Well, I’ve been a reading machine this month despite being too quiet on the blog front. I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately, so the blog has taken a back seat. I guess you could call it series month as well. I finished the Twilight series and read 4 books in the ‘Chief Inspector Gamache’ series and read 2 books in the ‘Sookie Stackhouse’ series — all for the R.I.P. IV Challenge. I got a bit further in the Canadian Challenge III as well by reading 5 Canadian books.
My favorites of the Twilight series were the two middle books. I felt that the first book was not written as well because it was Meyer’s first book, and I definitely had mixed feelings about the last book. I enjoyed and raced through the first half or so of it, but the second half was a little sketchy for me.
My favorite ‘Gamache’ so far is A Rule Against Murder, and my least favorite is The Cruelest Month. Some of the dialogue in the latter just irritated me, but the different setting of the former was a nice change (even though I like Three Pines).
My favorite books of the month by far were The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and A Thousand Splendid Suns. The latter is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time — truly outstanding and much better than The Kite Runner.
I spent a little time analyzing the first three quarters of the year in regards to my reading and came up with the following:
- Q1: 27 books, 5503 pp.
- Q2: 29 books, 6981 pp.
- Q3: 34 books, 11560 pp.
- total: 90 books, 24049 pp. for an average of 267 per book.
The first thing I noticed was that I read twice as many pages in Q3 than in Q1. Wow. Only a 7 book difference but quite a difference in terms of pages. I have a feeling my second half of the year will be way stronger than the first half. Now if only I could get to the reviews!
September (14 books, 5605 pp)
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bradbury (1962, 304 pp) - Brooklyn
by Colm Toibin (2009, 262 pp) - The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (2009, 466 pp)
- Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (2001, 292 pp)
- New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (2006, 608 pp)
- Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (2007, 629 pp)
- Breaking Dawn
by Stephenie Meyer (2008, 754 pp) - Still Life by Louise Penny (2005, 312 pp)
- A Fatal Grace (aka Dead Cold) by Louise Penny (2007, 314 pp)
- The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny (2008, 311 pp)
- A Rule Against Murder (aka The Murder Stone) by Louise Penny (2009, 322 pp)
- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie
by Alan Bradley (2009, 373 pp) - A Thousand Splendid Suns
by Khaled Hosseini (2007, 367 pp) - Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris (2002, 291 pp)
