My laptop stayed off all day yesterday. Aside from using David’s computer to check email briefly, I spent a rare day of being unplugged from the ‘net. I went to church, cleaned (parts of) the house, had friends over for dinner, finished Fantasy in Death (just in time to count towards February’s reads) and turned in early (for me). Lovely!

Now I’m back to post my reading roundup for February. I managed to squeeze in six full books and two half-books. Not bad for a short month!

Here they are:

• The Red Wolf Conspiracy by Robert V.S. Redick (my review here)
• Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma (I’m a homeschooling mom. ‘Nuff said.)
• The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett (This secondworld fantasy of manners combines elements of Jane Eyre and Pride & Prejudice. Good, though sometimes the pacing lagged, some of the characters were underdeveloped, and the antagonists were not well-defined. There’s a sequel coming out later this year, which I will check out, but I’m not on pins-and-needles for it, either).
• Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul by Stuart Brown, with Christopher Vaughan (review forthcoming)
• Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History by Penny Le Couteur and Jay Burreson (I read this book in bits and pieces since last November. This is fun stuff, appealing to both the chemistry geek and the history/worldbuilding buff in me. I appreciated the writers’ balanced views of some of the more controversial molecules (like CFCs and DDT) they covered. Now I feel nostalgic for my organic chemistry classes!)
• Fantasy in Death by J. D. Robb (The speculative element of a futuristic New York appeals to me, especially since it’s not unremittingly dystopian and grim. I like how the mystery, and not the romantic relationship, is paramount in the books I’ve read so far in this series. These are fast, gripping reads.)

Two books made it to my BLITS list this month. Both were non-fiction and there wasn’t anything egregious about them. I just wasn’t as interested in the subject matter to keep going past the halfway mark. You just can’t please everyone. *grin*

Edited to fix typo in one of the titles.