March Reading Roundup

March was a slow month for Aussie fiction, because out of nowhere I decided to finish the Martin Beck series written by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.   Most people are familiar with The Laughing Policeman, most likely because in 1973, there was a movie made based on this book starring Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern, but the whole series is genius.  I took time out to get this movie from Netflix and was appalled at what the screenwriters and everyone else concerned did with the original story.  And while I'm digressing anyway, here's another bad news flash: I read today at It's a Crime (or a Mystery) that Disney is "rebooting" Agatha Christie's Miss Marple -- making her younger AND putting her in America.  I'm not so sure that's a good thing, a) because why mess with perfection and b) although it might get people interested enough in Agatha Christie because of this to pick up her books, they might get turned off because the Miss Marple in the books will most likely bear no relation at all to the Disney version.  Call me a purist, but I don't get it.

Okay. Digression over. Here's the roundup:

The Australian Authors Challenge 2011
Breath, by Tim Winton
Wanting, by Richard Flanagan
Wonders of a Godless World, by Andrew McGahan
Scream Black Murder, by Philip McLaren
Last Drinks, by Andrew McGahan (read, not yet reviewed but posting soon)

Scandinavian Crime Fiction
The Fire Engine that Disappeared, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Murder at the Savoy, by  Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The Abominable Man, by  Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The Locked Room,  by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
Cop Killer,  by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The Terrorists,  by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

British mystery/UK Crime Fiction
  The Mystery of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie

 Nonfiction
The Anatomy of  a Moment: Thirty-five Minutes in History and Imagination, by Javier Cercas (read, not yet reviewed, but posting soon)

other book related stuff:
1) My book group this month read Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer -- which we liked, but which sort of divided us over impressions of Chris McCandless

2) Added to the Amazon Wishlist:
Books Burn Badly, by Manuel Rivas
The Devil's Disciple, by Shiro Hamao
River of Shadows, by Valerio Varesi
Ashes to Dust, by Yrsa Sigurðardóttir 
Bunker, by Andrea Maria Schenkel
Crimini: The Bitter Lemon Book of Italian Crime Fiction, by Giancarlo de Cataldo

3) ARCs: I passed on the LibraryThing Early Reviewer choices for February; but received a number of books including Kamchatka, by Marcelo Figueras, which I will post in May after its release (but it's really good!) 

4) Books bought this month:

The Consorts of Death, by Gunnar Staalesen
Ice, by Louis Nowra
Under the Snow, by Kerstin Ekman
An African in Greenland, by Tete-Michel Kpomassie
Ice Trilogy, by Vladimir Sorokin
Arctic Labyrinth, by Glyn Williams
The Blue Light Project, by Timothy Taylor
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, by Edgar Allan Poe
On the Proper Use of Stars, by Dominique Fortier


5) Book Purge, Round two: another 6 boxes of books split between my local friends of the library, goodwill, Bookmooch, Swap.com, Paperback Swap, and my friend Annette


6) as of right now, currently reading Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Frozen Assets, by Quentin Bates.
 
that's it for now.