January 2019 Books of the Month

Instead of cataloging all of the books I have read over the course of a year, I'm gonna do it month to month. Here's what I listened to or read last month:

The Jamie Lee Curtis Collection ¹:
- Is There Really a Human Race?
- When I Was Little
- ♥ Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born  - Ms. Curtis' stories are cute but this one was a stand-out. It's the story of a child being told of the night they were born and of how their adoptive parents fell in love with them. It was original and very sweet.
- Today I Feel Silly
- Where Do Balloons Go?
- I'm Gonna Like Me
- It's Hard to Be Five

♥ The Mouse and the Motorcycle ¹ by Beverly Cleary - B.D. Wong did such a wonderful job narrating! I was LOL-ing and clinging to his every word.

* And Then There Were None ¹ by Agatha Christie - I had seen (and thoroughly enjoyed) the 2015 mini-series and the book was good as well. Glad that they made the adjustments from the original, and then second titles, which were offensive to say the least. If they hadn't, I never would have had any interest in the book and I'm glad I did. Oh, and Dan Stevens was a fine narrator.

Runaway Ralph ¹ by Beverly Cleary - Meh. Not as much fun as the previous book in the trilogy.

Roald Dahl Collection ¹:
- ♥ The Fantastic Mr. Fox - Oh my gosh, Chris O'Dowd was unbelievably (dare I say) fantastic for this book! His voices and inflections were spot on and I just loved this story.
- * Esio Trot - Geoffrey Palmer; he's so good all the time and it was such a treat to hear him read one of the sweetest stories ever.
- The Enormous Crocodile
- The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me

At Bartram's Hotel ¹ by Agatha Christie - A bit of a disappointment from Ms. Christie.
♥ To Sir Phillip, With Love by Julia Quinn - The first silly romance of the year and it was really good!
* Dog Man and Cat Kid by Dav Pilkey - This series is just wonderful and always delivers a huge grin and a bunch of giggles.
* Gratitude by Oliver Sacks - I found Oliver Sacks' book An Anthropologist on Mars utterly fascinating when I read it years and years ago (thanks to former pal, Melissa who loaned me her copy!) and thought that this short book was a nice goodbye from such a great, great man.

Mostly I was listening to Infinite Jest so that's why I read so few books this month. Hopefully things will pick up a bit in the coming months, although I'm thinking of tackling The Odyssey and that will take up a bit of time to completely get through....

¹ - audiobook
² - abridged version
* - liked
♥ - loved
Any unmarked titles were, in my opinion, so-so.