I finished 14 books in August, most of them from the 2010 Booker long list. I was very impressed with the overall standard of the books I read, having more 4.5+ star reads than ever before. I only hope I can repeat this next month!

Book of the Month

Books Reviewed in August:

Room – Emma Donoghue 

Skippy Dies – Paul Murray 

The Siege – Helen Dunmore 

Sweetness in the Belly – Camilla Gibb 

The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham 

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell 

The Betrayal – Helen Dunmore 

The Trespass – Rose Tremain 

A Life Apart – Neel Mukherjee  

The Weight of Silence – Heather Gudenkauf 

February – Lisa Moore 

The Passage – Justin Cronin 

The Sopranos – Alan Warner 

The Stars in the Bright Sky – Alan Warner 

The Finkler Question – Howard Jacobson

C – Tom McCarthy

In a Strange Room – Damon Galgut

Richard and Judy Book Club

I’m very excited about the launch of the Richard and Judy book club on Thursday – I’ll probably read one or two of their selections straight away. I was interested to listen to them talk about the launch of their book club in the video below – it sounds as though they have at least two books in translation. I’m sure that they’ll pick some fantastic books and I’ll enjoy their enthusiastic discussions.

I’ll also be reading most of the books on this list:

Tinkers – Paul Harding

Solo – Rana Dasgupta

Stonehenge: A Novel of 2000 BC – Bernard Cornwall

Choo Woo – Lloyd Jones

Paprika – Yasutaka Tsutsui

Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

Wolf Totem – Jiang Rong

All My Friends are Superheroes – Andrew Kaufman

Stone in a Landslide – Muriel Barbal

Young Hitler – Claus Hant

Forgetting Zoe – Ray Robinson

The Elephant’s Journey – Jose Saramago

Bad Karma – David Safier

Corrag – Susan Fletcher

More Non-Review Posts

Next week my oldest son starts school and so I will have much more time to write blog posts. I hope that I’ll be able to use this extra time to research some bookish topics so I can produce some non-review posts that will interest you.

I’ll also do some fiddling behind the scenes to try to improve navigation around my blog.

Are you excited about the launch of the Richard and Judy book club?

Which of the books on my September pile have you read?

July was a fantastic reading month for me. I enjoyed almost everything that I read, leading me to read for longer than usual. In total I finished 14 books.

Three were so good that they’ll end up as my 2010 favourites:

 

The Book of Negroes – Lawrence Hill   

Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card  

The Birth of Love – Joanna Kavenna  

The White Bone – Barbara Gowdy  

Illustrado – Miguel Syjuco 

The Surrendered – Chang-Rae Lee 

I read 11 books in June. The month seemed to fly by and I am quite pleased that I still managed to read so many books when I had such a packed schedule.

Book of the month

The Prestige – Christopher Priest 

I Know This Much is True – Wally Lamb 

Red April – Santiago Roncagliolo 

Marcelo in the Real World – Francisco Stork  

Our Tragic Universe – Scarlett Thomas 

Songs from the Other Side of the Wall – Dan Holloway 

The Russian Countess – Edith Sollohub 

Good to a Fault – Marina Endicott 

Bequest – A.K. Shevchenko 

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner 

Beatrice and Virgil – Yann Martel 

The Lacuna – Barbara Kingsolver  (DNF)

Plans for July 

I love the list of books that I have lined up for July. It includes a lot of prize winners and so I am hoping that the quality will be far better than my June reads. I know I won’t be able to read them all, but I don’t like to limit myself too much.

Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

A Life Apart – Neel Murkherjee

The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek

Palace Walk – Naguib Mahfouz

How Late it Was, How Late – James Kelman

Before the Fact – Frances Iles

The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

Luke and Jon – Robert Williams

The Book of Negroes – Lawrence Hill

Tinkers – Paul Harding

Bad Karma – David Safier

Young Hitler – Claus Hant

Sweetness in the Belly – Camilla Gibb

The Republic of Trees – Sam Taylor

Which books should I ensure I read in July?

I finished 14 books in May. I was unable to resist the Orange list and so my reading was dominated by books from it. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have the same taste in books as the Orange judges this year – I’ll post a full summary of my thoughts on the Orange short list at some point in the next week, but overall I was quite disappointed.

I noticed that all the books I read were relatively new. I am disappointed by the lack of older books and so intend to concentrate on reading a few next month.

Book of the Month

 

Beside the Sea – Veronique Olmi

The City & The City – China Miéville 

Hearts and Minds – Amanda Craig 

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet – David Mitchell 

The Weight of a Mustard Seed – Wendell Steavenson 

Even the Dogs – Jon McGregor 

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle – Monique Roffey 

A Gate at the Stairs – Lorrie Moore 

The Very Thought of You – Rosie Alison 

Acts of Violence – Ryan David Jahn 

Black Water Rising – Attica Locke 

Blueeyedboy – Joanne Harris 

Hector and the Search for Happiness – Francois Lelord 

Plans for June

The Booker long list isn’t announced until 27th July, so I am going to enjoy a brief period of time without a book prize list to work from! I’m going to try to read a few of the books that I wanted to read in May and then focus on some international reads. I hope to squeeze in a few science fiction reads too! 

A Life Apart – Neel Murkherjee

Our Tragic Universe – Scarlett Thomas

The Surrendered – Chang-Rae Lee

Marcelo in the Real World – Francisco Stork

The Birth of Love – Joanna Kavenna

The White Bone – Barbara Gowdy

Ilustrado – Miguel Syjuco

Songs from the Other Side of the Wall – Dan Holloway

Ender’s Game – Orson Scott Card

The Piano Teacher – Elfriede Jelinek

The Russian Countess – Edith Sollohub

Palace Walk – Naguib Mahfouz

How Late it Was, How Late – James Kelman

The Day of the Triffids – John Wyndham

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell

The Tin Drum – Gunter Grass

White is for Witching – Helen Oyeyemi

I know I probably won’t be able to fit them all in, but several are very short so you never know!

Which books from my list should I ensure I read?

Do you plan to read any of the same ones?

I read 11 books in April, the month being dominated by The Kindly Ones. I tried to read between 25 and 50 pages of this chunkster each day, but due to the disturbing nature I squeezed these into daylight hours – this meant that my normal reading time was almost unaffected. I was amazed at how short spells of reading added up to finishing such a long book and so I’ll try to employ this cunning stategy to read other books in the future!

Book of the Month

The Kindly Ones – Jonathan Littell

I Do Not Come To You By Chance – Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani 

The Great Perhaps – Joe Meno 

Hurting Distance – Sophie Hannah 

The Rehearsal – Eleanor Catton 

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie – Alan Bradley 

The Long Song – Andrea Levy 

Nights at the Circus – Angela Carter 

Angelology – Danielle Trussoni 

Solar – Ian McEwan 

The Temple-goers – Aatish Taseer 

Small Wars – Sadie Jones 

Seeing – Jose Saramago  (DNF)

Plans for May

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet – David Mitchell

Good to a Fault – Marina Endicott

The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner

I Know This Much is True – Wally Lamb

A Life Apart – Neel Murkherjee

Bequest – A.K. Shevchenko

Our Tragic Universe – Scarlett Thomas

The Hiding Place – Trezza Azzopardi

The Surrendered – Chang-Rae Lee

Marcelo in the Real World – Francisco Stork

Blueeyedboy – Joanne Harris

The Birth of Love – Joanna Kavenna 

Acts of Violence – David Jahn

Beside the Sea – Veronique – Olmi

The White Bone – Barbara Gowdy

The Orange Short list

I tried really hard to read most of the Orange short list before it was announced, reading 9/20 of the long list. I  concentrated on those others had said were good, but unfortunately my efforts failed to pay off and the short list was a big surprise. Even simple chance was against me and with the exception of my failed attempt at Wolf Hall I hadn’t read any of the short list.

I had wanted to read the entire short list before the winner was announced on 6th June, but my failure to predict the 6 finalists has left me a bit disheartened. I had hoped to only have one or two Oranges left to read in May, but having 5 is a bit much. I will read them all at some point, but am not sure I want to read all five in May.

Black Water Rising – Attica Locke

The Lacuna – Barbara Kingsolver

A Gate at the Stairs – Lorrie Moore

The White Woman on the Green Bicycle – Monique Roffey

The Very Thought of You – Rosie Alison

Which books from my list should I ensure I read?

Do you plan to read any of the same ones?

I hope you have a fantastic May!