Books I Read in January

The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan

Right now I'm plowing my way through a re-reading of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, which I do every once in a while. There are currently 12 reeeeaaaallllly long (700-1000 page) books in this series. And it's not done yet. Even though Robert Jordan passed away in 2007. If you are unfamiliar with the Wheel of Time, it's a fantasy saga with a huge following of sometimes fanatic readers. There are a number of fan sites devoted to it. I started reading this series when I was 14, and a friend asked me to read the first book. He was delighted that I was undaunted by its length and that he would have someone to talk with about the books. At that point only three of the books had been published, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. So this series is a habit that I've retained since my teen years. The twelfth book was released in the fall, and I've been re-reading them ever since. It's necessary to do this occasionally so that I can keep track of all the characters and story lines in my head. All this to say that I've mostly been reading WoT books this month.

I'm not going to write notes on each of these books individually. I think would be a bit pointless to read any of the three (books 5, 6 & 7) without reading the whole series. The first book is The Eye of the World. If you like epic fantasy novels, you should read it and decide if you wish to read on.  This series is a (perhaps the) seminal modern work in the genre. If you don't enjoy fantasy novels, or series with a huge scope, you probably won't enjoy this, and you might not even if you do like the genre. To me they are old friends, and I love them despite their flaws.

Vintage Knits for Modern Babies by Hadley Fierlinger

This book is lovely. I want to knit about a dozen different things from this. I'm currently knitting a gift for a friend from it, which is why it is sticking around in my sidebar. I got it from the library, and I think I may need to add this to my personal library, especially if I ever have some modern babies of my own. I suspect you'll be seeing a few projects from this pictures in the future.

Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elise Schein and Paula Bernstein

I found this book to be thought-provoking. I was especially interested in what each had to say about how learning of and getting to know their twin, as well as their journey to learn about their birth mother, affected their views of family. I enjoyed it and would recommend it. 
  
Home in Time for Christmas by Heather Graham

I didn't really care for this book. I read it because I was intrigued by the concept, a Revolutionary War soldier who gets propelled forward in time to modern day. It's a romance novel, and I didn't find the heroine to be very likable. I also didn't think the major conflict of their cultural differences due to being from different time periods was resolved very convincingly. If you enjoy reading romance that's not overtly sexual, I can recommend it on that front, but note that it has a rather syncretistic treatment of Christian and pagan practices.

And thus ends my summary of the books I read in January. I plan to do this the first week of each month.  Likely the list will get more varied and lengthy when I finish the WoT re-read.