Second Quarter Report - Books read from April to June, 2014

The year, she is flying by.

Hard to believe we're already in the latter half of 2014.  The following are my reads for the second quarter of the year.  I deliberately skipped reviewing Fidelity by Grace Paley (a reread) and Outrageous Fortune by Anthony Russell (a book I found disappointing), but still plan to review everything else that lacks a link, including the Fact or Fib books and I'm Not Cute, both read at the beginning of May.  Links are provided where applicable.

April

46. Itch Rocks - Simon Mayo

47. 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Germany - Steven Pressman

48. Tooth and Claw - Jim Arnosky

49. The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (1-paragraph description w/in text)

50. Femininity - Susan Brownmiller (brief mention)

51. How to Lose a Lemur by Frann Preston-Gannon

52. Ode to Childhood, ed. by Lucy Gray

53. The Accidental Caregiver - Gregor Collins

54. A Single Breath - Lucy Clarke

55. The Other Typist - Suzanne Rindell

56. Where the Cypress Whispers - Yvette Manessis Corporon

57. The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

58. Poetry for Young People: Robert Frost, ed. by Gary D. Schmidt, illus. by Henri Sorensen

59. Poetry for Young People: African-American Poetry

60. Birds of America (stories) - Lorrie Moore (1-paragraph description w/in text)

61. Fidelity (poems) - Grace Paley

May

62. Fact or Fib 2 - Kathy Furgang

63. I'm Not Cute - Jonathan Allen

64. For Such a Time - Kate Breslin

65. Fact or Fib - Kathy Furgang

66. Outrageous Fortune - Anthony Russell

67. Delicious! - Ruth Reichl

68. We Were Liars - E. Lockhart

69. Acts of God - Ellen Gilchrist

70. All the Birds, Singing - Evie Wyld

71. Echo Boy - Matt Haig

72. Pigs in Heaven - Barbara Kingsolver

73. Don't Try to Find Me - Holly Brown

74. One Night in Winter - Simon Sebag Montefiore

75. Anton and Cecil: Cats at Sea - Lisa and Valerie Martin

76. The Forgotten Seamstress - Liz Trenow

June

77. Half Bad - Sally Green

78. Solsbury Hill - Susan M. Wyler

79. The Hurricane Sisters - Dorothea Benton Frank

DNF: I'm Nobody - Alex Marestaing

80. The Humans - Matt Haig

81. Bark - Lorrie Moore

82. Incendiary Girls - Kodi Scheer

83. The Longest Way Home - Andrew McCarthy (reread)

84. The Scatter Here is Too Great - Bilal Tanweer

85. Time and Again - Jack Finney (reread)

86. World of Trouble - Ben H. Winters

87. In the Sea There Are Crocodiles - Fabio Geda

88. Nick and Tesla's Secret Agent Gadget Battle - Pflugfelder and Hockensmith

89. Doctor Who: Tales of Trenzalore - Richards, Mann, Finch and Morris

It took me some time to get around to reading poetry in April for National Poetry Month, but when I got around to it I had a blast. I love poetry because it's challenging and thought-provoking, although admittedly I like poetry that has a clear theme better than poems that puzzle me. I'll often read and reread a poem to try to figure out what the author is trying to say when I don't get it, though. Favorites besides the poetry in April were Itch Rocks, 50 Children, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry and How to Lose a Lemur.  I also enjoyed The Accidental Caregiver, A Single Breath and The White Tiger.

I'm not sure how I managed to skip the Fact or Fib books when I was reviewing but May was a rough month. I loved almost everything I read (with only one exception) but it was probably because I read so many fabulous books in a row that I went through a miserable book slump. Favorites were We Were Liars, All the Birds, Singing, Echo Boy and Anton and Cecil. 

I included a DNF in my June list because I took the time to write a post, although I'm Nobody was not the only book I set aside.  Traveling gave me some extra reading time, both on the plane and sitting on my son and daughter-in-law's breezy porch. Favorites in June were Half Bad, The Humans, World of Trouble and In the Sea There Are Crocodiles. I also enjoyed rereading Time and Again and The Longest Way Home, both favorites from past years, and thought the newest Nick and Tesla book was the most entertaining in that series, so far.  Tales of Trenzalore was also a great escape.  

I will try to remember to update this post with links as I review the books I haven't gotten around to reading, yet. 

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Quarterly Reading Report - January to March, 2014

I'm pretty sure I forgot to post a month or two's worth of reading so I'm going for the quarterly report. January was really a terrific month in which almost all of the authors were new to me (the exceptions are Sarah Addison Allen and Julie Klassen). Although it wasn't typical for quantity, January being the month I typically bury myself in books to the detriment of all else, the quality was terrific. 

February was dominated by children's books but the grown-up reads I finished were all enjoyable. Favorites were The Rosie Project (an upper) and On Such a Full Sea (bleak but fascinating dystopian) in adult books; Spy Smuggler and Who's in the Tree in children's (will review the latter, soon). 

March ended on a high note with the second installment in Ben Winters' "Last Policeman" series, followed immediately by David James Poissant's stellar short story collection, The Heaven of Animals. There was actually only one book that I found disappointing in March and I haven't reviewed it, yet, so I'll wait to talk about the good and the bad in that one, later.  Links lead to my reviews, if applicable. 

January

1. Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile - R. Brier and H. Hobbs

2. Somewhere in France - Jennifer Robson

3. The Children's Paul: A Life of St. Paul for Young People - J. G. Stevenson

4. Someone Else's Love Story - Joshilyn Jackson

5. See Inside An Egyptian Town - ed. by R. J. Unstead

6. Brain: The Man Who Wrote the Book that Changed the World - Dermot Davis

7. The Dancing Master - Julie Klassen

8. Nick and Tesla's High-Voltage Danger Lab - Pflugfelder and Hockensmith

9. Vampires in the Lemon Grove - Karen Russell

10. The Gods of Heavenly Punishment - Jennifer Cody Epstein

11. A Star for Mrs. Blake - April Smith

12. Lost Lake - Sarah Addison Allen

13. Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offill

14. This Dark Road to Mercy - Wiley Cash

February

15. Spy Smuggler: Paul Lelaud, France, 1942-44 - Jim Eldridge

16. The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion

17. On Such a Full Sea - Chang-Rae Lee

18. Is That My Cat? - Jonathan Allen

19. Who's in the Tree? - Craig Shuttlewood

20. Why Does Earth Spin? and other questions about our planet - Mary Kay Carson

21. Nick and Tesla's Robot Army Rampage - Pflugfelder and Hockensmith

22. Who Were the American Pioneers? and other questions about Western Expansion - Martin W. Sandler

23. The Making of a Marchioness (or Emily Fox Seton), parts 1 and 2 - Frances Hodgson Burnett

24. The Returned - Jason Mott

25. Fallen Beauty - Erika Robuck

26. How Does a Seed Sprout? and other questions about plants - Melissa Stewart

27. How Does the Ear Hear? and other questions about senses - Melissa Stewart

28. How Does a Caterpillar Become a Butterfly? and other questions about butterflies - M. Stewart

29. What Was America's Deadliest War? and other questions about the Civil War - Martin W. Sandler

30. Redshirts - John Scalzi

31. The Big Needle - Ken Follett

March

32. Shadows in the Sun - Gayathri Ramprasad

33. A History of the World with Google Earth - Penny Worms and William Ing

34. Goodnight Songs - Margaret Wise Brown

35. The Taste of Apple Seeds - Katharina Hegena

36. Logopolis by Christopher H. Bidmead

37. Children's Wartime Diaries: Secret Writings from the Holocaust and WWII, ed. by Laurel Holliday)

38. The Riverman - Aaron Starmer

39. The Martian - Andy Weir

40. Savage Harvest - Carl Hoffman

41. A Hundred Summers - Beatriz Williams

42. Mr. Owita's Guide to Gardening - Carol Wall

43. You Can Date Boys When You're 40 - Dave Barry

44. Countdown City - Ben H. Winters

45. The Heaven of Animals - David James Poissant

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Second quarter round-up, a winner and the tiny fluffball in our house

April to June were all average reading months for me, quantity-wise, but I read some fantastic books. 

April

41. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald - Therese Anne Fowler

42. The Clover House - Henriette Lazaridis

43. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L. Frank Baum

44. Orphan Train - Christina Baker Kline

45. Things We Couldn't Say - Diet Eman with James Schaap

46. Itch - Simon Mayo

47. Pain, Parties, Work - Elizabeth Winder

48. Thinking of You - Jill Mansell

49. What a Mother Knows - Leslie Lehr

50. Reboot by Amy Tintera

51. The Illusion of Separateness - Simon Van Booy

May

52. If He Had Been With Me - Laura Nowlin

53. Baker Towers - Jennifer Haigh

54. Henri, Le Chat Noir - William Braden

55. Antonia Lively Breaks the Silence - David Samuel Levinson

56. The Cat That God Sent - Jim Kraus

57. The English: A Field Guide - Matt Rudd

58. A Certain Summer - Patricia Beard

59. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

60. The 5th Wave - Rick Yancey

June

61. Ten Little Aliens - Stephen Cole

62. The Kings and Queens of Roam - Daniel Wallace

63. The Registry - Shannon Stoker

64. The Firebird - Susanna Kearsley

65. Festival of Death - Jonathan Morris

66. The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

67. We Need New Names - NoViolet Bulawayo

68. Astor Place Vintage - Stephanie Lehmann

69. To Be a Cat - Matt Haig

70. She Rises - Kate Worsley

71. The Keeper of Secrets - Julie Thomas

Links lead to my reviews, except for The Illusion of Separateness by the ever-awesome Simon Van Booy, which I haven't yet given a full review (the link leads to my initial thoughts).  I have just finished rereading The Illusion of Separateness. This time I took notes and drew arrows to show how the characters were connected -- not that I needed to, for the sake of reviewing, but I thought it would be fun to see the connections drawn out. A full review should appear, soon.  

A winner:

Random.org chose Chris as the winner of the Dr. Who book Festival of Death.  Congratulations, Chris! I've sent your address to Lisa at TLC Tours to forward to the publisher.

And, about that kitten:

I think everybody I know is going to be steamed if we're not able to keep this little gal, if only because they're enjoying the cute kitty photos.  She is awfully cute and photogenic; I can't deny it.

However, so far introducing her to the other kitties is not going well at all.  I'm keeping her in her own room, hoping that backing away from exposing cats to kitten for a bit will help.  Prissy has a lot of room to play, plenty of toys, a West Elm sofa to sleep on and a window, along with her litterbox, water and food.  But, she gets lonely, poor thing, and when I go to play with her or read near her to keep her company, the other cats wail outside the door.  I'm going to buy some of the calming spray that I used when we introduced Isabel to Fiona to see if that will help with the spitting, hissing freakouts we're having when they're exposed.  Wish me luck!

©2013 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.