Thursday, July 31, 2014

july reading roundup


Florida in the summer means rain. Normally it's a brief shower from 3 pm on, so regular that you can set your watch by when the rain starts, but this summer it's been a lot of big thunderstorms.  While that means less time swimming, it's more time reading. The getting up at 5 a.m. to have peace and quiet also adds to reading time, so I did very well this month. Keeping in mind that I read for my own entertainment and not because I want to be one of those readers who write the  "lengthier, more considered critical judgments we used to have time to write and read,"  as per Thomas Mallon, I'm having a good time with my book choices.  


JULY

fiction/literature
The Lobster Kings, by Alexi Zentner
The Farm, by Tom Rob Smith
In the Wolf's Mouth, by Adam Foulds (read, not yet discussed)

crime
The Cold, Cold Ground, by Adrian McKinty (read, not yet discussed)
Herbie's Game, by Timothy Hallinan
The Stone Boy, by Sophie Loubière
Resurrection, by Wolf Haas
Silent Kill, by Peter Corris
Sorrow Bound, by David Mark

nonfiction


weird fiction/horror/fantasy/sci-fi
The Elementals, by Michael McDowell (the Valancourt Books ed.)
Worlds of Hurt, by Brian Hodge (just finished today so no discussion yet, but yowza!)

Now the rest:

1) Wishlisted books:
       
      A) Crime Fiction:
Motor City Burning, by Bill Morris
The Household Traitors, by John Blackburn
Blue Octavo, by John Blackburn

       B) General/Literary Fiction
Will Not Attend: Lively Stories of Isolation and Detachment, by Adam Resnick
Call it Sleep, by Henry Roth

       C) The Weird, the Strange, the Supernatural, etc.
nothing this month
      D) Nonfiction: 
Unruly Spaces: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities and Other Inscrutable Geographies, by Alastair Bonnett


2) Books bought this month: 

      A) crime fiction  
The Mad and the Bad, by Jean-Patrick Manchette
A Cut-Like Wound, by Anita Nair
The Glass Cage, by Colin Wilson
*Come Sweet Death, by Wolf Haas
*The Boneman, by Wolf Haas
*Resurrection, by Wolf Haas
*The Accidental Pallbearer, by Frank Lentricchia
*The Dog Killer of Utica, by Frank Lentricchia
*A Very Profitable War, by Didier Daeninckx
*Nazis in the Metro, by Didier Daeninckx
I Hear the Sirens in the Street, by Adrian McKinty

      preorderedLast Winter We Parted, by Fuminori Nakamura

*thanks to Melville House's 40% off sale! 
   
   B) general/literary fiction
*We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler
*To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, by Joshua Ferris
*The Lives of Others, by Neil Mukherjee
*The Wake, by Paul Kingsnorth
*History of the Rain, by Niall Williams
Tigerman, by Nick Harkaway
All That is Solid Melts Into Air, by Darragh McKeon

      preordered:  The Lotus and the Storm, by Lan Cao
                              Augustus, by John Williams
                       The Dog, by Joseph O'Neill
                      The Disunited States, by Vladimir Pozner

* thanks to the booker prize longlist judges coming up with these


      C) the weird, the strange, the supernatural, sci-fi etc.  
North American Lake Monsters, by Nathan Ballingrud
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson
Lai-Wan: Tales of the Dreamwalker, by C.J. Henderson
Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts, by W.H. Pugmire
Weird Inhabitants of Sesqua Valley, by W.H. Pugmire
  
        preordered: nada

     D) spy fiction
A Most Wanted Man, by John LeCarre

      E) nonfiction
The Explorers: A Story of Fearless Outcasts, Blundering Geniuses and Impossible Success, by Martin Dugard
  
     preordered : nada


3) Indiespensable, Book Passage Signed First Edition, and Politics and Prose Signed First Edition  books for this month:
Indiespensable: #48:  The Great Glass Sea, by Josh Weil  -- arrived and I'm so ready to read it, but other obligations are pushing it out further
Book Passage:  Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng
Politics and Prose:  The Zhivago Affair, by Peter Finn and Petra Couv
éé


4The book group is on hiatus, coming back in September with Boris Fishman's A Replacement Life

5) Currently reading:
weird fiction:  just starting North American Lake Monsters, by Nathan Ballingrud
regular fiction:  The Antiquarian, by Gustavo Faveron Patriau
nonfiction: starting Dr. Mutter's Marvels, by Christin O'Keefe-Aptowicz (but I can't post about it until September)
crime fiction: The Devil's Road to Kathmandu, by Tom Vater (crimewave press)

 this month I gave away two giant bags of books, two boxes of books, and several others.  Thanks to all who gave them new homes. My husband Larry thanks you as well.


still storming -- so I'll just go read now.





2 comments:

  1. Just came across your book blog and saw lots of reading similarities -- Herman Koch fan here. Also anxious to try The Farm. Hope to stop back now and then and check on your reading recommendations.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very nice - thank you for stopping by! I enjoyed the Koch book, and hopefully before the summer's out I'll have time for The Dinner as well.

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