February continued 2024’s atypicalness, with fiction continuing to outstrip nonfiction by a healthy margin. Granted, I was in bed for over a week, meaning novels, comedy sketches, and soup were my fare instead of histories, lectures, and fajitas, and even after I returned to work I was still resorting to easier reading. Nonfiction is warming up, though, and I imagine it’s going to put fiction’s outfielders to work.

Lenten Fare:
The Lies of Our Time, Anthony Esolen

Science Survey:
The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
The Royal Society and the Invention of Modern Science, Adrian Tinniswood
In the Company of Trees, Andrea Fereshsteh

Classics Club:
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O’Connor

Reading Dixie:
A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O’Connor
The World’s Largest Man, Harrison Scott Key
Twain’s Feast, Nick Offerman.

TBR Cleanup:
Dark Age Ahead, Jane Jacobs. A brief look at some worrying trends in contemporary society: though now twenty years dated, 
Live from New York: The Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live

The Unreviewed: 
– The Lies of Our Time, Anthony Esolen. At this point I need to do a “Anthony Esolen Week” in which I post nothing but reviews for his books which I’ve read but not reviewed properly.
– Dark Age Ahead, Jane Jacobs. Will try to post a blurb on this.
– Twain’s Feast, Nick Offerman. Offerman, better known as Ron Swanson,  uses a menu from one of Mark Twain’s parties with his friends to host his own party with a similar menu, using the foodstuffs as a means to examine different areas of American life and history — racism, ecology, etc. Some of the foodstuffs like prairie chickens were hard to come by, and others were surprises for Offerman’s Hollywood friends: I can’t imagine Wanda Sykes ever predicted she’d eat racoon from a gourmet chef. Definitely worth trying if you’re a serious Twain fan: I had no idea how varied his life was, and now realize I need to look into a Twain biography. I had this hazy notion of him working as a river pilot and then deciding writing stories was more fun than the constant stress and anticipation of drowning or dying in a boiler explosion.
+ One more that actually has a scheduled review for Reasons Yet to Be Revealed. Tune in Monday, March 25 to catch on.

New Acquisitions
Lies of Our Time, Anthony Esolen. Released end of 2023.
The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. Physical, used. On my interest list since reading Humans of New York.
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, Abigail Schrier. (Preorder, delivered yesterday. Reading now.)

Coming up in March…
The usual suspects, plus Lent and a theme week at the close.