So we’re just over a month into 2015, how’s everyone doing with the Reading Adventure? I hope you’re not stressing about the categories – when I said “broad interpretation” I really meant it!

Anyone want to read a book set in wintertime in February?! Y’know, just in case you have not gotten enough of it yet. The entire book doesn’t need to be set in winter, just a part of it will do. Consider these:

• The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey
• A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra
• The Bronze Horseman, by Paullina Simons
• City of Thieves, by David Benioff
• Sweetland, by Michael Crummey
• Inside, by Alix Ohlin
• The Sweet Hereafter, by Russell Banks
• Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson
• The Frozen Thames, by Helen Humphreys
• The Orenda, by Joseph Boyden
• anything by Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pasternak, or myriad Russian writers

I myself just read A Constellation of Vital Phenomena so I might use that one for that square, or I’m also considering reading Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.

If you’re looking to escape winter, maybe you want to knock off your beach read now. (Or maybe you will actually be hitting a beach sometime soon, you lucky duck!) I didn’t intend this square to be a book about a beach (but it can be!), or a book that you actually read on a beach. It’s simply something you would read on a beach, and no one’s getting all judgmental on you. If you like to read Shopaholic or Harlequin romances on your vacay, enjoy. If you prefer Proust while sipping an umbrella drink, more power to ya.

February is also Black History Month, so maybe you want to read a book by a writer of colour. Which is as simple as it sounds: literally, anyone not white. (This is a big deal these days, there’s a widespread movement to promote more diversity in the publishing industry and in people’s reading habits. (I would argue that reading diversely is about more than just authors’ ethnicities, but that’s a blog post for another day.)) I won’t spew out an exhaustive list of titles and authors here, because I’d be typing for a year, but here’s a reminder of a few of my favourite authors of colour to get you started:

• Jhumpa Lahiri
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Amy Tan
• Khaled Hosseini
• Alexandre Dumas
• Ishmael Beah
• Joseph Boyden
• Richard Wagamese
• Lawrence Hill
• Roxane Gay
• Shauna Singh Baldwin
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If you’re looking for something to read specifically on black history this month, I don’t have enough superlatives in my vocabulary for either Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley or Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement by John Lewis.

The end of February also brings us Freedom to Read Week here in Canada, so it’s a good time to start thinking about that banned or challenged book. Check out Freedom to Read Week’s list of challenged works for some ideas. The American Library Association (who bring Banned Books Week every fall to the U.S.) also has lists of banned and challenged works on their website. Check out their publication on banned books 2013-2014 or their list of frequently challenged classics, or browse their site to find even more lists. It will blow your mind, seeing the books that some very narrow-minded people think we shouldn’t read.

If you have any suggestions for these or other categories, please share them in the comments!