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Reading report for September 2007

I am beginning to go into a reading slump. The symptoms usually start with the feeling that I have nothing to read, even though I in fact do have a TBR stack of about 300 books in my bedroom and a TBR list of over 1000, at least a third of which I can get from the library. Then I start to read one book after the other and decide I‘m not interested in any of them, and the books I am already committed to read stop being interesting. This usually leads to a cull of my TBR stack, but so far I am resisting that temptation. This has happened almost every autumn since I was in my early twenties. Much as I love this season, the diminishing daylight does mean that I start getting the winter blues and a reading slump is usually the first warning sign. School has been somewhat effective in dispelling this seasonal gloom in the past, and when I have not been at school I have learned to keep busy and find new interests to keep the blues at bay. This winter I‘m taking a second bookbinding course (I‘m hoping to start learning about leather binding), and I have also started learning Spanish. This will hopefully keep my mood up, but may also affect the volume of my reading. We shall see.

I only finished 9 books this month, but I started reading at least six more and continued to read two that I started reading some months ago. Only one was non-fiction, Nancy Pearl‘s entertaining book of book lists, Book Lust, from which I got a number of titles to add to my TBR list. The rest were mysteries and thrillers. I may review some of them in the next couple of weeks.

Books I read in September:
Catherine Aird: Little Knell
Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer: Don't look down
Elizabeth Daly: Evidence of things seen
Tess Gerritsen: The Surgeon
Linda Howard: Dying to please
Ngaio Marsh: Vintage murder
Nancy Martin: Dead girls don't wear diamonds
Michael Pearce: Death of an Effendi
Nancy Pearl: Book Lust
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