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Reading report for February 2010

I finished 15 books in February. 4 were crime novels, 6 were romances, 7 were historical.

A special mention must be made of The Song of Bhagavad-Gita. It is a chapter from the great Hindu epic, The Mahabarata, where Krishna, one of the many manifestations of God in Hinduism, explains religious philosophy to Prince Arjuna on the eve of a great battle. I don’t know how accurate the translation is, since I don’t know Sanskrit, but I do know that it is beautiful and mixes prose and verse in a nicely balanced way. It took me nearly three months to read it, as it soon became apparent that it needed to be read slowly and each chapter thoroughly digested before moving on. I can’t say that much of its message stuck, but I do know that after reading a chapter – always at bedtime – I would have a wonderfully restful night’s sleep, because it had such a soothing and calming effect on my mind.

Challenge count:
Top mysteries: 0
Global Reading Challenge: 1
Bibliophilic Book Challenge: 2
TBR Challenge: 8

Rereads: 2
Icelandic books: 2

The Books:
Maggie Black & Deirdre Le Faye: The Jane Austen Cookbook (historical cookery book)
Agatha Christie:After the Funeral (murder mystery)
Jennifer Crusie: Welcome to Temptation (romance)
Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer: Agnes and the Hitman (romantic thriller)
Halldór Laxness: Úngfrúin góða og Húsið (historical novel)
J.J. Marric: Gideon's Month (police procedural)
Orhan Pamuk: The White Castle (historical novel)
Ellis Peters: St. Peter's Fair (historical mystery)
Julia Quinn: When he was Wicked and It's in his Kiss (historical romance)
Nora Roberts: Irish Rebel and Sullivan's Woman (romance)
Unknown: The Song of Bhagavad-Gita (religious philosophy)
Jason Wilson (series ed.) & Ian Frazier (book ed.): The Best American Travel Writing 2003 (travel articles)
Yrsa Sigurðardóttir: Aska (murder mystery)


Tentative reading plan for March:
I didn’t make any headway with the Top Mysteries challenge in February, but intend to do better this month. I have started reading The Anatomy of a Murder and will review it as soon as I finish it. I also have another book on the list lined up which I may even finish before Anatomy... because it's short enough to read in one session.

In the Global reading Challenge I am halfway through The Mulatta and Mister Fly by Miguel Angel Asturias, an entertaining, magical picaresque novel set in the author’s native country, Guatemala. I will have to finish it soon, because I must return it to the library in 10 days time.

For the Bibliophilic challenge I want to get my hands on The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It remains to be seen if I am successful, as it is very popular and I am planning to get it from the library. Just because a copy is available right now, when the library is closed, doesn’t mean it will be after I finish work tomorrow.

I have the latest crime novel by Arnaldur Indriðason lined up and plan to read it soon.

And finally I would like to try to get my hands on more of Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton romances, having read 2 of them in February and liked them very much.
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Anonymous said…
I'm very interested in the content of your blog, but really can't stand to read it for more than a few minutes because of the terrible user-unfriendly red background, white
text. I don't think a blog should be difficult to read; there's a reason books have white pages, black text, (and red is my favorite color for almost everything else!). Please reconsider; a good blog doesn't need to be eye-catching. mso.
March 05, 2010 3:02 pm
Bibliophile said…
Thanks for the feedback. I occasionally fiddle around with the colours of the blog and this kind of input is invaluable for finding the right balance between readability and style.
Incidentally, if you use the Firefox browser and come across a web page that you find difficult to read because of the colours, you can click "view", choose "page style" and then "no style", which should give you basic black type on a white page.
March 05, 2010 9:29 pm
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