5 Months Worth of Reading - Because I've completely forgotten to do monthly recaps, this year

A little bird told me it's almost June. Shock! Where does the time go? I haven't done a single "looking back" monthly update, this year, so I've decided to just throw five months' worth at you. If I've reviewed a book or at least mentioned it, there is a link to my review, below.

January

1. The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy - Marsha Altman

2. Hal Spacejock - Simon Haynes

3. Time for a Hug - Gershator, Green & Walker

4. Little Princes - Conor Grennan

5. Good Evening, Mrs. Craven - Mollie Panter-Downes

6. The Photo Album - K. B. Dixon

7. A Good American - Alex George

8. The Pocket Therapist - Therese Borchard

9. Me Before You - Jojo Moyes

10. Armageddon in Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut

11. Empire of the Summer Moon - S. C. Gwynne

12. The Painted Veil - W. Somerset Maugham

13. 501 Minutes to Christ - Poe Ballantine

14. Cinder - Marissa Meyer

15. Paranormal - Raymond Moody, M.D.

February

16. Passage - Connie Willis

17. Rose: My Years in Service - Rosina Harrison

18. We're With Nobody - Alan Huffman & Michael Rejebian

19. The World of Downton Abbey - Jessica Fellowes

20. The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet - Reif Larsen

21. On the Beach - Nevil Shute

22. The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac - Kris D'Agostino

23. Fairy Tale Interrupted - RoseMarie Terenzio

24. Paris, My Sweet - Amy Thomas

25. The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West

26. Eloise - Kay Thompson

27. Corrie ten Boom's Prison Letters

28. Cruising Attitude - Heather Poole

29. Silly Frilly Grandma Tillie by Jacobs & Jewett

March

30. Peace is Every Step - Thich Nhat Hanh

31. Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down - Sandra Boynton

32. By the Light of the Silvery Moon - Tricia Goyer

33. Red and Yellow's Noisy Night - Josh Selig

34. Before the Poison - Peter Robinson

35. Living Buddha, Living Christ - Thich Naht Hanh

36. The Word Collector - Sonja Wimmer

37. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events - Kevin Moffett

38. The Land of Decoration - Grace McCleen

39. Kitty Cornered - Bob Tarte

40. Fever - Lauren DeStefano

41. Operation Heartbreak - Duff Cooper

42. Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms - Lissa Evans

43. Mariana - Susanna Kearsley

April

44. Bloom - Kelle Hampton

45. Being Lara - Lola Jaye

46. The Shoemaker's Wife - Adriana Trigiani

47. Bawk & Roll - Sauer & Santat

48. Pobble's Way - Van Booy & Edelson

49. Light on the Concrete - Lucas Hunt

50. Paris in Love - Eloisa James

51. More Like Her - Liza Palmer

52. The Coldest Night - Robert Olmstead

53. Butterfly's Child - Angela Davis-Gardner

54. All Woman and Springtime - Brandon W. Jones

55. The Cove - Ron Rash

56. I Always, Always Get My Way - Krasnesky & Parkins

57. The Uninvited Guests - Sadie Jones

58. M*A*S*H - Richard Hooker

May

59. The Paper Garden - Molly Peacock

60. The School of Essential Ingredients - Erica Bauermeister

61. A Wedding in Haiti - Julia Alvarez

62. The Lola Quartet - Emily St. John Mandel

63. Pure - Julianna Baggott

64. Two Wars - Nate Self

65. The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd

66. The Queen: A Life in Brief - Robert Lacey

67. Next to Love - Ellen Feldman

68. The Reconstructionist - Nick Arvin

69. Cupcake Diaries: Mia's Baker's Dozen - Coco Simon

70. Forgotten Country - Catherine Chung

71. Heading Out to Wonderful - Robert Goolrick

72. Glow - Amy Kathleen Ryan

Those I didn't review:

Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down by Sandra Boynton is an older book that I read intending to buzz through it then donate. Not only is it hilarious but it also happens to contain a lot of cultural references that make your eyes boggle a bit. Oh, yes, remember when computers were HUGE and everyone had a phone with a cord that attached to the wall? I'm sure it'll be doubly fun, 10 years years from now. #getridofFAIL

Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh is all about accepting each others' religions and living in peace. I loved it, but I wasn't sure what to say about the book and since it was a loaner borrowed from one of the ladies at the gym, I gave it back without pulling out any quotations.

Instead of reviewing The Lola Quartet by Emily St. John Mandel (which I liked but didn't love) the author will be dropping in to do a guest review, sometime in the near future.

I'm pretty sure I've reviewed everything else except I Always, Always Get My Way, which I mentioned briefly and took out of my sidebar but still intend to review. I've only got 2 or 3 children's books that I need to review. I may save them and have a Children's Day. We shall see. I'm completely unpredictable, let's face it.

I've read a lot of terrific books, this year, but May was not my best month because I finished quite a few that I probably should have given up on. My favorites were the two YA books, Pure and Glow, The London Eye Mystery, The Queen and Next to Love. Two Wars is excellent but the ending was a bit of a let-down as I wanted to know more about the after-effects of the deadly battle on the author. The Paper Garden and A Wedding in Haiti were both fascinating and I liked The Reconstructionist because it was so very different. The rest were so-so. The only book I finished that I really, really wish I hadn't read at all was Forgotten Country.

At the moment, I'm really enjoying my reading, though, so hopefully June will be a terrific reading month. I shall try to make it so.

©2012 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other thanBookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Emailbookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Backwards glance - July, August & September Reads

Looking way the heck back, as in 3 months' worth of reads . . . with apologies. I've reviewed all but two of the books I read from July to September, but many of them were included in multiple-mini-review posts. So if you follow the link and find that I reviewed three or four books in the same post, that means there is not a full-length review, elsewhere. In one case, the same book was read twice and therefore both links lead to the same review.

Of the two I have not yet reviewed, one will be reviewed shortly and the other is unpublished (my friend Greg's book, Riding with No Hands).

July

79. The Summer of the Bear - Bella Pollen

80. Avebury Avenues - Esther Smith

81. The Ghost of Greenwich Village - Lorna Graham

82. Everything Beautiful Began After - Simon Van Booy

83. Gone - Michael Grant

84. Face to Face with God - Jim Maxim

85. One Second After - William R. Forstchen

86. Agonizing Love - Michael Barson

87. Amazing and Extraordinary Facts: Great Britain - Stephen Halliday

88. God Gave Us You - Bergren and Bryant

89. The Help - Kathryn Stockett

90. Divergent - Veronica Roth

91. When She Woke - Hilary Jordan

July was not bad for a summer month! Favorites were The Summer of the Bear, Everything Beautiful Began After, The Help and Divergent. I really enjoyed When She Woke, Amazing and Extraordinary Facts: Great Britain and Gone. Avebury Avenues was very informative (but tourist-book length and most interesting to those who have visited or plan to visit Avebury Stone Circle in Wiltshire, England). Agonizing Love was pretty fun but you can't think about it too hard if you're a feminist or it'll make your head hurt. One Second After was decent in a post-apocalyptic horrifying way, but the characters all sounded alike and that drove me nuts. God Gave Us You is directed at a very narrow crowd. The Ghost of Greenwich Village is probably the one book I regret reading.

August

92. Inside Out - Maria V. Snyder

93. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running - Haruki Murakami

94. Pillow Talk - Freya North

95. 13 Little Blue Envelopes - Maureen Johnson

96. The Last Little Blue Envelope - Maureen Johnson

97. The Girl Who Fell from the Sky - Heidi W. Durrow

98. Still More Stories from Grandma's Attic - Arleta Richardson

99. Treasures from Grandma's Attic - Arleta Richardson

100. Maman's Homesick Pie - Donia Bijan

101. Horoscopes for the Dead - Billy Collins

August was not bad for a month of few books. My two favorites would have to be Horoscopes for the Dead (poetry) and Inside Out (YA) but What I Talk About When I Talk About Running and Maman's Homesick Pie followed close on their favored heels. I always love the Grandma's Attic books and I liked The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. The two Blue Envelope books (both YA) were, I thought, disappointing in spite of the fact that I really like Maureen Johnson's unique turn of phrase. Pillow Talk was really very well written and not deserving of its fluffy pink cover, but the language in a couple portions offended me so greatly that it couldn't possibly end up a favorite. A little cleaned up and it would have been close to the top; the story is much deeper than I expected and Freya North is a very sharp writer.

September

102. Lord & Lady Spy - Shana Galen

103. Juniper Berry - M. P. Kozlowsky

104. The Busy Life of Ernestine Buckmeister

105. The Lost Wife - Alyson Richman

106. The Call - Yannick Murphy

107. The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine - Alina Bronsky

108. The Oracle of Stamboul - Michael David Lukas

109. Riding with No Hands - Gregory K. Moffatt, PhD

110. To the Moon and Back - Jill Mansell

111. The Taste of Salt - Martha Southgate

112. Learning to Bow - Bruce Feiler

113. Haiku Mind - Patricia Donegan

114. Everything Beautiful Began After - Simon Van Booy (reread)

August shocked the heck out of me. Seriously. I thought with all the travel (two weddings and a trip to Boston) I'd get next to nothing read, but instead it turned out to be a solid reading month. Favorites were Everything Beautiful Began After (which I loved even more on the second reading), Learning to Bow, To the Moon and Back, The Oracle of Stamboul, The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine, The Call and The Lost Wife. I'm disappointed with my ridiculously brief review of The Lost Wife. It deserved a better description. There were some minor problems but it was a very good book and I whipped through it, completely engrossed in the story. Haiku Mind (poetry/spirituality) was enjoyable but best taken in small doses and I enjoyed my friend's book, Riding with No Hands, but don't feel like I can say much about it, so . . . it goes in the generic very-good file. I'll review Ernestine Buckmeister, soon. Lord & Lady Spy had some great adventurous moments and I do think it would make a great series if the characters go on to do more spying and less arguing, but it wasn't my favorite book by Shana Galen.

My two disappointments were Juniper Berry and The Taste of Salt. Both started out good and then went downhill.

October has been pretty good, so far, with 6 books finished! I can't seem to keep up with reviewing the way I used to and it's going to get worse for the rest of the month. But, then November should be normal, I hope. How many times have you heard that? Well, I'll do my best to crank out reviews of the books I've read, so far, although they will probably be brief reviews, for the most part. In a few days, I think I'm going to have to go on a blogging break. The cooler weather is motivating us into a cleaning frenzy, here, and I am truly enjoying seeing little spaces open up in my cluttered house. So, I have to keep rolling with it, while the urge lasts. I've even put myself on holiday at Paperback Swap, so that I won't have to spend time wrapping parcels and running to the post office, although I'm going to have to make several runs to the library to get all my donations hauled to the perpetual sale corner. Those bags of books are heavy!

How is your reading month going, so far?

©2011 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery and Babble or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.