Friday, July 30, 2010

July Reading Roundup

I know it's a day early, but tomorrow is a busy day, so I need to do this today.


July's reading topic was "light reads," and that's exactly what I did. My favorite book for July was Death in Breslau, by Marek Krajewski, although there were so many good ones this month that it was hard to choose just one.  Here's how the list shakes out:



British mysteries and UK crime fiction
The Caribbean Mystery, by Agatha Christie
Third Girl, by Agatha Christie
The Franchise Affair, by Josephine Tey

French crime fiction
The Chalk Circle Man, by Fred Vargas
Badfellas, by Tonino Benacquista

Historical True Crime
The Magnificent Spilsbury and the case of the Brides in the Bath, by Jane Robins

Italian crime fiction
The Shape of Water, by Andrea Camilleri
August Heat, by Andrea Camilleri

Japanese crime fiction
 The Master Key, by Masako Togawa

Polish crime fiction
Death in Breslau, by Marek Krajewski

Scandinavian crime fiction
The Darkest Room, by Johan Theorin 
--winner of the CWA International Dagger award

South African Crime Fiction
Thirteen Hours, by Deon Meyer (not yet reviewed...soon)

Fantasy/Speculative Fiction
Kraken, by China Mieville

Fiction
Chef
The Madonnas of Echo Park, by Brando Skyhorse




In other book-related stuff:
1) My book group is on hiatus until the end of September
2) Added to the Amazon Wishlist
--Blood on the Saddle, by Rafael Reig
--The Elements of Murder: A History of Poison (no, I'm not planning to kill my spouse)
--Operation Mincemeat: The True Spy Story that Changed the Course of World War II, by Ben Macintyre
--Therese Raquin, by Emile Zola
--Taking Apart the Poco Poco, by Richard Francis
3) A huge number of ARCs (too many to list) came in, and 23 books went out this month. Chef by Jaspreet Singh came to me from Librarything's Early Reviewer program (thanks!) 
4) The number of books bought, well, let's just say I need to seriously think about a 12-step program to combat the urges
5) Until I replace my Kindle, I discovered I can get Kindle books on my phone. 

August begins the Booker Prize longlist, and I'll throw in a few more crime novels as well -- I have two more books by Krajewski to read.

and that's it!

2 comments:

  1. "Amd that's it"! What a great month! I love the idea of trying out all different countries crime fiction! Will you be having a post that compares the different countries approaches? That might be interesting

    ReplyDelete
  2. Operation Mincemeat has been on my wish list for a bit now.

    ReplyDelete

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