March.

I didn't blog much this month.

I didn't read that much either. Partly it was just time for a break from crazy amounts of reading. Also I was a bit busier with things. This was a bit of a weird month. I spent a bunch of time being upset about things I can't change. I also did things like hosting rentals and being at Sr reunion. I spent a whole week at home over Easter. It was wonderful. I think I read one chapter of one book the whole time. But I did other, better, things like hanging out with my mom and my sister, playing board games with my family, and visiting with my grandparents. I also took full advantage of my parents wonderful kitchen. If you have any idea what the "kitchen" in my place is like you will know how exciting this is. I made a couple batches of granola and granola bars, I made a cheesecake and froze it to take home with me, I made lemon brownies (super delicious, you should try them. The recipe I used is here) and generally just ate well.

Another exciting thing that happened this month is that my computer survived an update that was a jump of three full operating systems. My macbook is about 6 years old and I have been expecting it to die for the last 2 years at least. I thought this update might be the thing that killed it, so I was putting it off. But then it was starting to get to the point that the operating system I had wasn't supported by most websites and programs. So I backed everything up onto an external hard drive and just went for it. And it survived! And it's running great. So there you go I guess. 

Okay, on to the books:

• Catch-22     (Joseph Heller)     -     This book was so frustrating to read. I think it clashed with my personality. But the style was kind of cool in retrospect.  (I ranted about it here)

• Narcissus and Goldmund     (Hermann Hesse)     -     I wrote about this one here. It is the story of best friends. One is an ascetic monk, the other a wandering artist. It is about many things, but one of them is how their friendship with someone so drastically different to them helps them to realize their own destiny. 

• Mission, Muscle & Miracle     (W.E. Ashton)     -     This is a book about the history and founding of Camp Clayton, the camp in Australia that I am going to work at. I was given it a couple years ago on my first trip there, I decided it was finally time to read it. It was  interesting. There were a lot of people involved in the history of Camp Clayton. A lot of people I don't know, so sometimes I got a bit lost in the names. But overall, I learned a lot about the camp.

• The Road     (Cormac McCarthy)     -     I so badly wanted to love this book. I have had it recommended many times and have heard so many good things about it. I did enjoy the style of the writing. And I get that people love the idea of the father and the son only having each other. But overall, I did not enjoy it. I think the problem was that it was just really not my genre. Apparently I have a good imagination and I actually get pictures in my head of what is going on in a book, because after this book I have images in my head that I wish I could get rid of. Particularly the whole thing where the dad breaks into the cellar of that house. If you've read it you will totally know exactly what part I'm talking about. Yeah, I did not like that. Maybe I would enjoy other books by this author. But not this one.

• The Importance of Being Earnest     (Oscar Wilde)     -     I am starting to really enjoy reading plays. This one is really great.  

• The Horse and His Boy     (C.S. Lewis)     -     This one I listened to as an audiobook. I have read it before. It is my favourite Narnia book. Somehow putting audiobooks on my reading list feels a little bit like cheating. But I guess it's still a book.

The big question for April is, will I ever finish For Whom the Bell Tolls. I have been reading it for the last two weeks at least. Gah, Hemingway, why are all your books such slogs?