Reading report for March 2013

I had one of my big reading months in March, with a total of 24 books finished. I had a lot of free time in March, having taken a week off from work at the beginning of the month, and then there was Easter. This gave me plenty of time to read.

Romance predominated, but I also read in various other genres, including mysteries (one historical and one historical and supernatural), cultural history, natural history, folk-tales, parapsychology, a travelogue, a classic children‘s book, and a book about pseudoscience and science fraud.

Just like last month, one of the month‘s stand-out reads was a reread: Persuasion is by far my favourite Austen novel. The other stand-outs were Spook, which I thoroughly enjoyed, just like the other two Roach books I have read (Stiff and Bonk) and Where the Wild Things Are, which I would have loved had I read it as a child and still thoroughly enjoyed as an adult.

I also must mention What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss, which was brought to my attention by the Smart Bitches blog a couple of years ago as an excellent contemporary romance, which it is. Thanks, Smart Bitches, I owe you.

And now I think it is time I came out and said it: I am addicted to Nora Roberts‘s romance novels. I am fine with her standalone novels – I can read one and then go and read something by someone else, but if I start one of her series books, I must finish the rest of the series. I read 2 series – a total of 9 books – in March, plus the first book in a third series. Most of the series books she wrote for Silhouette aren‘t up to the same standard as her longer standalone novels but I find myself drawn to them despite the often recycled characters (and sometimes plot points) and annoying recurrent expressions because these books pack an irresistible and gratifying positive emotional punch into a relatively small number of pages and they never fail to cheer me up.

The Books

Tasha Alexander: And Only to Deceive. Historical mystery.
Jane Austen: Persuasion. Romantic fiction. Reread.
Bjarni E. Guðleifsson: Náttúruskoðarinn I: Úr dýraríkinu and Náttúruskoðarinn II: Úr jurtaríkinu. Natural history.
Karina Bliss: What the Librarian Did. Romance, contemporary.
Colin Cotterill: Thirty-three Teeth. Historical mystery (supernatural).
Jennifer Crusie: Anyone But You. Romance, contemporary. Reread.
Ben Goldacre: Bad Science. Pseudoscience, fraud.
Georgette Heyer: The Reluctant Widow. Historical romance. Reread.
Ewan & Charley Boorman McGregor: Long Way Round. Travelogue.
Ólafur Davíðsson: Íslenzkar þjóðsögur I. Folk-tales.
Mary Roach: Spook: Science tackles the afterlife. Popular science, parapsychology.
Nora Roberts: Calhoun Women series: Courting Catherine, A Man for Amanda, For the Love of Lilah, Suzanna's Surrender, Megan's Mate. Romance, contemporary.
Nora Roberts: MacKade Brothers series: The Return of Rafe MacKade, The Pride of Jared MacKade, The Heart of Devin MacKade, The Fall of Shane MacKade. Romance, contemporary.
Nora Roberts: Night Shift. Romantic suspense.
A. L. Rowse: Heritage of Britain. Cultural history.
Maurice Sendak: Where the Wild Things Are. Fantasy, illustrated children‘s book.

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

List love: 10 recommended stories with cross-dressing characters

This trope is almost as old as literature, what with Achilles, Hercules and Athena all cross-dressing in the Greek myths, Thor and Odin disguising themselves as women in the Norse myths, and Arjuna doing the same in the Mahabaratha. In modern times it is most common in romance novels, especially historicals in which a heroine often spends part of the book disguised as a boy, the hero sometimes falling for her while thinking she is a boy. Occasionally a hero will cross-dress, using a female disguise to avoid recognition or to gain access to someplace where he would never be able to go as a man. However, the trope isn’t just found in romances, as may be seen in the list below, in which I recommend stories with a variety of cross-dressing characters. Unfortunately I was only able to dredge up from the depths of my memory two book-length stories I had read in which men cross-dress, so this is mostly a list of women dressed as men. Ghost Riders by Sharyn McCrumb. One of the interwove

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 and

Reading in Reykjavík

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