Month in Review

It was a dark and stormy afternoon as yours truly cast about aimlessly for something to post on, having planned through yesterday but no further. I looked at other people's blogs but didn't find any help there. It's way too soon to blog about how I have nothing to blog about.

Then it hit me: I could resurrect one of my many, many abandoned features!

Without further ado, I present: NOVEMBER IN REVIEW!

As a personal aside, did this month go by in about five minutes for anyone else? I was shocked when Thanksgiving came, stunned to be filling out my paperwork for work and realizing that the pay period ended in December and that my end-of-year callbacks had come around!

I only read three books in November, but they were all pretty good. Lisa Jewell's Ralph's Party was a proto-Jewell (her first novel) but still enjoyable. Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter was amazing, as beautiful and evocative as its title and also an interesting document of a long-gone lifestyle. Where You Once Belonged by Kent Haruf, was good too, lean, mean and nothing but action.

I tried to read Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart and am appropriately ashamed of my inability to get into the book. I abandoned it at around page 35 or so, despite the fact that I was about a quarter of the way through this extremely short novel.

I visited the library twice. I was pleasantly surprised to learn how inexpensive the hold fees are, but dismayed at the larger trend of lack of respect for the purpose of the library and the other patrons that are using it. I guess it fits right in with lack of respect in the stores, on the road, on the telephone, and even in internet comments (though I'm happy to say, only once here. If you're reading this, you're statistically a higher caliber of person than those that go to craigslist to swear and make racist remarks. Good on you).

I did well with my blog, making 13 posts and hitting all the BTT's. I still rarely get comments and I'm not sure what to do about that, but oh well.

All in all, November was a short, rushed month. I still have quite a bit of reading from my two library trips and am working on an interesting one right now. I think I'll get back to it!

June in Review

I can't believe it's come and gone already, but it was an exceptionally busy month for me, with lots of beautiful weather -- which showed on my blog. I finished four books this month (working on Molo'kai still):

Sabin Willet, The Deal
Sandra Dallas, Prayers for sale
Chuck Klosterman, Downtown Owl
Paul Auster, I thought my Father was God

I liked all four of them a lot. I Thought My Father Was God was probably my favorite. The Deal was my least favorite, just because it doesn't have a way of staying with you as much as some of the others. It was shallower.

In the past week, I kind of ran out of steam on my blog. In my defense, it was a pretty busy week, but I usually at least take the time for BTT, and I didn't this past Thursday. In fact, I only did two out of the four this month. I went to the library once and still have about half of the books from my haul to go. But, you know, there are a lot of things to do in the summer that you can't do any other time of year, so I guess it makes sense.

May in Review: Yet Another New Feature

What can I say, I like blog features. I know I have a lot that I never utilize (LIttle Sister Syndrome comes to mind, I think I did a grand total of one). But I'm going to try to do these around the beginning of each moth, about my last month's reading.

In May, I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Plain Heathen Mischief, Snow Falling on Cedars, The Thirteenth Tale, and The Bearded Lady. I gave up on Human Voices halfway through. Of the ones I finished, I'd rate two of them (Snow Falling on Cedars and The Thirteenth Tale) as excellent, must-reads. Edgar didn't do much of anything for me, nor did The Bearded Lady. Plain Heathen Mischief seemed to have a sort of train-wreck fascination for me, looking back, with a genuinely likeable main character who made nothing but bad choices that brought misery on his head.

I visited the library once and still have two books to read from that trip. (Thank God for the renew feature). I also realized that I failed to blog about meeting Tony Horwitz. I'll have to rectify that soon. Overall, a good month for books, averaging better than one per week, and managing to get in two that I really, really enjoyed. I bogged down in Human Voices and also in The Bearded Lady but did OK otherwise.