Skip to main content

Reading report for June 2013

I finished 12 books in June, 8 of them rereads (of which one was an audiobook). Unusually, all the rereading had nothing to do with depression this time. I simply wanted to revisit some old friends (and possibly justify to myself why I keep them around). I finished one book in my Brontë project and one TBR challenge book. I also added a number of books to my library, mostly cookbooks, which fortunately don‘t count towards the TBR challenge, but I also added some books that do.

All four ‘never-before-read‘ books were satisfying reads (I hardly need to mention that all of the rereads were as well). The highlight was The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but the favourite will probably end up being the Calvin and Hobbes book. I can never get enough Calvin and Hobbes.

The Nora Roberts novel was the best by her that I have read this year. I have been noticing more and more that while I happily devour her old category serial romances and read her other books with enjoyment, the ones I end up giving the best marks tend to be romantic suspense (e.g. Northern Lights, Carolina Moon, Montana Sky).

All in all, I had a highly satisfying reading month.

In July I hope to finish Shirley, and hopefully also the first of three books I am contributing to a group challenge on my favourite reading forum. We are reading one book published in every year of the 20th century. This is a one-year-one-reader challenge and each participant need read no more books that she or he feels like. My first pick was 1924 and the book A passage to India by E.M. Forster, which I have been meaning to read since I saw the movie about 25 years ago. I might (I say might!) turn this into a personal 20th century challenge for myself , although I am more inclined towards the 19th century (see my previous comments on the subject).

The Books:
  • Anne Brontë: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Romance. 
  • Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer: Agnes and the Hitman. Romantic suspense. Reread. 
  • Georgette Heyer: The Black Moth. Historical romance. Reread. 
  • Georgette Heyer: These Old Shades. Historical romance. Reread. 
  • Georgette Heyer: Devil's Cub. Historical romance. Reread. 
  • Georgette Heyer: Venetia. Historical romance. Reread. 
  • Georgette Heyer: Lady of Quality. Historical romance. Reread. 
  • Terry Pratchett: Monstrous Regiment. Fantasy. Reread. 
  • Nora Roberts: Whiskey Beach. Contemporary romantic suspense. 
  • Dorothy L. Sayers: The Nine Taylors. Mystery. Reread (first listen).
  • The Bathroom Readers' Institute: Uncle John's Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader. Trivia.
  •  Bill Watterson: The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes. Collected comic strips.


Labels:

Comments

Tonia said…
Visiting from Booking Through Thursday... I like your list of books - I'm a fan of Georgette Heyer as well. I'm pretty sure I've read every one of her books I could find at my library.
July 19, 2013 12:06 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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

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...
Post a Comment
Read more