Reading in Reykjavík

I bought 21 books in January and February, adding, among other things, considerably to my collection of out-of-date guidebooks.  Remarkably, only one of the books in the stack is fiction (guess which one?) While I am not particularly fond of "must read" lists like the one in 1001 Book s..., I do enjoy reading about books others have loved enough to recommend, and it will be fun to go through it and see what it has to say about the books I have read (liking or disliking) and to discover new books to read. However, I have no intention of reading all of the recommendations.  As for the rest, they reflect some of my many interests: pastiche literature, trivia, folkloristics, cooking, history and anthropology.

I started and finished reading more than 60 books in January, which is a personal record. Admittedly, most were in the long novella/short novel range (80-120 pages), with a handful as long as 180 pages, but since they are sold as separate eBooks, they still count as entire books. The page count is probably pretty similar to that of an average month. If I manage to keep this up, I might manage to read an average of a book a day for the year, but I expect I will start to slow down as February progresses. I traded Kindles with a friend and delved into the short romance novels she had collected, mostly series of paranormal-themed novels and one space opera series. This was the reading equivalent of binging on candy - inducing a satisfying rush with lots of calories but little nutrition. But this is just the kind of reading I need at this time of the year: entertaining, with guaranteed happy endings and not much substance. I expect I will probably end up with a massive reading hangover, b...