Wednesday, September 1, 2010

August in Review

As always, I've borrowed this template from Lily's Bookshelf. You should check out her blog, it's pretty awesome. 

Books Read:
The Red Queen - Gregory (review)
The Constant Princess - Gregory (review)
The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise - Stuart (review)
Norwegian Wood - Murakami (review)
The Thirteenth Tale - Setterfield (review)

Total Number of Books Read This Month: 5Total Number of Books Read This Year: 41
Books Started, but Never Finished:
Lolita -Nabokov
The Lady Elizabeth - Weir
Dancing With Degas- Wagner
Hunger Games -  Collins
These Children Who Come at You With Knives
 
Most Anticipated: 
The Red QueenBiggest Let Down: 
The Red QueenFavorite Read:
The Thirteenth Tale

Overall Reflection:
August marks yet another month where I didn't finish Lolita.  I am revising my expectations of myself and the novel itself and making it my goal to struggle through the end of 2010. Typically with a novel that gives me such trouble I just put it down, but I want to be able to talk intelligently about Lolita and why I had such a hard time with it, and to do that I have to finish it.

Overall August was a pretty decent month for reading. I really enjoyed The Constant Princess, The Tower, The Zoo and the Tortoise, Norwegian Wood and the Thirteenth Tale.  However after each of these reads came a period of several days where I fought to get into the next book, where I couldn't stay focused on a story long enough and parts of the last novel kept seeping into whatever I was reading.  Because of this I didn't finish as many books as I would have liked to. 


September brings the start of another school year for me, but if I've learned anything about myself in the past two years it's that I need reading to keep me sane when schoolwork gets to be to stressful, so I'm confident I'll be able to keep on a decent pace of reading. I'm also starting a brief buddy reading project with my friend Kirsten to read Brave New World and 1984 back to back.  Depending on my mood I might just turn September into a Dystopian themed month, but I guess I'll have a better feel for this in a few weeks.

 

6 comments:

Jillian said...

Looks like you had a great month! Again, I'm glad you discovered and loved The Thirteenth Tale. I'm personally not a fan of Gregory's books, and I don't really know why.

Natalie~Coffee and a Book Chick said...

A lot of work this month! I'd be interested to hear why you couldn't finish The Hunger Games -- I really enjoyed it! But, I needed something a little out there anyway! :)

Sarah Joyce said...

@Jillian - I think people either love or hate Gregory, her stuff is pretty, for lack of a better word fluffy. She picks interesting times and characters, but unless you're going to throw yourself into her slightly off historical world she's not worth reading.

@Coffee and a Book Chick - I liked what I read of Hunger Games, and I probably should have added that I started it on the 30th so I more set it aside because I was still in a really modern Gothic mood from The Thirteenth Tale and had plans to start Brave New World today then anything else. I think I'll go back to it shortly, it was pretty engrossing.

CMash said...

Please stop by and pick up your Elmer's Virtual Bag to help Adopt A Classroom.
CMash

BookQuoter said...

If you ever would like to read Lolita again, try listening to it. Jeremy Irons give a stunning rendition. I read it only after I listened. I know, it's a horrible plot line, but the writing makes up for it.

Hope you have a good new school year!

Lola said...

Thanks for the shout out! :) What a fantastic month of reading! I don't know how I missed your review of The Thirteenth Tale, but I just went back to check it out! :)