M. Suzanne Terry

It is March, which is the best month. The month of my birth. I can even forgive it for being spring. It’s starter spring, when I am thinking about which plants I want to have outside this year and trying to convince myself that my allergies aren’t that bad. It’s a tricksy month. I can get on board with that.

As is my custom, I’ve started several of these already (and even finished a couple). A peek into my process – I start compiling my TBR lists at least a couple of months in advance. My book clubs generally have things already picked out (e.g., two of them have selections chosen for the whole year already), so I go ahead and list those books and plug them into the reading challenges where they fit. Then, as I start herding together the print copies for the blog post picture, I find myself picking them up. And when I pick a book up, I start thumbing through it. And then, before I know it, I’ve started/finished it.

As problems go, it’s a nice one to have.

Anyway, here are my reads for the best month of the year!

[Disclosure: Most of the links below are affiliate links; I get paid a percentage if you purchase from these links. Alternatively, you could search your favorite indie bookshop on Bookshop.org or Libro.fm, and they get an even bigger cut!]

Book Clubs

I am especially excited about my book club selections this month. Happy birth month to me!

• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde 
• My Friends by Fredrik Backman
• The Bookseller of Inverness by S.G. MacLean
• Tell Me How You Eat by Amber Husain (Roxane Gay)
• Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
• Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde

Cozy

I’m pretty sure cozy is accidentally (but also predictably) becoming my favorite reading challenge this year. I’m looping the books from the series I’m reading into this curriculum, so I’ll also list them under this heading from here on out.

• A House to Call Home – Christie Purifoy
• Letter from Japan by Marie Kondo with Marie Iida
• Murikami T: The T-shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami
• Ordinary Time by Annie B. Jones
• Try Softer by Aundi Kolber
• The Cat Who Saved Books by Sōsuke Natsukawa
• The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sōsuke Natsukawa
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
• Vianne by Joanne Harris
• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
• The High Window by Raymond Chandler
• The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman
• Lost and Lassoed by Lyla Sage
• Wild and Wrangled by Lyla Sage
• Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
• Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Anti Brain Rot Challenge

I’m spending the month finishing up my reads for January and February (which will still put me ahead of schedule on this challenge). Most of what I’m focusing on this month for this challenge is the curriculum for learning to play the organ.

PopSugar 

• Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde – A book you were hoping would fit into a prompt but doesn’t
• Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – A book with a shadow daddy

52 Book Club

• My Friends by Fredrik Backman – Provokes strong emotion (I have never read a Backman book without either ugly crying or laughing until I wheeze – usually both – at some point, and this one was no exception)
• Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – Character with a secret identity
• Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer – A three-syllable word in the title

Libro(dot)fm

• The Reservation by Rebecca Kauffman – Read an audiobook about cooking
• Winter: The Story of a Season by Val McDermid – Listen to a short audiobook 
• Heartless by Marissa Meyer – Share your libro.fm reads on social media and tag libro.fm
• A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny – Read an audiobook in a new setting (in my new office during my lunch break – because I can shut the door and be left in peace for an hour – such a luxury!)

Nowhere Bookshop Bingo

• Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry – bookish memoir/biography
• Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash – Nowhere book club pick
• Tell Me How You Eat by Amber Husain – nonfiction book

Overeducated Women With Cats

• Kingdom of Ash by Sarah J. Maas – A book set in a fully invented world
• Piranesi by Susannah Clarke – A book that plays with memory or time
• Tell Me How You Eat by Amber Husain – A book published in 2026

Bad Bitch Book Club

• Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry – A book by an author who went to your high school or college

Modern Mrs. Darcy Spring Preview

Three(ish?) times a year, Anne Bogel (aka Modern Mrs. Darcy) and her team tell us the new books coming out that season that they think we will particularly enjoy. I don’t ever make it through all of them, but I pick a handful out of each season, from either the actual list or the “other books you might like that we haven’t vetted yet” list, that sound amazing (and/or that I have received via one of my subscriptions).

• Winter: The Story of a Season by Val McDermid 
• Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
• The Reservation by Rebecca Kauffman

Book Riot Read Harder

• The Library Book by Susan Orlean – Read a nonviolent true crime book
• Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon – Read a book by an intersex author

Alphabet Challenge

• My Friends by Fredrik Backman
• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
• A House to Call Home – Christie Purifoy
• Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

Read Your Bookshelf

• Heartless by Marissa Meyer (of course, my audiobook shelf counts for this challenge) – A weapon on the cover (or in the title)

I hope you have a wonderful month of reading ahead of you!