February is a month celebrating love. This would be a good time to create a page in one of my journals just for listing all the people and things I love.
Word of the Month
Endurance
Bible Verses of the Month
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” – (Romans 5:3,4 NLT)
This month’s reading diary is at the bottom of this page, after the book list.
My Goodreads page: https://www.goodreads.com/lindajm
★ – I’m reading it.
✓ – I finished reading it. Yay!
⇗ – Still reading at the end of the month.
⇓ – I did not like it or finish it.
∅ – Stalled – I started but didn’t finish.
Challenges
1. Becoming vegan – I’m transitioning to the Forks Over Knives diet – with books!
2. The 2025 Biblical Studies Challenge – this challenge asks us to read one book monthly on a topic one would study if lucky enough to attend a Bible college. The February topic is prayer. A link to the book I’ve chosen is posted below: Moms In Prayer.
3. The Virtual Theology Christian Reading Challenge (goal: 73 books)
4. The David McCullough Readalong continues throughout 2025. This is my second month of reading The Path Between the Seas, which is about the history of the building of the Panama Canal.
5. Reading Books I Already Own – During 2025 I commit to reading books I’ve already bought, and not buying more… hopefully, for the most part. I’ve made a commitment to read 100 books I already own because there’s no sense in buying more when I’m not taking time to read the books I’ve already got. I made an exception for audiobooks. Also library or Libby books don’t count because I’m not buying them.
This video tells more about my new book-buying diet:
Finished Reading This Month
✓ Christian Nonfiction: Moms In Prayer, by Fern Nichols
I started this a few months back but did not finish reading it. Now I’ve chosen it for my February book for the Biblical Studies Challenge, since the February topic is prayer.
UPDATE: I finished reading this on the last day of the month! Excellent book for mothers who pray. Review
✓ Christian Nonfiction: Defiant Joy: Taking Hold of Hope, Beauty, and Life in a Hurting World, by Stasi Eldredge
I’m reading this with a group on Booktube. Nice for a daily listening break. (I had an audiobook.) Review
✓ Classic Fiction: Precious Bane, by Mary Webb
This novel, written in Old English dialect, is a romance involving a young woman with a cleft palate. I read it as a buddy read with two people of Booktube.
Update: Finished 2/27/25 – This book was extremely romantic in a clean 1920’s sort of way. Review
✓ History: The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal 1870-1914, by David McCullough
A history of the building of the Panama Canal. Awesome book. I finished reading it on February 23. Review
✓ Survival Literature: 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea, by Jonathan Franklin
Fantastic tale of a man floating across the Pacific Ocean for 438 days in a small fishing boat. Review
✓ Survival Literature: Left For Dead: Shipwreck, Treachery, and Survival at the Edge of the World , by Eric Jay Dolin
My current “survival literature” nonfiction read features five castaways in the Falkland Islands during the war of 1812. Published May 7, 2024.
I finished reading this on February 11 and am very pleased with the outcome of a difficult, complex adventure. Review
✓ Memoir: The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher
In 1963 Colin Fletcher hiked the entire length of the Grand Canyon (per the 1963 boundaries) and he was the first to do it in one go. His memoir is thoughtful and meditative. It will take you there as much as any book could. Review
What I’m Reading Now
★ History: Mutiny on the Bounty, by Peter Fitzsimons
Another fascinating book of maritime history.
★ Christian Nonfiction: Your Story Has a Villain: Identify Spiritual Warfare and Learn How to Defeat the Enemy, by Jonathan Pokluda
Came across this at Audible, just browsing, as I recall. I’m listening to it now.
★ Christian Nonfiction: The Story of Christianity, by Justo L. Gonzalez
My sister bought this for me on my birthday, along with another book on Christian history. The month for history during my Biblical Studies Challenge will be November, but this is a big thick book and I have no hope for finishing it in November unless I start early. So far I’ve read only the introduction.
This video is about the Biblical Studies Challenge I’ve embarked on during 2025.
★ Epistolary Mystery: The Examiner, by Janice Hallett
An epistolary novel.
★ Ergodic Fiction: Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
Ergodic fiction – a man obsesses over a poet, who has died. The foreword, poem, and commentary are all parts of this novel. There’s also an index. Definition of ergodic: “Relating to or denoting systems or processes with the property that, given sufficient time, they include or impinge on all points in a given space and can be represented statistically by a reasonably large selection of points.” (per Oxford Languages Dictionary)
★ Classic Fiction: Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo
I’m not giving up on this one.
★ Art: The World of Urban Sketching, by Stephanie Bower
Because… ART. I love urban sketching!
★ Health: Forks Over Knives Plan, by Pulde & Lederman
A great health book. I’m going to try to transition to this diet over the next few months. I’ve been a vegetarian most of my adult life but I’d like to be vegan.
★ Ergodic Fiction: Cain’s Jawbone, by Edward Powys Mathers
I am buddy-reading this with a friend. This book: Is it a puzzle? Is it a hobby? I’ll find out. I read the first ten pages and so far didn’t understand a thing. Each page must be carefully researched using outside sources.
More Books Planned for February
☆ Epistolary Fiction: Up the Down Staircase, by Bel Kaufman
I wanted to read this during Epistolary January but didn’t have time for it then. This will be a reread of the first epistolary novel I ever read, more than 50 years ago.
☆ Epistolary Fiction: Dear Mr. Knightley, by Kathrine Reay
I hope I like this book.
☆ Epistolary Nonfiction: Diary of a Forty-Niner, by Chauncey Canfield
This diary is epistolary, but it isn’t fiction. I love to read about California history!
DNF’ed This Month
⇓ – American History: The Demon of Unrest, by Erik Larson
I tried to listen to this last night but it rubbed me the wrong way at the beginning with the mention of J6 (recent history) and then it just seemed too distressing to read because I hate slavery and hate hearing about it. It was just not the right book for me. I also didn’t like the narrator’s voice. It all seemed so dark and sinister.
My February 2025 Reading Diary
February 1 – I love books, but books should not be an idol for me. God is supreme over all books. Books are a gift from God.
February 5 – Let me start by telling you about yesterday. I’m not sure when I woke up in the morning, but the electricity was already off. This should not have surprised me as we had about a foot of snow on the ground outside. Our little town is surrounded by many miles of National Forest so this is a fairly common thing. Snow and electric outages seem to go together for us.
The outage lasted all day long, and ended at 10:46 pm. Unfortunately my home is all-electric, including the heater. As the day wore on it got progressively colder inside my home and I spent a lot of the day in my bed under thick blankets as it was the only warm place in the house!
Fortunately I own an emergency battery and when the electricity goes out I can plug my wifi router into that and continue my regular internet activities on my phone or computer. The battery also charges those items… so I’m not completely cut off from civilization.
That was yesterday. Today I finished listening to an audiobook version of Colin Fletcher’s adventure memoir of hiking the length of the Grand Canyon. It is called The Man Who Walked Through Time. Five stars! It made me feel like I was there again.
My poetry about snow.
February 13 – We’ve just had another heavy snowfall, but rain is expected for the next week so probably some of that will wash away the snow. I’m happy I’ve finished two books this month, and am making good progress on others. The two books I read involved outdoor adventure, a topic I’m very much gravitating toward this year. One was about walking through the Grand Canyon and the other was another survival book about people shipwrecked on an island.
Last night I started listening to an audiobook version of The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War by Erik Larson. From chapter one, I didn’t like it. I’m probably going to DNF it because of the focus on slavery, which I find very sad, barbaric, and difficult to hear about. I would like to hear more about the way the Civil War began, but this book feels like a journey into darkness. It starts with a rowboat at night, full of generals and slaves. It is partly because of the voice of the audiobook narrator, that sounds so deep and sinister. This is definitely not a bedtime book.
After listening to that I switched to Your Story Has a Villain: Identify Spiritual Warfare and Learn How to Defeat the Enemy, by Jonathan Pokluda. a pastor. I’m much better off reading this one although it also deals with a dark topic.
February 22 – There’s less than a week left until the first, and I still have some must-read FEB books to finish! The McCullough, the book on prayer… Defiant Joy final livestream is tomorrow! I’d better get with it.
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