My summer is basically over! People keep asking what I did with my summer, and honestly, I’m not quite sure. Took a pie class, took a bread class, adopted a sourdough starter, made most of a quilt, rearranged the apartment to accommodate wedding presents, spent about six years of my life driving back and forth to our stationer, helped my parents move house, saw Shakespeare in the Park twice, did a few neighborhood festival things, attended a family wedding, wrote about three thousand words on a mystery novel, read a -ton- of Strange Horizons submissions, cleaned up all my school-related files so that I’m ready for the new school year… okay, so it hasn’t all been sloth. But it has mostly been reading. Mostly for my own records, but partly for your amusement, here’s my attempt to recreate the list of books I read this summer. In the interest of full disclosure, books I’d read before are marked as re-reads. (I’ve added some short commentary when something came obviously to mind, but if anyone wants a more full review of any of these, just say the word and I’ll provide.)
- Straight Man, Richard Russo. Brilliant and funny and sad all at once, highly recommended for academics and the people who love them. (re-read)
- When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead. Also brilliant. Technically a middle-grade book, but that doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it less, just that you’ll get through it quickly.
- The City & The City, China Mieville.
- The Tutor, Hope Tarr.
- He, She, and It, Marge Piercy. I read this every year or two, because I love it that much.
- Murder with Peacocks, Donna Andrews. Just for fun. (re-read)
- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot. Amazing, amazing, amazing. (It’s a little bit of cheating to put it on this list–I read most of it this spring, but was delayed in finishing because I was borrowing Matt’s copy, which he also wanted to read.)
- Norse Code, Greg van Eekhout.
- Total Oblivion, More or Less, Alan DeNiro.
- The Mother Hunt, Rex Stout. (re-read)
- Vision in White, Nora Roberts.
- Bed of Roses, Nora Roberts.
- Savor the Moment, Nora Roberts. These are the first three in the “Bride Quartet”, a mini-series of romance novels about a group of wedding planners. They’re fun, and they’re funny, and for someone who spent a lot of her summer deep in the weeds of wedding planning, they were like crack. I’m only sad that book four (titled “Happily Ever After”, obvs) doesn’t come out until November.
- Death Qualified, Kate Wilhelm. The first of her Barbara Holloway books, and I want to say it’s a perfect pivot between Wilhelm’s science fiction writing and her mystery writing, but then I think I may be giving too much away. (re-read)
- Heat, Bill Buford. (re-read)
- Faking It, Jennifer Crusie. For the book it’s trying to be (a fun and funny caper-film kind of confection of a book) it’s a perfect book. (re-read)
- Fantasy in Death, J.D. Robb. Eh. The J.D. Robb books (it’s Nora Roberts writing near-future SF-tinged police procedurals) aren’t doing it for me anymore, either because of or in spite of her ongoing effort to incorporate the SF stuff into the actual plots.
- 1959: The Year Everything Changed, Fred Kaplan. Conceptually interesting but somehow lacking in execution.
- K Blows Top, Peter Carlson. I read this for the Word book club, and somehow (once again! this is like a farce at this point!) managed to miss the book club meeting.
- Mine Til Midnight, Lisa Kleypas.
- Tempt Me At Twilight, Lisa Kleypas.
- Married By Morning, Lisa Kleypas.
- Love in the Afternoon, Lisa Kleypas. These four are part of a series, historical romances set in England around the time of the Crimean War. I didn’t read the second book in the series, Seduce Me at Sunrise, because it wasn’t available as an ebook. The books revolve around a quirky and unconventional family as all of their many children get married off, often in socially disadvantageous ways, such as to Romany or to disgraced hoteliers. I liked them quite a bit.
- Agnes and the Hitman, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer. A pastry chef and a CIA assassin mixed up with retired Italian mobsters in the South. Way more ruthless and bloodthirsty a book than I was maybe expecting, but a hell of a lot of fun.
- The Forbidden Rose, Joanna Bourne.
- Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay. I have a lot to say about this one, but having a bit of trouble framing my response.
- Exclusively Yours, Shannon Stacey.
- Mr. Impossible, Loretta Chase. Another historical romance, British Egyptologists and whatnot.
- Shaken and Stirred, Kathleen O’Reilly.
- The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, Lauren Willig.
- The Masque of the Black Tulip, Lauren Willig.
- The Deception of the Emerald Ring, Lauren Willig. More historical romances, British spies in the Napoleonic Wars. The author was a grad student in British History when she started the series, too. There are a few more in the series so far, but I’ve only gotten through the first three.
- His at Night, Sherry Thomas.
- A Carina Press “bundle” selected by the commenters at the Dear Author reviews site. (Books included:(The Sweetest Taboo by Alison Kent, Cullen’s Bride by Fiona Brand, The Older Woman by Cheryl Reavis, and Shotgun Nanny by Nancy Warren.) These books, I did not love. They weren’t bad? But they weren’t great.
- Another Carina Press “bundle”, this one chosen by SBTB’s Sarah and supposedly designed to highlight old Harlequin titles that are awesome. I did not think these books were awesome, and I actually didn’t finish about half of them. So there’s that.
- A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin. I read this before, a few years ago, but have decided to read the series again, or at least as much of it as is currently out. I’m about a third of the way through so far and enjoying it.
- Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead. I was a little wary of this one–The Intuitionist is one of the most amazing books I’ve ever read, but John Henry Days was very uneven and disappointing. But I’m almost done with Sag Harbor (yeah, I do tend to be reading two or three books at any given time) and I’m really happy with it.
- Broken Mirrors, T.A. Pratt. The only reason I’m not done with this one is that Tim hasn’t posted the last chapter yet, that bastard.
Is that it? That might be it. I really feel like I read more non-fiction than this list suggests, but I can’t remember what it might have been. Oh, six or seven back issues of the Journal of World History, but I don’t know if that counts. I brought my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel home from school at the beginning of the summer, thinking that this would be the year that I finally gave that book a fair chance at winning me over, but that didn’t happen. (If anyone wants to do a mini-book-club on GGS, though, let me know–that might be the kick that I need to get moving.)
It’s a fluff-heavy list, but it’s been that kind of a summer, apparently.
Posted Thursday, August 12th, 2010 at 8:59 am. Filed under: Uncategorized.
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I might have to read the Bride Quartet. Sounds good, and I could use some lightness to offset my hardboiled/noir/crime reading.
I would have sent you the entirety of Broken Mirrors ages ago if I’d known you wanted it! Though at this point the final chapter will be online in a few days anyway… :)
Did The City & The City work for you?
I’m still mulling Under Heaven. There’s something about the precise way his created world relates to the history of our world that I’m niggling at.
I read _The City and The City_ earlier this year, and was wowed by it. I’m looking forward to reading more Mieville but just haven’t yet. I’m curious to know what you thought of it.
I really liked Colson Whitehead’s _Apex Hides the Hurt_ (which does its share of Harvard-mocking) but haven’t read any of his other books yet.
Oh, and I agree with you on _When You Reach Me_. I wrote that one up for GeekDad, but it was hard to describe the plot without giving too much away.
The bundles you refer to as Carina Press bundles are actually Harlequin bundles!