my energy around it leading up to our trip. At this moment, I don’t plan on going back to review any more of the books I read in March. I do have a lot of books I’m excited to read right now, including some more ARCs I’ve been lucky enough to get a hold of so I expect my reviews to ramp up again in a week or so. Next week you can probably just expect more Hong Kong pictures.
2026 Reading Goals:
30/100 books (8 in March)
Theological: 0/12
Translated Works: 2/12 (none in March)
Pre-2025 TBR: 6/25 (Heads of the Coloured People and A Theatre for Dreamers both since 2020)
Goliaths: 4/6 (none in March)
Owned: 5/25 (The Singer’s Gun and A Theatre for Dreamers)
Current TBR: 145 books (previously 143)
Pearl’s List:
26/100 (8 in March)
The Hybrid Prince – Tui T. Sutherland
The Ship of the Dead – Rick Riordan
Starclimber – Kenneth Oppel
The Two Towers – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Brightest Night – Tui T. Sutherland
Silverwing – Kenneth Oppel
The Last Dragon on Mars – Scott Reintgen
Murder at the Museum – Alasdair Beckett-King
Karissa Reads Books 
I have Kin on my list as well. I’m glad you spent all your time and thoughts on Hong Kong. It was a trip so many years in the making!
I just finished Kin and I mostly enjoyed it. I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts.
It was a very guilt-free holiday in many ways and I’m grateful for that! Because I was returning to this place where I had history and some complicated feelings around, I actually devoted a whole therapy session to emotionally prepping for this trip and I think it made so many parts better.
I didn’t realize you had a lot of complicated feelings around your origins in Hong Kong, though I can make some guesses as to why. If you want to share, I’d love to know, but if not, no worries.
I was pretty young when we left HK but it looms large in our family history. I was born there but I’m not really from there. I often don’t know how to answer when people ask where I’m from because to say Hong Kong feels both true and untrue. At best, it requires follow-up conversation! These days, kids like my brother and I are called Third Culture Kids but there were no terms like that in the 80s and 90s and I don’t always feel like that one applies to me. We moved “back” to Canada but I had never lived there before. There wasn’t a lot of work done to explain or support us as kids through such a big move and that had repercussions throughout our childhood, I think. Returning with my own children gave me an opportunity to see HK both through their eyes and as a parent now myself. And to just enjoy the city as it is now. I’m always going to have a connection to it and that feels easier now.
I can see how it might feel weird to basically say that you were a rootless transient for a long time, but now you have a strong Canadian identity. I’m glad this trip was both enjoyable and healing.