Tag: new books

Bookish Update: July 2013

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bookish updates july 2013

Currently reading: Jennifer Echols, Dirty Little Secret

Books read in July:

  1. Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
  2. Judith Martin & Jacobina Martin, Miss Manners’ Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding
  3. Etgar Keret, Suddenly, a Knock on the Door
  4. Sophie Kinsella, Wedding Night
  5. Sarah Addison Allen, The Girl Who Chased the Moon
  6. Stefanie Pintoff, In the Shadow of Gotham

Favorite book of the month: I have to go with The Girl Who Chased the Moon. It’s not my favorite book by Sarah Addison Allen, but it’s still lovely and magical!

Least favorite book of the month: Probably Wedding Night — it was a decent fluffy read, but nothing particularly special or interesting.

Books acquired in July:

  1. D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

E-books (all FREE except for *):

  1. Fanny Burney, Camilla
  2. Fanny Burney, Cecilia
  3. Fanny Burney, Evelina
  4. Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
  5. G.K. Chesterton, The Ball and the Cross
  6. G.K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other Evils
  7. G.K. Chesterton, Irish Impressions
  8. G.K. Chesterton, The Superstition of Divorce
  9. Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
  10. *Chris Dolley, What Ho, Automaton!
  11. Maria Edgeworth, Belinda
  12. Elizabeth Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Brontë
  13. Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs
  14. Charlotte Lennox, The Female Quixote
  15. L.M. Montgomery, Kilmeny of the Orchard
  16. Baroness Orczy, I Will Repay
  17. Baroness Orczy, The Elusive Pimpernel
  18. Baroness Orczy, El Dorado
  19. Baroness Orczy, Lord Tony’s Wife
  20. Baroness Orczy, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel
  21. Baroness Orczy, The First Sir Percy
  22. Baroness Orczy, The Triumph of the Scarlet Pimpernel
  23. Baroness Orczy, The Laughing Cavalier
  24. Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
  25. Sir Walter Scott, Rob Roy
  26. Gene Stratton-Porter, Freckles
  27. Ella Cheever Thayer, Wired Love: A Romance of Dots and Dashes
  28. Anthony Trollope,  Barchester Towers
  29. Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne
  30. Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage
  31. Anthony Trollope, The Small House at Allington
  32. Anthony Trollope, The Last Chronicle of Barset
  33. Jean Webster, Dear Enemy
  34. *Patricia C. Wrede, the Lyra novels

As you can see, I finally succumbed to the lure of the e-reader! Thanks to those of you who left comments on my earlier post. I definitely took them all into consideration, but at the end of the day I decided to buy a Nook Simple Touch. I was able to get a good price, and ultimately I wanted to be able to get e-books from more places than just Amazon. (As you can see, I went a little overboard this month!) In the coming weeks, as I get more used to the Nook, I’ll post again on what I’ve learned and what I think the pros and cons are. In the meantime, I’m enjoying my new toy!

Bookish Update: June 2013

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bookish updates june 2013

June is over, and so is half of 2013! I can’t quite believe it, but here we are. So far I have read 48 books, which is actually a very low number for me! When I was still in school, I read a ton, but it’s a bit harder now that I’m working full-time and have several evening commitments (not to mention the distraction of TV!). Still, here are my stats for this month:

Currently reading: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

Books read in June:

  1. Robin LaFevers, Dark Triumph
  2. Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
  3. Samuel Park, This Burns My Heart
  4. Talia Vance, Spies and Prejudice
  5. Francesca Segal, The Innocents
  6. Rachel Aaron, Spirit’s End
  7. Charles Finch, A Death in the Small Hours
  8. Meg Keene, A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration

Favorite book of the month: Operation Mincemeat, for sure! It’s nonfiction but reads like a novel, and the story is absolutely fascinating!

Least favorite book of the month: Probably This Burns My Heart. It wasn’t terrible, but there was nothing I particularly loved about it.

Books acquired in June:

  1. Talia Vance, Spies and Prejudice
  2. Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls
  3. Ben Macintyre, Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies
  4. Jennifer Kloester, Georgette Heyer
  5. M.M. Kaye, Death in the Andamans
  6. Amy Patricia Meade, Million Dollar Baby

Bookish Update: May 2013

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bookish updates-may 2013

My May update is a little pathetic, I feel, since I didn’t actually manage to read that many books! But I’m excusing myself because one of them was really long. 🙂 Here are my stats for this month:

Currently reading: Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory by Ben Macintyre

Books read in May:

  1. Lauren Willig, The Ashford Affair
  2. Michael Innes, Hamlet, Revenge!
  3. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  4. Jennifer Echols, Star Crossed
  5. Dorothy Dunnett, Niccolò Rising

Favorite book of the month: I have to say The Count of Monte Cristo. It was very long and sometimes difficult, but it was definitely worth it!

Least favorite book of the month: Definitely Niccolò Rising. It was such a slog, in my opinion…I just don’t think Dorothy Dunnett is an author for me. (When I review this book, hopefully I can explain why!)

Books acquired in May:

  1. Sharon Kay Penman, Devil’s Brood
  2. Deanna Raybourn, A Spear of Summer Grass
  3. April Lindner, Catherine
  4. Sarah Mylnowski, Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn’t Have)
  5. Rona Jaffe, The Best of Everything
  6. Patricia Wynn, The Spider’s Touch
  7. A.A. Aguirre, Bronze Gods

Once again I’ve acquired more books than I’ve read, which does not bode well for my already stuffed bookshelves! I’m justifying these to myself on the grounds that I only actually paid for four of them; the other three were giveaway wins. That makes it OK, right? 🙂

Bookish Update: April 2013

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bookish updates april 2013

Another very late post! Hopefully I can remember everything I read and bought in April…

Currently reading: Hamlet, Revenge! by Michael Innes and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Books read in April:

  1. Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave
  2. Jill Shalvis, The Trouble with Paradise
  3. Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock
  4. Robin LaFevers, Grave Mercy
  5. Anthony Berkeley, The Poisoned Chocolates Case
  6. Sharon Kay Penman, Time and Chance
  7. Jennifer Crusie, The Cinderella Deal
  8. Marie Brennan, A Natural History of Dragons
  9. Gemma Burgess, A Girl Like You
  10. Patricia Wynn, The Birth of Blue Satan
  11. Huntley Fitzpatrick, My Life Next Door

Favorite book of the month: I had lots of good reads this month, but I have to single out The Birth of Blue Satan. It’s a mystery, a period piece, and a slow-burning romance all in one! Can’t wait to read the rest of the series.

Least favorite book of the month: The Crystal Cave was so slow-moving that it really didn’t do much for me. I’m hoping the sequels will be better!

Books acquired in April:

  1. Emma Newman, Between Two Thorns
  2. Ben Macintyre, Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Assured an Allied Victory
  3. Jennifer Crusie, The Cinderella Deal
  4. Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
  5. Julie James, Love Irresistibly
  6. Gemma Burgess, A Girl Like You
  7. A.A. Milne, The Red House Mystery
  8. Polly Shulman, The Grimm Legacy
  9. Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford
  10. J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country
  11. Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories
  12. Shusaku Endo, Silence
  13. Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop
  14. In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor
  15. John Curran, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making: More Stories and Secrets from Her Notebooks
  16. Susannah Fullerton, Jane Austen and Crime
  17. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
  18. The Two Towers
  19. The Return of the King
  20. Juliet Marillier, Blade of Fortriu
  21. The Well of Shades

Yes, 21 new books in a month is probably too many. I  blame the library book sale! There was also a “buy 2, get 1 free” deal at Barnes & Noble that I couldn’t resist. So April was an aberration…probably. 🙂

Library sale score

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This weekend was my local library’s semi-annual sale, and because I am a crazy person, I went three times! Here’s what I bought:

library sale 4:2013

Flora Thompson, Lark Rise to Candleford — Picked up this one on a whim because it looked interesting; apparently it’s an autobiographical work about the author’s childhood in early 20th-century Oxfordshire.

J.L. Carr, A Month in the Country — Saw this one in a bookstore a while ago and wanted it, so this weekend I seized the opportunity!

Dorothy L. Sayers, Lord Peter: The Complete Lord Peter Wimsey Stories — I’ve been slowly accumulating all the Lord Peter Wimsey books. My goal is to read them all in publication order, so obviously the short stories will be important for that!

Shusaku Endo, Silence — Been interested in this one for ages. It’s about Christian missionaries in Japan, which is a fascinating subject that I know little about.

Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop — I loved Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels and have been wanting to read this sequel.

Susannah Fullerton, Jane Austen and Crime — It’s Austen-related, so obviously I was intrigued right away! This particular subject is an aspect of Austen’s work I don’t know much about.

In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire & Patrick Leigh Fermor — I don’t actually know who either of these people are, but I really like reading letters in general. They give such unique insights into people’s characters!

John Curran, Agatha Christie: Murder in the Making — This was an inexpensive hardcover in great condition, and I am a huge Agatha Christie fan, so why not?

Juliet Marillier, Blade of Fortriu and The Well of Shades — I read the first book in this trilogy, The Dark Mirror, a few years ago. Since I liked it a lot, why not get the rest of the series?

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings — These are some of my very favorite books, so of course I had them already…but my copies were so ugly! Allow me to demonstrate:

0618002243.01._SX140_SY224_SCLZZZZZZZ_ (new cover)     vs.     bc9b0e3befdecf559396d5a55514141414d6741 (old cover)

You guys, that dude on the right is supposed to be Aragorn. So you can see why I needed new copies of these books! And the new covers, unlike the old ones, don’t make me sad at all! 🙂

All told, I got 14 books for $30. I know some book sales are cheaper, but sadly my library doesn’t do the whole “Five bucks for a whole bag” thing. And everything is in pretty good shape, so I’m happy! Now the only problem is how to fit all these books onto my overstuffed shelves…

Bookish Update: March 2013

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bookish updates mar 2013

Sorry this post is so late! I’ve fallen significantly behind on my blog posts — still have three reviews left to write! But here’s my March update. As always, reviews of each book can be found on the “Review Index” page.

Currently reading: Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Books read in March:

  1. Hilary Reyl, Lessons in French
  2. Jonathan Eig, Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig
  3. Rainbow Rowell, Eleanor & Park
  4. Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies
  5. J.J. Murphy, Murder Your Darlings
  6. Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers
  7. Peter Ho Davies, The Welsh Girl
  8. Sarra Manning, Adorkable
  9. Georgette Heyer, Death in the Stocks
  10. Kristan Higgins, The Best Man
  11. Jude Morgan, A Little Folly

Favorite book of the month: A Little Folly — a delightful period romance that pays homage to Austen and Heyer, two of my favorite authors! Honorable mention to Eleanor & Park.

Least favorite book of the month: Lessons in French — every character was insufferable.

Books acquired in March:

  1. Candice Hern, A Proper Companion
  2. Jude Morgan, A Little Folly
  3. Sarra Manning, Adorkable
  4. Amanda Grange, Henry Tilney’s Diary
  5. Patricia Wynn, The Birth of Blue Satan
  6. Ellery Queen, The Roman Hat Mystery
  7. Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

Bookish Update: February 2013

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bookish updates

Currently reading: Hilary Reyl, Lessons in French

Books read in February:

  1. Phillip Rock, The Passing Bells
  2. Alicia Thompson, Psych Major Syndrome
  3. Tayeb Salih, The Wedding of Zein and Other Sudanese Stories
  4. Claudia J. Edwards, Taming the Forest King
  5. Anne Fortier, Juliet
  6. Gail Carriger, Etiquette & Espionage
  7. Kathryn Miller Haines, The Winter of Her Discontent

Favorite book of the month: Etiquette & Espionage — a finishing school that teaches young ladies how to be spies? To quote Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there!”

Least favorite book of the month: Juliet — cool premise, horribly annoying heroine.

Books acquired in February:

  1. Hilary Reyl, Lessons in French
  2. Liza Palmer, A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents
  3. Kristan Higgins, The Best Man
  4. Jennifer Echols, Star Crossed

Clearly I am craving the light and fluffy these days! But I’m proud of myself for only acquiring three four new books. 🙂 Onward to March!

Bookish Update: January 2013

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List-maker that I am, I thought it might be fun to collect some bookish statistics and post them at the end of every month. I’ll list the books I read, the books I acquired, and anything else that strikes my fancy.

Currently reading: Phillip Rock, The Passing Bells

Books read in January (all reviews can be found on the Review Index page):

  1. Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus
  2. Lauren Morrill, Meant to Be
  3. Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove
  4. Anna Gavalda, Hunting and Gathering
  5. Patricia Moyes, Dead Men Don’t Ski
  6. Gemma Burgess, The Dating Detox

Favorite book of the month: Hunting and Gathering — a beautiful love story with depth.

Least favorite book of the month: The Night Circus — gorgeous setting, but no real plot or character development.

Books acquired in January:

  1. Kristan Higgins, Until There Was You
  2. Julia Quinn, Just Like Heaven
  3. Kristan Higgins, Somebody to Love
  4. Umberto Eco & Cardinal Martini, Belief or Nonbelief?: A Confrontation
  5. Tayeb Salih, The Wedding of Zein and Other Sudanese Stories
  6. Patricia Moyes, Dead Men Don’t Ski
  7. Anna Dean, A Woman of Consequence
  8. Alicia Thompson, Psych Major Syndrome
  9. Hester Browne, Swept off Her Feet
  10. Kathryn Miller Haines, When Winter Returns
  11. Gemma Burgess, The Dating Detox
  12. Cynthia Smith, Silver and Guilt
  13. Susanna Kearsley, The Shadowy Horses

Secret Santa goodies!

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As you may recall, last month I signed up for the 2012 Secret Santa Exchange hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

And my Secret Santa package arrived last night! Kimberlee at Girl Lost in a Book sent me the following goodies:

Brat Farrar by Josephine TeyDeath and the Running Patterer by Robin…

  • Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
  • Death and the Running Patterer by Robin Adair
  • Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
  • And a Starbucks gift card!

Thanks so much for the great picks, Kimberlee! Can’t wait to start reading. 🙂

Library sale, part two

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Day 2 of the library sale was a little less exciting than day 1. I went with a friend, which was fun but also limiting because she wanted to look at different things (and is also not quite as book-obsessed as I am). But I did manage to pick up two more books:

Empire State by Adam ChristopherWinter in June by Kathryn Miller Haines

Adam Christopher, Empire State — I’ve heard good things about this one, and it sounds like nothing I’ve read before: a kind of sci fi/alternate history/noir hybrid.

Kathryn Miller Haines, Winter in June — I really liked the first book in the Rosie Winter series, The War Against Miss Winter, so I’ve been on the lookout for the rest of the series. I believe this is book #3.