january: 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

super female-heavy january of reading!  off to a fast start.  this month i read:

the sixth extinction, by elizabeth kolbert (i actually listened to this one on my drive to north carolina for christmas and finished it up when i got back to houston.  really really enjoyed this pulitzer-prize winning nonfiction about the extinctions of 13 different species throughout world history.  so many fun facts came out of this!  big thumbs up.  audiobook was well narrated, too.)

lab girl, by hope jahren (ugh, i LOVED this book, too.  part memoir, part nonfiction about plant biology, this was unexpectedly FANTASTICALLY written and super touching.  don't let "memoir of a female scientist" lead you away from picking this book up.  it's so much more.  particularly loved the commentary on adult friendships and on finding love in your 30s.)

lilac girls, by martha hall kelly (this was our faculty book club pick, and we're going to be skyping with the author in a few weeks!  the book follows three women during world war II - one german doctor, one polish woman who is imprisoned in a concentration camp, one american philanthropist.  i liked this book but didn't love it - it was interesting that parts of it were based on real women and a true story, and it was kind of an unusual holocaust story (no jewish characters).  i'm not rushing out to recommend this to people, but i had no trouble getting through it.)

all the bright places, by jennifer niven (a young adult book that's getting a lot of YA press these days. the author is no john green nor is she rainbow rowell, but i did enjoy this book - add it to your list if you're into YA.)

difficult women, by roxane gay (this is a book of short stories that was in places funny, in places devastatingly sad.  this was the recommendation of the independent bookstore in houston that i frequent, and was published in january so i felt very fancy that i was reading it so shortly after it was published.  i tend to stay away from short stories because i find it hard to dive into a character only to have them disappear forever at the end of the chapter, but i've read some good short story collections recently - this included - that are changing my mind about that.  some of these stories have really stuck with me.  thumbs up.  since i'm in the process of cultivating myself as a nasty woman, the subject matter and title seemed appropriate for early 2017.)