Skip to main content

Reading report for October 2013

I finished 14 books in October. Of those, 4 were rereads and none were ebooks, something that hasn‘t happened in a single month since I bought my Kindle a couple of years ago. In addition, all 10 first-time reads were TBR books, so I have now fulfilled my goal of reading 50 books from my TBR stack in 2013. Now that there are only 2 months left in the year I don‘t think I will set myself a further TBR goal, but I will continue to count the TBR books I read to see if it is realistic for me to set the TBR bar higher for next year. I am finally beginning to see gaps in my formerly overstuffed bookshelves, and I should be having a hard time preventing myself from buying books to fill them, but so far it has been easy to avoid that temptation, because I am saving up money for something else. Besides, the Christmas season is beginning and I have been busy planning what to give to whom and making Christmas cards.

There were several reading highlights in October. Among them were Only in America by BBC correspondent Matt Frei and The Unites States of Europe by American reporter T.R. Reid, which are comparable books in that the authors are trying to give their compatriots an idea of what the subjects they are writing about are like. Their approaches are different, Frei‘s being more anecdotal and using him and his family to illustrate many points of difference between the USA and Europe/Britain, while Reid takes a more political and historical approach and makes comparisons while mostly keeping himself and his family out of the picture. Both are informative and enjoyable reads.

Both Georgette Heyer books were stand-outs as well. Not because they are good mysteries – I can't in all honesty say that about either – but because of the repartee-filled dialogues and screwball characters Heyer excelled at whatever genre she was writing in. I also enjoyed the humour of Martha Grimes‘ The Anodyne Necklace, which in addition is a good mystery, one in which Elizabethan literature plays a considerable role. I am also happy to have discovered a new mystery author (to me): V.C. Clinton-Baddely, whose twist at the end of My foe outstretched beneath the tree came as a complete surprise, even though I did have my suspicions about the identity of the killer.

The Books
  • V.C. Clinton-Baddeley: My foe outstretched beneath the tree. Murder mystery.
  • Jennifer Crusie: Anyone But You. Romance, contemporary. Reread.
  • Jennifer Crusie: Getting Rid of Bradley. Romance, contemporary. Reread.
  • Jennifer Crusie: Manhunting. Romance, contemporary. Reread.
  • Elínborg Lárusdóttir: Hvíta höllin. Memoir.
  • Fannie Flagg: Can't Wait to Get to Heaven. Inspirational novel.
  • Matt Frei: Only in America. Social commentary.
  • Martha Grimes: The Anodyne Necklace. Murder mystery.
  • Georgette Heyer: Behold, Here's Poison. Murder mystery.
  • Georgette Heyer: A Blunt Instrument. Murder mystery.
  • Lora Leigh, Nalini Singh, Erin McCarthy, LindaWinstead: The Magical Christmas Cat. Romantic urban fantasy.
  • T.R. Reid: The Unites States of Europe. Political science and history.
  • Sigge Stark: Engir karlmenn, takk. Romance. Reread.
  • Patricia Wentworth: The Catherine-Wheel. Murder mystery.


Labels:

Comments

George said…
Impressive amount of reading in October! I just finished Michael Gruber's intelligent action novel, THE RETURN. I have Donna Tartt's GOLDFINCH in the on-deck circle. I also have Lawrence Freedman's magisterial STRATEGY: A HISTORY on the top of my Read Real Soon stack (but it's 3 inches thick!).
November 07, 2013 7:50 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Icelandic folk-tale: The Laughing Merman

Icelanders not only believed in the existence of selkies, but also in mer-people. The mermaids were said to be very beautiful, while the mermen were supposed to be ugly as sin but very wise and able to see things others did not. O nce upon a time a farmer went out fishing and pulled up a merman. He tried to get the merman to talk to him but he would not answer, except to beg him to release him back into the sea, but this the farmer refused to do. The farmer rowed back to land, taking the captive merman with him. When he pulled up the boat on the shore, his wife came to him and greeted him with tenderness and kisses, which he received with pleasure. This made the merman laugh. Then the man’s dog came to him and greeted him tenderly in the way of dogs, by jumping up to him, but the farmer hit the dog. Again the merman laughed. Then the farmer walked up towards his house, but on the way he tripped over a tussock and hurt himself. He got angry and gave the tussock a good kicking. Then...
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

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...
9 comments
Read more