September Reading!

[sweet_sparrow]

Hey all! I'm feeling a wee bit swamped in stuff. (And the final days of September/beginning days of October are looking set to be an emotional rollercoaster.)

So I thought I'd inquire into everyone's reading a little earlier. (Obviously, feel free to wait to answer or not answer at all.) What have you been reading in September?

I'd expected to get loads of reading done with classes started up again, but I feel sorely disappointed. That may be because September has been an abysmal month for reviewing, though.

Books I've Read:

Ancient Irish Tales by Cross & Slover (Sorry, lazy. Their names are long.)
Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
Complete Short Fiction by/of Oscar Wilde
Far from You by Lisa Schroeder
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (dnf)
Haiku by Patricia Donegan
Mella and the N'anga by Gail Nyoka
Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger (I've been trying to say something about this book since I finished it.)
The Sound of Water by various poets
Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Writing with Power by Peter Elbow

It's actually not much different from other months. That's about 12 books. My favourite was definitely Mella and the N'anga. I may finish Cybele's Secret before the month is out, but we'll see... I've also been reading Casting the Runes and Other Stories. Soon I shall be all out of coursework mandatory reading... Well, except for LotR, but I know I like LotR and cannot call it 'mandatory'.

What's your reading been like?

Comments

[to_love_a_rose]

I managed to finish three books this month. All on the same day, no less.

The Incendiary: The Misadventures of John the Painter, First Modern Terrorist by Jessica Warner - Th story of a disturbed man during the American Revolution who got it into his head to burn down the Royal Dockyards and thus be the greatest hero of the America. It did not go well for him. It's a fascinating account, full of details of 18th century life. Rather sad, though.

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby - A collection of essays about reading. I'd actually read it once before, but I own it now and I read it again as soon as I got it. The essays are funny and very easy to read, and introduce you to books you might not have heard of. There are three books in the series. I have the first two.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson - I'm pretty well shocked at myself for reading this at all, much less buying it new in hardcover. It's not at all my usual genre of book, but I was looking for something to read and I ran across recommendations on Amazon and all of the sudden I had to have the book. It wasn't bad. Possibly not worth such an unusual and expensive purchase, and I don't feel fit to judge it's treatment of race in the UK, but as a story, I enjoyed it.

Right now I'm working on Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Lamb: Selected Works which is mostly the Essays of Elia interposed with letters by Lamb throughout his life.

[sweet_sparrow]

I wish I could finish three books on the same day! (Of course it might help if I first started reading three books at the same time...)

That first book sounds like one I'll definitely have to recommend to a friend... It sounds like something she'd find utterly fascinating. ^-^ Thank you! ^-^

Are you enjoying the Elizabeth Gaskell? (Since I have an ereader now, eventually I want to read more classics and Gaskell is one of the authors I'd like to read and don't know where to start. I have an aversion to starting with the books everyone and their cat seems to love most.)

[to_love_a_rose]

I enjoyed Cranford and North and South, but last night I set aside Mary Barton and I'm not sure if/when I'll pick it back up. I can't explain exactly what I disliked about it, but it's not holding my attention.

I'm really not sure where to suggest starting with Gaskell. I think her writing is strongest in Cranford, but North and South had more interesting things going on. And you may very well like Mary Barton. It's not badly written, it just failed to hold my interest. The dialects are hard to read at times, and it's depressing, finally one particular thing made me go "eh" and put it aside.

[sweet_sparrow]

Wrong mood/time for it maybe? I have that a lot with the Discworld books. (Only there it means I tend to want to throw books across the room.)

Thanks for helping! ^-^ I might go for Mary Burton just to be contrary. ^-^