The February Reading Life Review - Future Projects, Reading Plans

February Authors 

Row 1

1. Grace Paley - USA - Short Story Master 
2. Michael Chabon - USA- Winner Pulitzer Prize
3. Zelda Abramson - Canada- Author The Montreal Shtetl: Making Home After the Holocaust -essential reading 
4. Slivano Ocampo - Argentina- highly regarded multi genre writer
5. Alyssa Wong - USA- award winning Science Fiction and Fantasy Writer

Row 2

1. Chaya Bhuvaneswar- Short Stories- debut collection White Dancing Elephants- I highly recommend this collection to all lovers of the form
2. Akiyuki Nosaka - Japan - poignant World War Two Stories 
3. Mavis Gallant - Canada to France
4. Blume Lempel - Ukraine to USA - important Yiddish Short Story writer

Row 3

1. Cynthia Ozick -USA
2. Philip Roth - USA - Pulitzer Prize Winner
3. A. S. Byatt - UK - Booker Prize Winner
4. Jarrod Tanney - USA - author City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia's Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa

Countries of Origin of Authors

1. USA- 6
2. Japan - 1
3. Uk - 1
4. Canada - 2
5. Ukraine- 1
6. Argentina- 1

Four works by men were featured in February, nine women.

Six living writers and seven deceased authors were included 

Four writers were featured for the first time, nine are old friends 

Blog Stats

5,594,664 page views since inception 

There are currently 3497 active posts on The Reading Life

Top Visitor Home Countries 

1. USA 
2. The Philippines 
3. India 
4. Canada
5. UK
6. Russia - 
7. Germany
8. France
9. Ukraine 

As the internet becomes more widely available in India and China I can see great growth potential.  

The most viewed post for the month was on an  Indonesian authored Short 

Story,The Century Carved by Oka Rusmini.  

As usual pre World War Two Short Stories by Authors from the Philippines were the next three most viewed posts.

Following this in fifth place is Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe.  Most of the readers of this post were from India.

I find it very gratifying when posts I wrote over five years ago still receive world wide readership.

Plans for March and Beyond 

For eight years Irish Short Stories have been featured on my blog in March.I will continue this tradition.

I will continue to read along with Buried in Print in her Mavis Gallant Event

http://www.buriedinprint.com/mavis-gallants-jorinda-and-jorindel-1959/

Please feel free to join in

The Book Jotter is hosting for March a very interesting event, a Wales Readathon..  I have found an interesting novel to read and will be participating.  Events like this help strengthen the international book blog community and I hope lots of people participate.

I will be reading Madame Soustzka by Bernice Ruebens.

The website below has lots of reading suggestions 

https://bookjotter.com/2019/02/25/the-wales-readathon-2019/

I am launching a three month event that will focus on short stories by women from or tied to the Indian Subcontinent.  This will run in March, April and June. Details to come.  I hope to feature at least 24 writers.

I’m reading, last read about eleven years ago, 2666 by Roberto Bolano 

I will continue reading Yiddish literature and related history.  

I am very pleased that Oleander Bousweau has agreed to become a director of The Reading Life.

Great thanks to Max u for his kind provision of Amazon Gift Cards

I offer my humble thanks to all who leave comments, you help keep me going 

To my fellow book bloggers, keep up your blog. The Reading Life helped me emerge more or less sane from a very dark period in my life.  I imagine how great it might be when younger bloggers can look back on fifty years of blogging.  

Mel u