January 2011

Hi everyone, I am trying to keep up with posts this year and as its officially 1st February here in New Zealand I thought I would start off as I mean to continue.

My January reads:

Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone JK Rowling - 4 stars
Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley - 4 1/2 stars
The Shawl Cynthia Ozick - 3 stars
The Greedy Bastard Diary Eric Idle - 4 1/2 stars
Sunnyside Joanna Murray-Smith
The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag Alan Bradley - 4 1/2 stars
The Hundred Dresses Eleanor Estes - 4 1/2 stars
Cutting for Stone Abraham Verghese - 3 1/2 stars
Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy Ally Carter - 4 stars
No and Me Delphine de Vigan- 4 stars
Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets JK Rowling - 4 stars
Murder with Puffins Donna Andrews - 3 1/2 stars
The Night of the Mi'raj Zoe Ferraris - 4 1/2 stars
Harry Potter and the Prizoner from Azkaban JK Rowling - 4 stars

Best book of the month:
The Night of the Mi'raj This was such an easy and enjoyable book to read. Set in Saudia Arabia Ferraris gives an accurate picture of the differences between men and women including their dress, their freedoms and expectations.

I thought it was about time I picked up the Harry Potter books. I have managed to read the first 3 in January and are enjoying them a lot. I am looking forward to reading the remainder over the next couple of months and then venturing into the films.

Worst book of the month:
The Shawl I struggle to read short stories. I like a story that has a bit more depth and find that short stories just do not do it for me. In saying that I have challenged myself to read more short stories this year so will be interested to see how the year goes.

I look forward to seeing what everyone else has read during January.

Well done, Diane! I think we all need a bit of a nudge this year. I'm putting off writing an assignment so this is the perfect moment to catch me for a bit of procrastination. Here goes with my January books.

1 The Nature of Monsters
2 How to Read the Victorian Novel
3 Goldengrove
4 Lucy
5 The Crimson Petal and the White (reread)
6 The Apple (reread)
7 Goodbye, Mr Chips
8 Kiss of the Spider Woman
9 The Essential Handbook of Victorian Etiquette
10 Jasmine
11 A Good School
12 How to Boil a Flamingo
13 The Snowman

I'm sure everyone knows by now how much I adore Michel Faber and The Crimson Petal and The Apple remain among my favourite books ever, even at the umpty-millionth read. I'm making them both inelligible for my Book of the Month as they were rereads and have no doubt already won in the past.

Francine Prose is another favourite writer and, as I would have expected, her coming-of-age/loss of innocence novel, Goldengrove is among the best of its kind.

Lucy and Jasmine are both Jane Eyre inspired and were neccesary reads for study purposes - two good books but I've had my fill of this kind of thing for a while.

As you'd expect, the Essential Book of Victorian Etiquette and How to Boil a Flamingo are both advice books of the kind that are fascinating to lovers of the 19th century.

Kiss of the Spider Woman was a great book but with truly irritating footnotes, which - sadly- lost it several points in my mental reading-enjoyment calculator, while The Nature of Monsters and A Good School were both excellent reads. The Snowman is an intriguing thriller with lots of twists and turns. Jo Nesbo (according to the flash on the cover) is meant to be "the next Steig Larrson" but I hated Dragon Tattoo - this one, on the other hand, has kept me nicely on the edge of my seat for several days.

Exclusing those two Faber favourites, book of the month for January has to go to Goldengrove - one of those gems I know I shall reread.

So happy to see this post on Feb. 1st even!! I was worried this group was shriveling up - and I love having a place to list my books read each month. Without further ado:

Book Club/Assigned Books
Message in a Bottle - Mr. Sparks is not my favorite writer and this did not change my opinion.
The Anatomy of Peace - some interesting ideas about how peace or conflict is really connected to how we feel about people in general - how we value them.
Waterless Mountain - I have an ongoing personal challenge to read Newberry Medal winners and picked one up this month. Didn't realize it was about the Navajos - quite enjoyed it.

Series Reads
Stuck in the Middle
Age Before Beauty
Third Time's a Charm - these are all by Virginia Smith, who writes Christian fiction. Read the first as a free book for my Kindle and quite enjoyed it. They are sort of "chick-lit" but also mix in family relationships and some Christian faith. The second is probably the weakest story.
A Clash of Kings
A Storm of Swords - by George RR Martin. My brother is a huge fan and he's been bugging me to read the series for awhile, so I finally broke down. They are massive books with a historical fiction feel (though they are in fact fiction with a bit of fantasy). I like them alright but they aren't my favorites.
The Camelot Caper
The Borrower of the Night
Street of Five Moons
Silhouette in Scarlet - by Elizabeth Peters, these are quick and fun mystery type reads. I like Ms. Peter's strong but quirky female leads.

Non-Fiction
A Dog Named Slugger - very enjoyable look at how a service animal made a difference, not just physically, but spiritually too.
En Route: a Paramedic's Stories - loose collection of interesting stories from a paramedic. Nothing outstanding.
Life's Too Short to Fold Fitted Sheets - amusing little book about home care short cuts.

Everything Else
Emma and the Vampires - big miss for me - it read like a "learn English rewrite" abridgment with the liberal sprinkling of vampires just for the sake of mentioning the word.
Jane and the Damned - this I quite liked! Picturing Jane Austen as a vampire was fun - the story made sense and was original.
Remember Me? - Ms. Kinsella writes fun "chick-lit" and this was both a silly premise and, at the end, a realistic "taking accountability for my life" tale.

My favorite for the month - I really enjoyed A Dog Named Slugger and Jane and the Damned but overall there were no outstanding books in my reading this month - mostly just fun escape.
Now I've got to get thinking about my book of the year!

Great to see you back tjs! Things were looking a bit shasky there for a while, weren't they? Still, three people definitely constitute a group so we're up and running again. Looking forward to seeing what you pick from last year's batch.

#2 & #3. You have both read some really interesting books in January. My TBR list seems to be growing incredibly quickly lately.

Tell me about it! I failed the Books Off the Shelf challenge last year and am doing my best this year to read at least two 'old' books (ie. ones that have been on Mount TBR since 2010 or earlier) for every new one and yet that pile is still growing. From the books listed above, only 4 were new ones but that's just because it's the start of the year and I haven't had the chance to go completely crazy yet. Even so, I seem to have acquired 17 new books since January 1st and I'm meeting a friend for coffee in my favourite bookshop on Saturday so the chances of me coming back from there empty-handed are nil (especially as I still have a Xmas token to spend). I'm pretty certain that if it weren't for recommendations from other LTers I wouldn't be in this mess!

ETA - Today's post just arrived with the ER book I don't even remember requesting. Make that 18 new books.

I can totally relate but I did have a good laugh. How many people on LT say they want to cut back on the book buying but with us all being completely and addicted to books I don't think any of us manage to well.

Hope the 18 new books are good ones.

#7 As usual, I expect there'll be a mix of good and bad but I really am being pleasantly surprised by some of the old ones. I simply can't imagine why I left them as long as I did - I've been missing some great stuff!