Skip to main content

Reading report for February 2009

I finished 21 books in February, which is quite a bit better than my monthly average for 2008 (not that I'm competing with myself or anything...). Out of those, I had started reading 5 before the beginning of the month – 2 of them last summer.

In the reading challenges the situation is as follows:
  • I finished the last of the Mystery Reader Café challenge books: the book with the word "murder" in the title, so that challenge is finished.
  • In the 52 Icelandic books challenge I read 4 books.
  • In the Top Mysteries challenge I finished 2 books.
  • In the TBR challenge I finished 7 books that had been on my shelves for more than a year.

Additionally, I culled 7 of the books I read this month and will be adding them to my BookMooch inventory, making room on my book shelves for the 7 mooched books I received in the mail. 5 of these I will be reading for the Top Mysteries challenge. I also found 2 TM challenge books in the book section of a local charity shop.

I listened to one audio book in February, or rather a filmed reading: Neil Gaiman was generous enough to offer live audiovisual recordings of his reading of The Graveyard Book through his blog. The recordings were made when he was on the promotional tour for the book. (If you follow the link, scroll to the bottom to start listening (and watching) in the correct order).

The books I read or listened to in February: (I have posted reviews of those marked with *)

*Arnaldur Indriðason : Myrká (police procedural)
Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin: The Physiology of Taste (kitchen science and philosophy)
Mary Higgins Clark: The Lottery Winner (detective stories)
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni: The Mistress of Spices (novel, romance)
Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book and Coraline (children's fantasy/horror)
John Grogan: Marley and Me (memoir)
*Dashiell Hammett: The Maltese Falcon (noir detective story)
Tony Hillerman: The Dark Wind (police procedural, thriller)
Ingólfur Jónsson (collected by) : Þjóðlegar sagnir og ævintýri (folk and fairy tales)
Jón R Hjálmarsson : Þjóðsögur við þjóðveginn (folk tales)
H.R.F. Keating: Death of a Fat God (mystery)
India Knight, editor: The Dirty Bits - for Girls (anthology, erotica)
Sharyn McCrumb: Paying the Piper (mystery)
*Steven Saylor: A Murder on the Appian Way (mystery)
*Fred Vargas: Have Mercy on Us All (police procedural)
*Fred Vargas: Seeking Whom He May Devour (police procedural)
Viktor Arnar Ingólfsson : Flateyjargáta (mystery)
*Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing (police procedural)
Jeanette Winterson: Boating for Beginners (fantasy, satire)

Reread:
Gerald Durrell: The Whispering Land (travel, animals)

Comments

Dorte H said…
As a language teacher & someone who is normally highly interested in translation theories I should be reading the Rushdie article. I have spent my concentration quota today (I have had 17 examinations in two days) so let me just say: amazing number of books you read. I am afraid that all my blogging & visiting other people´s fascinating blogs make me read less.
Bibliophile said…
Do take a look at it when you have time - it is interesting (even if I didn't agree with some of what he says in it).

As to my reading, I sometimes have periods when I read a book a day. I'm going through one right now. Next month I may only read 10 books.

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...

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 ...

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...