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Reading report for April 2009

I read 16 books in April, which is slightly fewer books than the average of the three preceding months. Of these, I had started five in an earlier month and one in the previous year, and 5 were under 150 pages, so in pages I read much less than in March. Asterisked books have been or will be reviewed on this blog.

The challenges:
  • Top mysteries: 4. These were the only crime books I read in April.
  • Icelandic books: 3. Should have been 4, but I was one book ahead so I am still on track.
  • TBR for more than a year: 4, which is disappointing but not unexpected, as I found a lot of interesting library books that I wanted to read.

The books:
Michael Bell, ed.: Scouts in Bondage and other violations of literary propriety (collection of unintentionally humorous book titles)
André Bernard: Now all we need is a Title (famous books and their original planned titles)
T.J.Binyon: Murder Will Out (overview of the history of the detective in crime fiction)
*Nicholas Blake: The Beast Must Die (murder mystery)
*Christianna Brand: Green for Danger (murder mystery)
Bill Bryson (issue editor) & Jason Wilson (series editor) : The Best American Travel Writing 2000 (travel writing)
*Bill Buford: Heat (foodoir (see Note))
*Lionel Davidson: The Sun Chemist (thriller)
*Fjodor Dostojevski: Crime and Punishment (novel, psychological thriller)
Halldór Kiljan Laxness: Kristnihald undir Jökli (English title: Christianity at Glacier, Under the Glacier) (novel, magic realism)
Huldar Breiðfjörð: Múrinn í Kína (title meaning in English: The Wall in China) (travelogue)
*William Least Heat Moon: Blue Highways (travelogue)
Alan Moore (story) & Dave Gibbons (illustration): Watchmen (graphic novel)
Pratchett, Stewart & Cohen: The Science of Discworld II: The Globe (popular science combined with fantasy)
Snjólaug Bragadóttir frá Skáldalæk: Allir eru ógiftir í verinu (romance)
Jan Werner: Angels from Hell (humour)
--

Note: foodoir = portmanteau of food + memoir. Although I came up with it all by myself, I discovered I wasn’t, to my disappointment, the first to coin it. When applied to food photography, it is a portmanteau of food + boudoir and refers to images that can also be labelled as food porn.
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