Thursday, September 30, 2010

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



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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. 

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