Tuesday, May 4, 2010

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!).

6 comments:

  1. Can't wait to read what you say about Alice and Philosophy and I just added The Eye that Never Sleeps: A History of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency to my wish list as well. Pinkerton and his involvement in the Civil War has always intrigued me.

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  2. I think once I'm in Seattle and things settle down, I'll be able to catch up on every review I'm missing! But the Pinkerton book does look really interesting (sadly, it's expensive!).

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  3. What a great month!! You have read some great books this month. Hope you enjoy May as well

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  4. Becky: Thanks! Hopefully I'll have as much time in May for reading as I did in April.

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  5. I can't wait to read Big Fish, and I've had In Cold Blood on my list for a while.

    I have become a new follower and look forward to looking through your archives.

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  6. Yay! You're a new follower. I don't get many because of my strange reading tastes, but I'm happy you're here!

    Loved Cold Blood, absolutely. Big Fish is a little tough to read ...it reads kind of in little spurts but it's still good. Have you seen the film?

    Thanks for coming by -- and we have a lot of the same music tastes!

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