Reading report for January 2009

January was a bigger than average reading month for me: 21 books finished. This is no surprise as I had a week off from work in which I finished a total of 6 books. I expect I will be back to my average of 12,75 BPM in February.

In the reading challenges the situation is as follows:

• I finished 3 out of the 4 Mystery Reader Café challenge books, and only have the book with the word „murder“ in the title left. I plan to try to finish that in February.
• In the 52 Icelandic books challenge I read 5 books, which puts me a little ahead of plan.
• In the Top Mysteries challenge I finished 4 books. That challenge is not on a deadline, but I would like to finish at least 25% of the books on the list by the end of the year.
• The challenge I am proudest of is the TBR one. In addition to the Mystery Reader Café „on the shelf for a year book“, I managed to read 10 other TBR books that had been on the shelf for a year or more. I decided to keep 5 and put the other 6 in my BookMooch inventory. The only books I have bought this month were ones I have been specifically looking for, which is quite a change, as I usually buy about 75% of my books on speculation.

The books:
Arnaldur Indriðason: Harðskafi (murder mystery)
Árni Þórarinsson: Tími Nornarinnar (murder mystery)
Anthony Berkeley: The Poisoned Chocolate Case (murder mystery)
Suzanne Brockmann: The Admiral's Bride (romantic thriller)
Jennifer Crusie: The Cinderella Deal (romance)
Joseph Delaney: The Spook's Apprentice (YA fantasy)
Karen Joy Fowler: The Jane Austen Book Club (novel)
Hallgrímur Helgason: 10 ráð til að hætta að drepa fólk og byrja að vaska upp (thriller)
Dashiell Hammett: The Thin Man (murder mystery)
Michael Innes: The Journeying Boy (mystery)
Ed McBain: Cop Hater (police procedural)
Harry Pearson: A Tall Man in a Low Land (travelogue, Belgium)
Rakel Pálsdóttir: Kötturinn í örbylgjuofninum (urban myths collection)
J.D. Robb: Reunion in Death (police procedural)
C.F. Roe: A Nasty Bit of Murder (murder mystery)
Dorothy L. Sayers: The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (murder mystery)
Daphne Sheldrick: The Orphans of Tsavo (memoir, animals, Africa)
Sigurður A. Magnússon: Grískir reisudagar (travelogue, Greece)
Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell): King Solomon's Carpet (psychological thriller)
Patricia Wentworth: The Gazebo (murder mystery)
Wilson, Jason & Frances Mayes, editors: The Best American Travel Writing 2002 (travel articles)