February Reading Roundup

February meant Chinese literature, and coincidentally, the Chinese Literature Challenge which I discovered this month as well.  I'll continue to work on the Chinese lit. books each month and post them on the sidebar as I continue on.  I also got back to work on the crime fiction series by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö featuring Martin Beck and the Stockholm homicide squad.  I'm currently beginning book 6, Murder at the Savoy, and luckily still have 4 more to go before the series is finished. That will be a sad day; these books are some of the finest crime fiction novels ever written. Anyway, here's my month:

Chinese literature:
War Trash, by Ha Jin
To Live, by Yu Hua
The Vagrants, by Li Yiyun
Dream of Ding Village, by Yan Lianke
Three Sisters, by Bi Feiyu

Scandinavian crime fiction
The Laughing Policeman, by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The Man on the Balcony,  by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
The Fire Engine that Disappeared, by  Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö (review in progress)

Dutch crime fiction
Back to the Coast, by Saskia Noort

Historical crime fiction
Lumen, by Ben Pastor 

other book-related stuff:
1) My book group read and liked The Glass Room, by Simon Mawer 

2)Added to the Amazon wishlist:
Pigeon English, by Stephen Kelman
The Free World, by David Bezmozgis
A Posthumous Confession, by Marcellus Emants
The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences, by Peter D. McDonald 
Panorama, by Hans G. Adler
Murder in East Anglia, by Robert Church

3) From LibraryThing's Early Reviewer Program: The Anatomy of a Moment, by Javier Cercas; various ARCs came through the door as well from several publishers.

4) Books bought this month: 
Farewell My Concubine, by Lilian Lee
Scream Black Murder, by Philip McLaren
Riders in the Chariot, by Patrick White
The Last Draw, by Elisabet Peterzen
The Death of Donna Whalen, by Michael Winter
An Exclusive Love: A Memoir, by Johanna Adorjan
Snowdrops, by A.D. Miller
Pedro Paramo, by Juan Rulfo
Occupied City, by David Peace
The Poison Tree, by Erin Kelly

5) Major book purge; 5 boxes of giveaways to various thrift stores; 11 books otherwise left home through BookMooch & Paperback Swap. 

that's about it.  
have a happy reading March; I'm focusing on the Aussie Author Challenge from Booklover Book Reviews for the month. 


再見!!

 

September Reading Roundup

The last day of September....where has this year gone?

September found me finishing off the last of the Man Booker Prize longlist, minus one. My favorite book on the longlist was Skippy Dies, but the judges somehow did not see fit to include this one on the shortlist.  My track record of picking winners gets back to normal with that exclusion.  But that's okay -- and it will be only a few more days until the judges enlighten us with their choice.

So here's my month:

the non-longlist books:

Historical true crime
The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science, by Douglas Starr

Australian crime fiction
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

British mystery and UK crime fiction
Bad Boy, by Peter Robinson 


Scandinavian crime fiction
Frozen Moment, by Camilla Ceder (not yet reviewed...coming soon)



The last of the Bookers:
The Long Song, by Andrea Levy
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson
Betrayal, by Helen Dunmore
In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut

***

Other book-related stuff:

1) My book group read and discussed Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann

2) Added to the Amazon Wishlist:

- Annabel, by Kathleen Winter

-Cities of Refuge, by Michael Helm

-The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival, by John Vaillant

-The Mighty Walzer, by Howard Jacobson

3) From Librarything's Early Reviewer Program came Bad Boy, by Peter Robinson and The Outward Room, by Millen Brand.  Thank you to Sonia and the powers that be!  And my thanks also to Rachel at Unbridled Books for the review copy of Panopticon, by David Bajo.  Other ARCs -- again, a haul, and I thank everyone who provided me with their books!

4) Books bought this month:

-Frozen Moment, by Camilla Ceder

- Your Presence Is Requested at Suvanto, by Maile Chapman

-Room, by Emma Donoghue (signed 1st edition)

-Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous With American History, by Yunte Huang

-The Stray Sod Country, by Patrick McCabe

- The Geography of Secrets, by Frederick Reuss

- The Sentimentalists, by Johanna Skibsrud

5) -- A short piece about the evil that lurks in the quiet English village of St. Mary Mead, for the Agatha Christie birthday blog tour, organized by Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise; and

--An international giveaway of Emma Donoghue's book Room in honor of this month's reading topic

Coming up in October:  my focus will be on books from indie presses, with a spotlight on Unbridled Books, although I'll add a few other indie publishers into the mix here and there as well.  It should definitely make for interesting reading. 

***

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!

June Reading Roundup

Let's just get right to it, shall we?

I designated June as a month for reading books with "watery" titles in honor of the beginning of the rainy season here. It's also the first month of hurricane season so I threw in a couple of hurricane-related books as well. 

So here's how the reading shakes out for June - a * means it was part of my little mini-challenge:

British mysteries & UK Crime fiction:
 Taken at the Flood, by Agatha Christie*
The Secret of Chimneys, by Agatha Christie
The Thirteen Problems, by Agatha Christie (not yet reviewed)
The False Inspector Dew, by Peter Lovesey (not yet reviewed) *
Deadwater, by Sean Burke*


General Fiction: 

Hard Rain Falling, by Don Carpenter*
Taroko Gorge, by Jacob Ritari (not yet reviewed) 

German Crime Fiction:
Black Ice, by Hans Werner Kettenbach (not yet reviewed)
  
Japanese Fiction:

The Sea and Poison, by Shusaku Endo*
An Artist of the Floating World, by Kazuo Ishiguro (not yet reviewed) *

Nonfiction
Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers
The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, by Douglas Brinkley (not yet reviewed)*

Scandinavian Crime Fiction:
The Ice Princess, by Camilla Lackberg
The Inspector and Silence, by Hakan Nesser

Spanish Crime Fiction:
Water-Blue Eyes, by Domingo Villar*

In other book-related stuff:
1) My book group read and discussed The Painted Veil, by Somerset Maugham; we're taking a break until the end of September and then we'll read Let the Great World Spin.

2) Added to the Amazon Wishlist:

• A Perfect Execution, by Tim Binding
• Dead Before Dying, by Deon Meyer
• Thirteen Hours, by Deon Meyer
• No Curtain Call, by K.T. McCaffrey
• Needle in a Haystack, by Ernesto Mallo
• Beasts of Prey, by Rob Marsh
• Night Bus, by Giampiero Rigosi
• Ghosted, by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall 

  3) 13 books left the house to people on Swaptree or Paperback Swap; Aths from Books on a Rainy Day won the Zeitoun international giveaway I hosted. I also was honored to be the #1 promoter for Jo's International Aussie Author giveaway at Booklover Book Reviews and won a copy of Wanting, by Richard Flanagan. I received Taroko Gorge, by Jacob Ritari  from LT Early Reviewers, Invisible, by Paul Auster from Goodreads, and a copy of The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi on audio CD from Amazon Vine (which I'm still listening to).  And my thanks to Grove Press - Black Cat for a finished copy of Christopher G. Moore's crime fiction novel Asia Hand. I love his character Vincent Calvino and the Thailand setting of this series of novels.

4) The number of books I bought this month was a record, even for me - we won't go there. Let's just say that Book Depository is my new best friend.

July is for nothing but catching up on reviews and doing easy reading. I need to save my brain in August & September for reading the Booker Prize longlist which will be announced at the end of the month.

time to go read now!

May Reading Roundup

May was an okay reading month, and I think it was because I wasn't home for most of it so I had no guilt feelings about reading. Normally I'll sit down with a book and a cup of coffee, read a chapter and then start thinking about all of the stuff I could be doing around here.  But being away from home with no responsibilities is a good way to get through a hefty stack of books. Here's what I managed to get through in May:

British Crime Fiction
City of Fear, by David Hewson  (not yet reviewed/ British author, set in Italy)

Escape Reading
Fever Dream, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child  (#10 in the Pendergast series)


Fiction (general)
Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk
The Slap, by Christos Tsiolkas (Australian)
Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel (not yet reviewed)
Lost City Radio, by Daniel Alarcon (not yet reviewed)

German crime fiction
The Murder Farm, by Andrea Maria Schenkel


Historical fiction
The Informer, by Craig Nova
Regeneration, by Pat Barker (not yet reviewed)

Nonfiction:
Columbine, by Dave Cullen.


Scandinavian Crime Fiction:
Sun Storm, by Asa Larsson (not yet reviewed)
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson (not yet reviewed) 
Don't Look Back, by Karin Fossum

 
 Speculative fiction:
Blackout, by Connie Willis

So that's what, 14 books?

Other book/reading news:
1) My book group read and discussed The Jane Austen Book Club, and the overall census was that we didn't much care for it, but it did bring out a lively discussion which is really all that matters. 

2) Added to the Amazon wishlist:
Our Circus Presents, by Lucian Dan Teodorovici 
Nineteen Seventy Four, by David Peace
Scream Black Murder, by Philip McLaren
The Dead Yard: Tales of Modern Jamaica, by Ian Thomson
Villain, by Shuichi Yoshida
Apartment 16, by Adam L.J. Nevill
Broken Glass, by Alain Mabanckou 
A Deal with the Devil, by Martin Suter

3) 10 books left home via Swaptree and Paperback Swap; an ARC of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was given away via Librarything's Member Giveaway Program; and Sheila Korman won my copy of The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo


4) I went a little nuts buying books this month -- a combination of being in close proximity to two Half-Price Books stores in the Seattle area and being released from my earlier self-imposed ban on buying new books. 


so that's it for May.  I am going to have a LOT of reading time in June, because Larry's traveling pretty much the entire month, and it's summer - time to stretch out on the lounger by the pool and lose myself in a few novels.






  

April Reading Roundup

 There's no denying that April was a good reading month. Not buying any books for two months forced me to focus on what I had at hand, and it was good to get through so many of them.  Here's the list of what I finished in April:

Australian Crime Fiction:
Crime of Silence, by Patricia Carlon (review to come)

Books Which Became Movies: 

In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote*
The Ghost, by Robert Harris*
The African Queen, by C.S. Forester*
The Quiet American, by Graham Greene*
The Maltese Falcon, by Dashiell Hammett*
Shattered, by Richard Neely* (Originally published as The Plastic Nightmare)
The Stoning of Soraya M., by Freidoune Sahebjam*
The Painted Veil, by W. Somerset Maugham*
Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions, by Daniel Wallace*

Crime Fiction

Asia Hand, by Christopher G. Moore

Fiction in Translation
The Thursday Night Widows,by Claudia Pineiro (review to come) 
 
New Fiction
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, by David Mitchell



Nonfiction
Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy, by William Irwin [ed.] (review to come)
The Harvard Psychedelic Club, by Don Lattin


Scandinavian Crime Fiction
Arctic Chill, by Arnaldur Indridason
Hypothermia, by Arnaldur Indridason


I count 17 for total number of books read for the month. Not as good as last month, but that's okay.

In other book stuff for the month:

1) my book group read and discussed Colm Toibin's Brooklyn with mixed feelings about the book all around

2) Added to the Amazon wishlist:

• The Weight of a Mustard Seed: The Intimate Story of An Iraqi General and His Family During Thirty Years of Tyranny, by Wendell Steavenson
• Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts
• Shadow and Light, by Jonathan Rabb
• Darkness Falls From the Air, by Nigel Balchin
• Castle, by J. Robert Lennon
• Anonymous Celebrity, by Ignacio de Loyola Brandao
• The Summer of the Ibume, by Natsuhiko Kyogoku
• The She-Devil in the Mirror, by Horacio Castellanos Moya
• The Sleeping Dragon by Miyuki Miyabe
• The Eye that Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, by Frank Morn

3) several books left for new homes via Swaptree, Paperback Swap and Librarything's Member Giveway program, and for the local Goodwill as I continue to sift through books in order to gain some control over my library

4) Maintained the book-buying moratorium with one exception.

That's it (and that was a lot!).

March Reading Roundup

Between two vacations and a week to recover from two vacations in a row, March was a very full month of reading. Out of the ten titles I chose for my "decade of prize-winning fiction" focus, I finished nine. The one missing was Ceridwen Dovey's Blood Kin, which will be a priority read as April begins.  While quite a number of books read in March were in the literary fiction genre, there was also some crime fiction, speculative fiction and an ARC or two. A few were great reads, some were so-so.

The self-imposed book buying moratorium is still ongoing until the end of April.  I have received some books from Amazon that I had pre-ordered some months back, but as far as actually clicking the "buy now" button, I've managed to avoid it. And adding to my pain, I haven't gone into a bookstore and actually bought anything in person either.  I'm a very lucky person, and have been able to buy pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want, but it's created havoc and overflowing shelves in every room of the house. I'm moving books out to Swaptree and Paperback Swap on pretty much a daily basis, donating them to goodwill, or bagging up some of the books to send to troops in Afghanistan where my brother is right now. And my sister's coming to visit, so maybe I'll send her home with a few.


Here's how the actual reading went down -- a freak occurrence because of vacation time that shall not likely soon be repeated:

Under the heading of "A Decade of Prize-Winning Fiction":

1. Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee
2. Spies, by Michael Frayn
3. This Blinding Absence of Light, by Tahar ben Jalloun
4. Fox Evil, by Minette Walters
5. The Time In Between, by David Bergen
6. The Shadow Year, by Jeffrey Ford
7. Seeker, by Jack McDevitt
8. The Amnesia Clinic, by James Scudamore (review to follow)
9. A Conspiracy of Paper, by David Liss

Under Scandinavian Crime Fiction:
10. The Beast, by Anders Roslund and Borge Hellstrom
11. The Devil's Star, by Jo Nesbo
12. Woman With Birthmark, by Hakan Nesser

UK Crime Fiction:
13. A Great Deliverance, by Elizabeth George
14. A Thousand Cuts, by Simon Lelic (review to follow)

General Fiction:
15. Solar, by Ian McEwan
16. Forest Gate, by Peter Akinti
17. The Man From Saigon, by Marti Leimbach

Speculative Fiction
18. The Magicians, by Lev Grossman
19. A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

General Mystery/Crime Fiction
20. The Risk of Infidelity Index, by Christopher G. Moore
21. The Executor, by Jesse Kellerman

Nonfiction:
22.  The Devil and Sherlock Holmes, by David Grann

In other book stuff for the month,

1) my book group read and spent almost two hours discussing Catcher in the Rye, by JD Salinger. If you haven't read it, or perhaps read it when you were younger, you might want to retry it. There's a LOT packed into that little book.

2) At Amazon.com, I felt compelled to comment on (and report) a few more 1-star ratings that had nothing to do with book content (just people disgruntled over the price of the Kindle book). I also added to my wishlist the following:

  Thursday Night Widows, by Claudio Piñeiro
  Voodoo Histories, by David Aaronovitch
  Changeling, by Kenzaburo Oe

3) still working on my library at listology.com

4) Recent ARCs:

• David Mitchell's new book The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (from Librarything's Early Reviewers Program) which I just now remembered I'd already preordered for June (I see a book giveaway coming here shortly!)
• The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno, by Ellen Bryson
• Losing My Cool: How A Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture, by Thomas Chatterton Williams (also to be a book giveaway shortly)
• and thanks to Christopher G. Moore, Asia Hand, another Vincent Calvino novel. Once I figure out how the series order goes I'll start this one. Merci bien. 

okay. that's all. Happy April fool's day!