My February in reading

February unintentionally became a genre month for me. Big sci-fi vibes, with some mystery thrown in there for fun. Plus one work of “literary” fiction that was anything but traditional.

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami

A friend recommended this book to me, and I was excited to dive in, as I’d never read anything by Murakami before. (Except in grad school, when I skimmed parts of A Wild Sheep Chase so I could pretend I’d read it for class.) The novel takes place in two different…timelines? Worlds? Hard to tell at first, though eventually the connection does become clearer. Unfortunately, I was much more attached to the “mad scientist” sections—which I hesitate to describe as “real world,” though they did take place in Japan. I was always a bit disappointed when the other narrative kicked in. That said, it was interesting. It kept my wheels turning.

The Sherlockian by Graham Moore

I had this book sitting on my shelf for literal years—I think I picked it up at Printers Row Lit Fest? So I decided to finally crack it open. The Sherlockian operates on two timelines: in the modern timeline, Sherlock Holmes scholar Harold White gets pulled into a quest for Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle’s missing diary when another scholar is murdered. In the other timeline, we learn what Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle himself was up to during the period that the diary covers. I’m a big Sherlock Holmes fan, so I’m always excited to read books involving the character. And this one was really fun! A little hokey, but fun. If you’re also a Holmes fan, I think you’ll enjoy it—I felt like I was hunting for Easter eggs.

The Archer by Shruti Swamy

Tyler Orion of Lucky Cloud Books sent me this one in a book exchange, and I wasn’t sure what to expect—but I loved it. In this bildungsroman, Vidya grows up in India in the 1960s and 70s, and she learns to navigate her family ties and love and independence all with the beat of kathak dance, her true passion, stomping in the background. What really blew me away about this book was the rhythm of the prose itself—I was transfixed.

How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

Sequoia Nagamatsu couldn’t have known what was to come when he was writing this pandemic novel, but honestly, I think that made it even more interesting to read—seeing what he got right and what he got wrong about how the world would react. Of course, the plague he describes, born from melting ice in the Arctic Circle, is even deadlier than COVID, and the novel spans from the discovery of the virus to hundreds of years later, as humans find ways to cope and survive. Fair warning: there is significant child death in this novel, and it’s crushing. But ultimately I found the story to be hopeful, even beautiful. You might need some tissues.

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I didn’t mean to do a pandemic novel double-feature, but I can’t help when my library holds come in. While Station Eleven is a pandemic novel, most of the story takes place years after the fictional pandemic began, which makes it a bit easier to read. I suspect I would have read it sooner if more people had told me that it’s also a religious cult novel—one of my favorite genres! Emily St. John Mandel is a masterful storyteller, and it is simply wonderful to watch an author stick the landing like that. There’s a reason why everyone recommends this book—it’s excellent. Now I’ll have to go watch the HBO series.