October Reading Roundup

Happiest of Halloweens -- it's freakin' freezing here in Florida, just the right kind of weather for curling up in a blanket and reading, which I plan to do after I finish here.


October was the month for American authors, and I did not get as far as I liked, so I'll be carrying that theme over into November to try to read more of the many books I've pulled off the shelves in this category.  So let's see what I managed to accomplish this month:

american fiction

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, by Ben Fountain

The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

City of Women, by David R. Gillham

nonfiction

The Boys of '67: Charlie Company's War in Vietnam, by Andrew Wiest 

--- (finished in September)
How the French Invented Love, by Marilyn Yalom

  crime fiction

--american writers--

Beast in View, by Margaret Millar (US)

The Thin Man, by Dashiell Hammett (US)

His Name Was Death, by Fredric Brown (US)

--other--

Lady of the Shades, by Darren Shan  (UK)

odd/weird fiction 

(although not from the US)

Count Magnus and Other Ghost Stories, by M.R. James, ed. ST Joshi

(discussion soon)

Banquet For the Damned, by Adam LG Nevill

And now, the  other book-related stuff:
1) The book group read Kathleen Cambor's In Sunlight, In a Beautiful Garden, which produced a lively discussion where we decided that  "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  I'm delighted to see that others in the group are starting to incorporate outside sources to support and make sense of what they've read; it adds another dimension to the discussion when they bring in their outside materials to share.

 2) Added to the Amazon wishlist this month:
The Secret of Evil, by Roberto Bolano

The Lower River, by Paul Theroux

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan

Tycoonery: A Novel, by Roger Smith

The Death and Life of Main Street: Small Towns in American Memory, Space, and Community, by Miles Orvell

 3) Books bought this month (likely going on the tsukundo pile for a while)
Night in the City, by Gerald Kersh
The Boy Kings of Texas: A Memoir, by Domingo Martinez
The Big Book of Ghost Stories, ed. Otto Penzler (Vintage)
The Heart Broke In, by James Meek
Fobbit, by David Abrams
The Long Walk: The Story of War and the Life That Follows, by Brian Castner
The Forgiven, by Lawrence Osborn
Salvation of a Saint, by Keigo Higashino

4) Currently reading: 
Evel Knievel Days, by Pauls Toutonghi
Shoot the Piano Player, by David Goodis
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA, by Tim Weiner

****5) Books I'm giving away this month (sorry, to US readers only  -- free, I'll pay postage to whoever will give them a home)

1. for a very brave reader, Umbrella, by Will Self
2.  An ARC of Kevin Barry's new short story collection Dark Lies the Island (Barry wrote City of Bohane)
3. The Last Hundred Days, by Patrick McGuinness (last year's Booker Prize longlist)
4. The Folded Earth, by Anuradha Roy (duplicate in my collection)
5. The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng ( this year's Booker Prize shortlist; a duplicate -- this one is paperback edition)
6. The Reeducation of Cherry Truong, by Aimee Phan


(if you want one, some or even all of these books, be the first to leave a comment with the titles of the book(s) you want.)

 that's it. Later.