Books acquired: “Anecdotes on Mount Rubidoux and Frank A. Miller, Her Promoter,” Glenn Wenzel

Books read: “Tunnel Through Time,” Lester del Rey; “Time Out of Joint,” Philip K. Dick; “Slow Days, Fast Company,” Eve Babitz; “The Man Who Was Thursday,” G.K. Chesterton; “The Future of Another Timeline,” Annalee Newitz; “20 Days With Julian and Bunny by Papa,” Nathaniel Hawthorne; “Record Store Days,” Gary Calamar and Phil Gallo

I devoted February to unread books on my shelves with titles involving time. (Recall my “next month” teaser last month: “It’s about time.”) And even in the year’s shortest month, I read seven. Here are my recaps:

“Tunnel” (1966): With one scientist father widowed and the other divorced, there are no mothers to ask if they’re out of their minds sending their sons back to the age of the dinosaurs on a rescue mission. And a good thing, because a mother would have stopped this plot in its tracks. This has all the ’60s YA fun promised by a title as fantastic as “Tunnel Through Time.” And that cover!

“Joint” (1959): The earliest PKD novel that reads like a PKD novel, as he finds his great theme: How do we know anything around us is real? Sure, we’re paranoid, but might they be out to get us anyway? And as protagonist Ragle Gumm begins to suspect his reality is a construct, he wonders: Is it possible the whole world really does revolve around him? Turns out it does.

“Slow Days” (1977): Babitz’s essays about her life in and around LA in the 1970s are fizzy, gossipy and deceptively casual, but purported to have gone through multiple drafts to get there. Sometimes subtle and profound, like “Heroine,” a punning title, sometimes giddy or hilarious. She’s close-minded about Palm Springs, open-minded about Bakersfield, and loves LA unreservedly. At times she comes off like a hedonistic airhead, but notice how many great writers and artists she invokes knowledgeably. A true original.

“Thursday” (1908): The nest-of-spies plot is thrilling and disorienting. Then it becomes absurd and nonsensical, and the whole thing becomes even more dreamlike as an allegory for (I think) faith. I went from really liking this to being a little regretful that I’d read it. Well, I’ve never read anything like it, so there’s that. (I listened to a library audiobook of this one, with some reference to my paperback.)

“Timeline” (2019): In this alternate history, abortion in 2019 is illegal, so a group of women time travelers attempt to “edit” the timeline a century ago to head off the moralists and grant women more rights. The novel’s other thread follows a 1990s teenager who loves riot grrrl music and finds she needs an abortion. A blast of politics, feminism and fun, and even more urgent in 2022 than upon publication.

“20 Days” (1851/2003): These daily journal extracts from a three-week period in which Hawthorne had sole care for his 5-year-old son are a delight. They play together, go on walks, fetch milk. Dad deals with Julian’s bedwetting and a wasp sting. He regularly refers to him fondly as “the little man” or “the old gentleman.” They visit with Mr. Herman Melville. And fairly often Hawthorne admits his chatterbox son is driving him nuts.

“Record Store Days” (2009): A kind of oral history of record shops, comprising facts, history, anecdotes and lore as told by shop owners, managers, musicians and fans. Moderately entertaining but a little iffy, like a singer’s mid-career album you enjoy well enough to put on your shelf but aren’t sure you’ll ever play again.

This was a strong month, with “Joint,” “Slow Days,” “20 Days” and “Another Timeline” all standouts and “Tunnel Through Time” enjoyable for what it was. If we’re keeping track, this month was four fiction, three nonfiction, with two women authors represented.

Speaking of the passage of time, I picked these books up over a period of 17 years, starting with PKD in 2004 from Glendale’s Bookfellows. After a long gap, I got Chesterton in 2011 from the Borders closeout sale (after 11 years unread, this purchase seems less like a bargain); Callamar and Gallo in 2012 via Amazon (I must have thought I needed it in a hurry, LOL); del Rey and Hawthorne in 2019 from Portland’s Powell’s; Newitz in 2021 from B&N (with a birthday gift card); and Babitz this year from Echo Park’s Stories shortly after her death.

How was your month, readers? Let us know in the comments, please — and remember, time’s a-wastin’.

Next month: Back to random books.