April was a very hectic month for me. I started out the month on the couch during the days, so that I could be close to my mother. Since I live with her, I am often the one who does a lot of helping around the house as much as I can. But when I’m facing my own medical limitations, we needed to call in reinforcements. Fortunately, my mother is the kind of woman who just adopts people, the cleaning guy has turned into another son and eventually turned into her helper around the house. 

However, as we were preparing for Passover in the second week of the month, my mom was hospitalized two different times and had another ER visit until just as the holiday was ending. Since she keeps most of her recipes and tips in her head, I wasn’t able to cook the traditional holiday foods. I was planning to have a small seder at home by myself, but my brother and his girlfriend invited me to come over for a seder. It was really nice to spend time with my brother and to see him finally live up to the high expectations my father had for him. Looks like Dad was right, since we know he can do it. 

My brother and I spent the next afternoon visiting my mother in the hospital, and it wiped me out. I wound up falling asleep and missing out on the second seder. That was probably around the time that my ulcerative colitis flared up really badly. For the last two weeks of the month, I was struggling with nausea and a total lack of appetite, and that led to me crashing for several days after that with no energy and no ability to stay awake. Add a migraine on top of all of that, and that was how April and early May went for me. This is a huge reason why I am so late in posting this, which is usually up by the first week of the month. 

I was hoping that I would get a lot of reading and other things accomplished in April, but I had a tough time being able to focus for a good portion of the month, while also having a strong desire to escape into books. Ultimately, I only read a little less in April than I did in March. I did do some nonfiction reading in various areas, and all of this reading really did help me cope with the situations occurring.

Throughout the month, I managed to squeeze in a few library books just because it sounded interesting, and wasn’t something that I had agreed to do, such as reading ARCs. I also made some decent progress with ARCs, despite getting hung up with two slower-paced reads—one because I loved it and didn’t want to finish so soon, and the other because I didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would. 

Here’s some April highlights:

• My blog continues to grow, and I’m hoping to get to 2,000 followers soon.
• I read some fantastic nonfiction books and historical fiction this month, and I love the idea of learning history through interesting nonfiction audiobooks.
• I’m back to being behind on ARCs, but I just have to find the time to sit down and write the reviews. Will I get caught up in May? Only time will tell!
• I read two nonfiction books, and the Douglas Murray read was outstanding. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a truly non-biased look at Israel, Palestine, and October 7th.
• I’ve been continuing my (virtual) travels around the globe, including a read set in Mongolia. 

Here’s my breakdown of monthly totals for April: 

April Totals:

• Books read: 11
• Books DNF’d: 0
• Pages read: 10,282
• Hours listened: 467.45 hours
• Average pages: 342.73
• Average hours listened: 15.58 hours

Genres Read in April:

• Fantasy: 4
• Historical Fiction: 3
• History: 1
• Horror: 1
• Mystery: 1
• Social Sciences: 1

Backlist vs. New Releases:

• Backlist books: 4
• 2025 releases: 7

Fiction Vs. Nonfiction:

• Fiction: 9
• Nonfiction: 2

Format Read:

• Print: 2
• Digital: 1
• Audio: 8

Age Range:

• Adult: 11
• YA: 0
• MG: 0

My favorite books of the month were: On Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas Murray, and The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson. 

Here’s what I read in April:

1. Genghis: Birth of an Empire by Conn Iggulden (Conqueror #1) | Goodreads | Amazon
2. The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem by Sarit Yishai-Levi | Goodreads | Amazon
3. On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization by Douglas Murray | Goodreads | Amazon

1. The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson (Publisher ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
2. A Crown So Silver by Lyra Selene (Fair Folk #2) (Publisher ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
3. Grave Empire by Richard Swan (The Great Silence #1) (Publisher ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
4. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann | Goodreads | Amazon

1. Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
2. Five Oaks by Julie Hensley (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon
3. Next to Heaven by James Frey (NG ARC) | Goodreads | Amazon

1. A Feather So Black by Lyra Selene (Fair Folk #1) — reread

How was April for you?