All the books and magazines I read in March were in digital format. Although I still love print books, I find myself reading more and more ebooks. Mostly I think I love ebooks because I can read at night, in the dark, when I am up with insomnia. I get a lot of reading done at 4am. But anyways. Here’s what I read this past month:

The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman
This book kept popping up as recommended on websites I read and podcasts I listen to. It popped up often enough that I finally paid attention and decided I should read it. The Confidence Code has some great stories in it, and I did find some comfort in the fact that a lack of self-confidence is shared by many, many women. But, in the end, the advice for building confidence was nothing new. Just do the work. Take that small action. Just do it. Still, I’m glad I read it. I highlighted some things, and I might go back and review my notes. (Yes, I highlight and take notes on my ebooks.)

In God’s Hands by Desmond Tutu
In God’s Hands was the March book for my church book group. I loved the sense of Tutu’s voice in this book. You feel like he is talking to you, and you can hear the cadences of his speech while reading. His personal stories were fascinating, especially when he touched on his work with South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After reading this book, I really want to read something more autobiographical by Tutu so I can learn more about his incredible life story.

The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida
I realized I had been reading a lot of nonfiction and I hadn’t read a novel since early January. This book had been on the to-read list for some time, so I thought, why not? The story is about a woman who travels to Morocco alone and has her backpack stolen in the hotel lobby moments after arriving. Identity is a big theme in this book, as the main character loses her and spends the rest of the novel forging new ones. The story is also told in the second person, so we are forced to identify with the narrator (You pick up the book and read a few pages. You put the book down again. etc.), yet at the end of the novel, we realize how little we knew. Although I enjoyed the book, I have to agree with one Goodreads reviewer who half-jokingly summed it up like this: “This is a story about a sociopath who leaves her Jerry Springer Show life behind and embarks upon a spree of unrealistic situations in which there is no such thing as consequence.”

Online Marketing for Your Craft Business by Hilary Pullen
This was my crafty book for the month. It was okay. Pullen does a fine job of summarizing complex marketing concepts and just giving a reader enough information to succeed without overwhelming the reader with a lot of information she/he does not need. I learned some marketing terminology, and Pullen provides good templates for creating marketing plans for one’s own small business. She also has a great list of resources, and I discovered a couple tools that were new to me. I don’t have a business yet, but this is something I am working towards, so reading this book was information gathering for me, and it was time well-spent.