Skip to main content

Reading report for August 2010

I finished 15 books in August. Of those, I had started reading two more than a month ago – one in June and one probably at some time near the beginning of the year.

I had an attack of reader’s block in the middle of the month. I would begin a book, only to abandon it after only one reading session in order to begin a new book, or I would read a chapter here and a chapter there in the books I am reading "at leisure", never reading more than 10 or so pages of each book each time. I finally did find a book to settle down with and then it was as if a reading machine had been turned on and I read 5 books in three days, all of them around 300 pages long.

4 of my August books were rereads:
  • Jennifer Crusie: Getting Rid of Bradley (contemporary romance)
  • J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Askaban (fantasy)
  • J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (fantasy)
  • J.K. Rowling: Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix (fantasy)

These were the only books that did not belong to a challenge of some sort.

As to the rest, all 5 non-fiction books are part of a mini-challenge to read more non-fiction; 5 books were part of the perpetual TBR challenge; 2 were Top Mystery challenge reads; 2 were Bibliophilic Book Challenge reads; and 1 was a Global reading Challenge book. Since this comes to a total of 19, it should be obvious that some books were part of more than one challenge.

The books:
  • Connie Brockway: My Dearest Enemy (historical romance)
  • Jack Finney: Time and Again (time travel)
  • Peter Haining: The Classic Era of Crime Fiction (literary history)
  • Carol Livingston: Gecko Tails: A Journey through Cambodia (travelogue)
  • John D. MacDonald: The Dreadful Lemon Sky (mystery thriller)
  • Ellis Peters: The Devil's Novice (historical mystery)
  • Will Randall: Botswana Time (travelogue) - will post review in September
  • Rannveig Tómasdóttir: Andlit Asíu (travelogue)
  • Ernesto Sabato: The Tunnel (Spanish: El tunel) (literary novel)
  • Jane Smiley: Charles Dickens (biographical study)
  • Patricia Wentworth: Miss Silver Comes to Stay (mystery) - will post review in September
Labels:

Comments

George said…
Rereading? What's that? With my Read Real Soon pile of books reaching skyward, I rarely reread books. And, when I do reread a book (something I do maybe once or twice a year) it takes a very compelling reason.
September 02, 2010 7:12 pm
Dorte H said…
And I thought I did well with ten books! Well, perhaps it is because I also wrote quite a bit.

Plotwise, my best August read was definitely "My Soul to Take". Marvelous crime novel.
September 02, 2010 7:39 pm
Bibliophile said…
George, some readers do, and others don't. I guess we fall into different categories ;-)
September 03, 2010 8:11 am
gautami tripathy said…
You did so well! I read 8!


Here is my August Wrap Up post!
September 04, 2010 1:07 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...
25 comments
Read more

Book 40: The Martian by Andy Weir, audiobook read by Wil Wheaton

Note : This will be a general scattershot discussion about my thoughts on the book and the movie, and not a cohesive review. When movies are based on books I am interested in reading but haven't yet read, I generally wait to read the book until I have seen the movie, but when a movie is made based on a book I have already read, I try to abstain from rereading the book until I have seen the movie. The reason is simple: I am one of those people who can be reduced to near-incoherent rage when a movie severely alters the perfectly good story line of a beloved book, changes the ending beyond recognition or adds unnecessarily to the story ( The Hobbit , anyone?) without any apparent reason. I don't mind omissions of unnecessary parts so much (I did not, for example, become enraged to find Tom Bombadil missing from The Lord of the Rings ), because one expects that - movies based on books would be TV-series long if they tried to include everything, so the material must be pared down ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Icelandic folk-tale: The Devil Takes a Wife

Stories of people who have made a deal with and then beaten the devil exist all over Christendom and even in literature. Here is a typical one: O nce upon a time there were a mother and daughter who lived together. They were rich and the daughter was considered a great catch and had many suitors, but she accepted no-one and it was the opinion of many that she intended to stay celebrate and serve God, being a very devout  woman. The devil didn’t like this at all and took on the form of a young man and proposed to the girl, intending to seduce her over to his side little by little. He insinuated himself into her good graces and charmed her so thoroughly that she accepted his suit and they were betrothed and eventually married. But when the time came for him to enter the marriage bed the girl was so pure and innocent that he couldn’t go near her. He excused himself by saying that he couldn’t sleep and needed a bath in order to go to sleep. A bath was prepared for him and in he went...
Post a Comment
Read more