I have finally found the time to create a post about the wonderful books I read in the first quarter of this year! Let’s just pretend it’s still April when I took this photo and we have not already progressed well into the third quarter of this year 🙈
Something that made me very proud in January and February was that I finished my first book (which was not a children’s book) in Portuguese! Reading in another language than German and English still is very difficult for me but I’m incredibly proud that I did it. It’s a huge achievement for me to learn sufficient Portuguese to read not just one but three(!) whole Portuguese books in the first few months of the year.
Here’s what I read in January-March of 2023:
- Kate Chopin – Awakening
- Ruth Manus – Mulheres não são chatas, mulheres estão exaustas
- Ruth Manus – Guia Prático Antimachismo
- Helena Magalhães – Ferozes
- Daniela Dröscher – Lügen über meine Mutter (not pictured)
- Kamila Shamsie – Home Fire
- Virginie Despentes – Liebes Arschloch (click here for an in-depth review)
My personal reading highlights were:
“Ferozes” by Helena Magalhães: Though it might not be the best novel I ever read this one touched me very deeply on a personal level. It was exactly the right book to come to me at this point in my life. And I cannot wait to read more books by Magalhães in the future!
“Lügen über meine Mutter” (Lies about my mother) by Daniela Dröscher: This novel was recommended to me by a friend and I’m so glad she mentioned it because it is truly fantastic. It’s a family story in rural Western Germany in the 1980s and interlaces the portrait of a difficult marriage with observations of larger social structures behind it. You can also find it as an audio book on Spotify.
“Home Fire” by Kamala Shamsie: This gripping family story kept me hooked from the first page until the end. It’s a postcolonial retelling of Antigone that portrays the situation of British Pakistani Muslims between structural racism, Islamophobia and extremism. Although I knew the original story by Sophocles, this beautifully written, suspenseful rewriting still drew me in like no other book did it the past few months and I kept on catching myself hoping for a different kind of ending.
Aaaand these were all the books I read in January, February and March of 2023. What were your 2023 reading highlights so far?
This Q1 Reading Wrap Up was originally posted on Instagram. Follow me @therecoveringbookworm for weekly posts and reading updates .