Reading Round-Up: February 2021

Another month, another bunch of books read! It's time to put together everything I read this past February. I have two sections this time! The first section is full-length books I read (fiction and non-ficiton). Below that is a comics section with all the comic volumes and issues I read, otherwise known as my "Work Reads". 

The List 

• Escape from the Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz
• The Birth of Mathematics by Michael J. Bradley, Ph.D.
• We Love Quinoa: Fresh and Healthy Inspiring Recipes
• Towering by Alex Flinn
• Kendra Chronicles #3: Mirrored by Alex Flinn
• Gluten-Free Girl: American Classics Reinvented by Shauna James Ahern
• Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics by David Berlinski 
• Fairest by Melanie Dickerson
• Feast of Lebanese-Style Home Cooking: Recipes from Comptoir Libanais by Tony Kitous and Dan Lepard
• EatingWell Vegetables: The Essential Reference by Jessie Price & The Editors of EatingWell
• Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores
• The Republic by Plato
• Predator: Incursion (The Rage War #1) by Tim Lebbon
• Leonardo Da Vinci: Renaissance Genius by Tamra B. Orr
• Aladdin: Far From Agrabah by Aisha Saeed
• A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle
• Belle Takes Flight by Kathy McCullough & Lindsay Dale-Scott

Escape from the Isle of the Lost is the fourth book in the Descendants series by Melissa de la Cruz, based on the Disney Channel original movie series. I have read each of the books in this series leading up to this one and I have seen all the movies. I'm a big fan of Descendants and I really enjoyed this book. I reviewed this book this month. You can read that here: 

The Birth of Mathematics: Ancient Times to 1300 is a non-fiction book that features ten biographies of mathematicians. The mathematicians featured are from all over the globe, starting in ancient Greece and leading up to Italy, while including Arabic mathematicians. It talks about Thales, Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, Hypatia, Āryabhata I, Brahmagupta, Abū Ja'far Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, Omar Khayyám, and Leonardo Fibonacci. The information is presented very effectively, making it rather approachable. It is only around 130 pages of content to read, so it is also a relatively small size. It presents a brief background of each mathematician and then discusses their accomplishments and publications. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it for anyone wanting to expand their knowledge of history. I particularly enjoyed reading about Hypatia, a woman from Alexandria around 370 C.E. who was the first known woman to teach and write about mathematics. 

We Love Quinoa: Fresh and Healthy Inspiring Recipes is a recipe book loaded with recipes that have quinoa. I really liked the quinoa flour substitutions and how many recipes there were that are gluten-free. Very nice book. Love the pictures, love a lot of the ingredients. 

Towering is a YA novel that retells the fairytale of Rapunzel. It's cute and lots of fun. I have been reading several of Alex Flinn's fairytale retellings. I'm a big fan of retellings in general and recommend hers for sure. 

Kendra Chronicles #3: Mirrored is the third book in the Kendra Chronicles. It follows after Beastly and Bewitching. Beastly was amazing, Bewitching was awful, and this one is alright. I liked it but not as much as I liked Beastly. This YA novel retells the story of Snow White in a new, contemporary way.

Gluten-Free Girl: American Classics Reinvented, Feast of Lebanese-Style Home Cooking: Recipes from Comptoir Libanais, and EatingWell Vegetables: The Essential Reference are all nutrition or recipe books. I read a bunch of these during quarantine and like to see how people vary their preparation of different foods. These books were good. Gluten-Free Girl wasn't one of my favorites, but the other two were very interesting and informative. 

Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics was a very interesting read. It talks about some of the history of mathematics, but in a more intellectual way than the other mathematics book I read. I enjoyed it, but as it goes along and gets into more complex topics, it feels like it becomes slightly more complicated. Overall though I really enjoyed it and it had me thinking about some aspects of math very differently than I used to. For someone who wants to learn the history of math I do recommend the other book I read more than this one. 

Fairest is a retelling of Snow White from a Christian perspective. It has no magic, but the setting is still very much older fantasy. This was a good read that I enjoyed. This is the first book by Melanie Dickerson that I have read so far. 

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History is the second book about coyotes that I read. This one was much more interesting than the previous one. This one actually had a lot of good information about coyotes. This was moreso what I had wanted to check out. 

The Republic is a classic work of philosophy written by Plato. This book is one that focuses on a dialogue between Socrates and some of his friends as they piece together what a perfect society would look like. They work this out based on questions of what justice is and how components of society would best bring about a just system. It is a very interesting book and even if some concepts are outdated (it's from Ancient Greek times for crying out loud, it's old), it is still very thought-provoking and interesting. 

Predator: Incursion is the first book in a trilogy that I've been wanting to read for a while. It combines aliens, predators, and humans in one large complex conflict. It's the second book I've read by Tim Lebbon and so far, it's the better one. I'm really looking forward to reading the sequels.

Leonardo Da Vinci: Renaissance Genius is a children's chapter book that provides information about Da Vinci's life and work. This was a highly informative read and I definitely recommend it. 

Aladdin: Far From Agrabah is a YA/middle grade novel that spins off of the recent remake film, Aladdin (2019). It tells the story of what actually happens during the magic carpet ride Aladdin and Jasmine take. I want to talk about this one more in a full post later on. Just know that I recommend it for Disney fans.

A Wind in the Door is the sequel to A Wrinkle in Time. This book tells a very different story from the first one, but it brings back Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace, as well as Meg's family. The new adventure they have is pretty interesting and full of magic. 

Belle Takes Flight is a children's novel that spins off of the remake film, Beauty and the Beast (2017). The story takes place after the events of the film. I've been wanting to read this one since it came out. I plan to talk about this book in a future post, but this is one I also recommend for Disney fans. 

Work Reads

These are the comics and graphic novels that I've been reading for work. I read these either to write articles or to catch up on ongoing series or important events to potentially write about as they continue.

• The Immortal Hulk Volume 3 (#11-15) by Al Ewing & Joe Bennett
• The Immortal Hulk Volume 4 (#16-20) by Al Ewing & Joe Bennett
• House of X/Powers of X by Jonathan Hickman, Pepe Larraz, & R. B. Silva
• Let Them Live!: Unpublished Tales from the DC Vault #1
• Disney Kingdoms: Seekers of the Weird by Brandon Seifert, Karl Moline & Filipe Andrade
• Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar #4 by Kieron Gillen, James Stokoe & Jacen Burrows
• Runaways #33 by Rainbow Rowell & Andres Genolet
• Avatar: The Next Shadow #1 by Jeremy Barlow & Josh Hood
• Avatar: The Next Shadow #2 by Jeremy Barlow & Josh Hood
• Something is Killing the Children Volume 1 (#1-5) by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• Something is Killing the Children Volume 2 (#6-10) by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• Something is Killing the Children #11 by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• Something is Killing the Children #12 by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• Something is Killing the Children #13 by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• Something is Killing the Children #14 by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
• James Cameron's Avatar: Tsu'tey's Path (#1-6) by Sherri L. Smith, Jay Durresma & Dan Parsons
• Power Pack #1 by Ryan North & Nico Leon 
• Power Pack #2 by Ryan North & Nico Leon 
• Power Pack #3 by Ryan North & Nico Leon 
• Rocket: The Blue River Score by Al Ewing, Adam Gorham & Mike Mayhew 
• The Immortal Hulk Volume 5 (#21-25) by Al Ewing & Joe Bennett
• Man-Thing (#1-5) by R. L. Stine
• The Joker (1975) #1 by Dennis O'Neil & Irv Novick
• The Joker (1975) #2 by Dennis O'Neil & Irv Novick
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Darth Maul #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Jango Fett #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - General Grievous #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Count Dooku #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Anakin Skywalker #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Obi-Wan Kenobi #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic Special #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Qui-Gon Jinn #1 by Jody Houser
• Star Wars: Age of Republic - Padme Amidala #1 by Jody Houser
• Dark Days: The Forge #1 
• Dark Days: The Casting #1
• Batman: The Murder Machine #1

This concludes the reading I did for February. I know I haven't been posting a lot, but I have been working super duper hard at my new job (as you can see with how many comics I read this past month). I will be providing a post with a list of my first month and a half of articles I've written at work for anyone interested in checking those out.

This past month I started trying to catch up on some series that I haven't read yet that will help catch me up on things happening right now. For example, I read House of X and Power of X because those set up the new era that the X-Men are presently in (Dawn of X & Reign of X). I started reading Dark Nights: Metal and plan to eventually get through Death Metal so that I can fully understand Future State going into Infinite Frontier. This is a lot of catch up reading I'm having to do because I want to be extra good with understanding what I'm writing about and how everything fits together. It's a lot, but to me it has felt worth it so far and it has helped a lot. 

Thanks for reading, I'll have another Reading Round-Up at the end of March!