Category Archives: Monthly Round-Up

Total Books Read: 7
Audio: 5
Ebook: 0
Print: 2

# of pages read: 463
# of hours listened: 174 hours 30 minutes

Fiction–1

1. These Things Happen by Richard Kramer: November was a tough month for me and I missed my review deadline for this, but I’m working on it now and hope it publish it this week. 

Non-Fiction–6

1. The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #4) by Robert A. Caro (audio): So after getting completely sucked in by Caro’s amazing writing style and portrayal of LBJ as Vice President and then eventually president, I found out that if Caro, who is 77, dies before he finishes the last book in this series, IT’S TO REMAIN UNFINISHED AS WRITTEN IN HIS WILL. I can’t even deal.
   
2. The Heart Has Its Reasons: Young Adult Literature with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969-2004 by Michael Cart and Christine Jenkins: You know what I like more than LGBT young adult books? Analysis of LGBT young adult books. I have a post about The Heart Has Its Reasons in the works and it’s a doozy.
3. Master of the Senate (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #3) by Robert A. Caro (audio): Reading the books out of order doesn’t matter and ohhh how fantastic they are.
4. Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court by Jeff Sheshol (audio): A look at FDR’s court-packing plan. Not nearly as action filled as MASTER OF THE SENATE or THE PASSAGE OF POWER.
5. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie (audio): So I realized that the only way British folks know how to do an American accent is to speak kind of like George W. Bush if he had gotten dental work a few hours before hand. It’s really disconcerting to hear them read a JFK quote in a GWB accent. (Side note: All presidents should have catchy initials. I’m looking at you, BHO.)
6. Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America by Rick Perlstein (audio): A re-read because after reading about how much of a jerk LBJ was I lost my amused enjoyment of the crazy paranoia that defined Nixon. Re-reading the fantastic Nixonland didn’t help, but it did make everything written in it a lot more depressing.

I have currently lost my ability to read print, ie I’ve read maybe two pages of three different books in the past two weeks or so and I don’t remember any of it. Sad times.

I really love December and I really, really love Christmas themed things and I don’t mind admitting that.

Side note: This post, slim as it may be, is dedicated to Clare because she gives the best pep talks. 

Total Books Read: 16
Audio: 11
Ebooks: 2
Print: 3

# of Pages Read: 1618
# of Hours Listened: 147 hours 45 minutes

Fiction — 9

1. Prayers for Rain (Kenzie & Gennaro, #5) by Dennis Lehane (audio): I read this whole series and never felt like I had a good grasp of any character other than Patrick Kenzie, who is the first person narrator. The series is set in Boston, like most of Lehane’s books, and the first few books give a really cool snapshot of early 90s Boston.
2. Moonlight Mile (Kenzie & Gennaro, #6) by Dennis Lehane (ebook)
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (audio): I absolutely adored this book when I listened to it the first time last year, but during my re-listen all the things that mildly bothered me the first time (the way women are treated, how apparently only Americans know how to play video games, the portrayal of people of color) bothered me a LOT more this time around. I kind of wish I had kept my original, awesome memories of the book and not re-read it.
4. Absurdistan by Gary Shteyngart (audio): I’ve heard a lot of great things about Shteyngart and Absurdistan was a New York Times Notable Book in 2007, so I had pretty high hopes. They were…not achieved. Maybe you’d like it if you enjoy lots of talk about penises and lots of awkwardly gross sex scenes.
5. Those Across the River by Christopher Buehlman (audio): The blurb said his writing was like Stephen King’s. It was not.
6. Deal Breaker (Myron Bolitar #1) by Harlan Coben (audio): I was so sad after reading all these books where men only valued women based on their looks I needed a comfort read. This was my third time listening to this novel, because I love Myron Bolitar.
7. The Last Nude by Ellis Avery (audio): Right, so then I followed it up with this historical lesbian novel set in 1920s France. I have a review planned and everything!
8. The Tommyknockers by Stephen King (audio): Yawwwwwwn.
9. Criminal (Will Trent #7) by Karin Slaughter: I have a mystery series addiction, and Slaughter’s series is my second favorite (after my boyfriend Myron Bolitar, of course).
10. True Believers by Kurt Anderson (audio): I finished the book late in the afternoon on Sunday. An interesting fictional memoir of a woman who had conspired to commit a crime in her teens in the 1960s.

Non-Fiction — 6

1. Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America by Jonathan Kozol: A review of this is lined up and everything! I love Kozol and I’ve read a bunch of his books.
2. The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge by T.J. English (audio): Eh.
3. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson (ebook): Review of this is forthcoming! Thanks bloggiesta (and my new book club, which inspired me to actually read it).
4. Before the Rain by Luisita López Torregrosa
5. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn (audio): Another book I read because it’s set in Boston. I was…unimpressed.
6. Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss (audio): I am happy to repeat myself: review forthcoming! I loved loved loved this biography.

Coming Up In October

• Banned Books Week: I’m so excited to once again be participating in Sheila’s event honoring Banned Books Week.
• Read-a-Thon: I missed the spring ‘thon, but I’ll be happily participating in the one on October 13. Now I just need to figure out which books I want to read for it so I can stock up.
• My birthday! I’m going to be 26 on the 26th, which also happens to be my favorite number. If 26 isn’t my best year yet, I will lose all faith in humanity.

My bookshelf, newly organized after my move!

Total Books Read in July & August: 38
Fiction: 30
Non-Fiction: 8

Audio: 30
Print: 2
EBook: 6

Pages: 2994
Hours: 370

• Most like a Nora Ephron movie: Wife 22 by Melanie Gideon, which is basically a better version of You’ve Got Mail 
  
• Number of Stephen King books read: 8. I have an addiction.
• Other books read because of my Stephen King problem: Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, which was more enjoyable than expected; The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson , which I loved more than I thought possible and has amazing lesbian subtext that I want to discuss for hours; and I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, which I didn’t count as a book read because I didn’t read all of the short stories included.
• A FIRST EVER! Thing: I read absolutely no non-fiction in the month of August. I can’t even believe it.
• Most exciting review copy received and read: Gaga Feminism by J. Jack Halberstam (Beacon Press)!! So good.
• Book I liked so much more than the movie (all the while picturing the characters as the actors): About a Boy by Nick Hornby
• Most SWEEDISH: The Hypnotist by Lars Kepler
• Book I loved now and would have also loved in the fifth grade: The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, which features a young, ostensibly white southern girl in the 1960s who travels back in time to antebellum south. It has a lot in common with The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen, which was my very favorite book in fifth grade.
• Best audio of a Stephen King novel: Dolores Claiborne, narrated by Frances Sternahagen. The novel is written as a deposition Dolores is giving to the police, which makes it particularly suitable for audio. Sternahagen also manages to use an excellent Maine accent that I appreciated as someone who grew up surrounded by Maine accents.
• Book that most used the word “girl” as an adjective: Dare Me by Megan Abbott. The word ‘girl’ must have been used approximately 500,000,000 times in this novel.
• Almost totally awesome: Year Zero by Rob Reid. I loved the world building, the Backstreet Boy connections, and the music puns. But it suffered from an over-the-top argument against music licencing litigation and Microsoft.
• …And yet it has a totally awesome audio narration: Thanks to John Hodgman, who is fantastic.
• Book I spent the most time frowning and/or shouting out quotes to whoever was in the room with me while reading: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Total Books Read: 20
Audio: 7
Ebook: 3
Print: 10

Fiction — 15

1. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis: Or, the book that made me never want to leave my house ever again.
2. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein: Don’t tell anyone, but I’d never actually read the whole book before. It had to be done.
3. Angel’s Tip (Ellie Hatcher #2) by Alafair Burke: I don’t know what it is about me that makes me have such a weakness for mystery series, but I just can’t help myself.
4. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis: I’m as shocked as you are that I actually read another Ellis novel after my first experience. This one was less vomit inducing–thanks for that, BEE.
5. Wolf Hall by Hillary Mantel (audio): I may be the only person who finds it easy to listen to really long books than read them.
6. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (audio): Whatever you do, don’t look at the Goodreads reviews of this book. People are SHOCKED, SHOCKED I SAY, that there may have been gay men in ancient Greece. I just…
7. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (ebook): The only problem with this book was that the ending was easier to figure out because I’d read (and loved!) Flynn’s other novels. Otherwise, yes, it is as good as you’ve been hearing.
8. Burglars Can’t Be Choosers by Lawrence Block: Weakness, thou art mystery series.
9. The Might Have Been by Joesph M. Schuster: Something I learned this month: baseball is depressing as shit.
10. Britten and Brülightly by Hannah Berry: Charming! Hard-hitting! OH THE ENDING! Best graphic novel I’ve read in a long time.
11. The Rabbi’s Cat by Joann Sfar: All cats should be able to talk, unless they are creepy like I imagine mine to be.
12. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (audio): I can’t even talk about this book. It’s just a teenie tiny bit away from absolute perfection, and is without a doubt my favorite novel of 2012 (thus far, I suppose).
13. Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson (ebook): “It’s like Memento but not at all.” – Me, trying to explain the book to my best friend.
14. The Infernals by John Connolly (audio): My love for Mr. Connolly, however, has nothing to do with his mystery series and everything to do with his utterly charming side projects.
15. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach: Two baseball novels, one month. I don’t even know who I am any more.

Non-Fiction — 5

1. Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed — and Why It Still Matters by Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles (audio): Part of my endless quest to Know Everything. I Knew (almost) Nothing about the Oklahoma! city bombing, and now I know that the investigation may or may not have been sketchy as all hello.
2. The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Millard (audio): I am trying to convince myself to like Teddy Roosevelt. It’s not really working.
3. Against Equality: Queer Critiques of Gay Marriage edited by Ryan Conrad: Equal marriage doesn’t solve all (not even most) of gay folks’ problems!
4. Mind-Blowing Sex: A Woman’s Guide by Diana Cage (ebook): An important book if you still have trouble finding your clitoris.
5. Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 by Max Hastings (audio)

A conversation with my girlfriend during the writing of this post…

“What are you writing about?  Me?”
“No.”
*sadface*

Well hello there friends! Remember me? Cass, the blogger?  I seem to have been gone for a biiiit longer than I had originally intended. You see, at first it was just a bit of  my legendary (I didn’t put quotes around that so I could feel better about myself) writer’s block (ie I stared at a blank wordpress new post screen for minutes at a time before going on over to Facebook), but THEN…well, I met this girl, you see, and not only did I fall in love and not manage to read a single book in March, I also apparently stopped being able to write short sentences like a reasonable person.

You don’t really want me to get all gushy and brag about my love life though. Lets talk about books, shall we? You can tell I’m back on track because I read 19 books in May, the most of any month this year.

Total Books Read: 19
Audio: 12
Print: 5
E-Book: 2

Fiction — 10

1. Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan: I received this book from my Holiday Swap Secret Santa way back in December, which was particularly nice because it was not yet out in the U.S. and I very desperately wanted to read it. I got kind of distracted, though, and finally ended up reading it because–okay, this is bad–I have the mass market paperback edition and it was light enough to carry in my purse. It’s kind of horrible that physical weight was what finally got me to read Half Blood Blues, because I loved everything about it and I was so excited to read such a beautiful, original novel that I may have done a bit of a dance? In front of my boss? Who then may have read the book and also loved it? We bonded, let’s just say that.
2. The Harder She Comes: Butch Femme Erotica edited by D.L. King: …I don’t talk about these books on my blog.
3. Dead Connection (Ellie Hatcher #1) by Alafair Burke (audio): I have a weakness for detective series, and I’m really intrigued by Ellie Hatcher because she’s a competent, witty lady detective who isn’t man obsessed! I do declare it is a mystery series miracle.
4. Bottle Rocket Hearts by Zoe Whittall: I’m not going to make any promises that I could very likely end up breaking, but this book deserves its own post because it’s brilliant and beautiful and I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.
5. The Family Corleone by Edward Falco (audio): I’m a sucker for The Godfather, both the movie and the novel, so I gave this new installment in the Corleone family saga a chance. The prose was terrible, the story line snooze worthy, and I would never have finished it if I didn’t need to be entertained at work or if it hadn’t featured characters I already cared about.
6. The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler (audio): A tidy little novel I actually took notes while listening to so I could review it. I know, you don’t even know who I am anymore.
7. Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho (ebook): I’m kind of in love with Paulo Coelho and I don’t want to talk about it.
8. It by Stephen King (audio): I love listening to King’s novels on audio because there are always great narrators who really perform the stories. The unfortunate side effect of listening to the audio book in public was that sometimes strangers would talk to me, once an old lady, and I jumped about five feet in the air. Thanks, Mr. King.
9. Taft 2012 by Jason Heller: My love for presidents is overwhelming and if anyone was going to enjoy this book, it was me. I was not really impressed, but I did appreciate the intention.
10. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (ebook): I feel guilty for not really loving this classic novel. Anyone want to make the case for it to me?

Non-Fiction — 9

1. Care To Make Love In That Gross Little Space Between Cars?: A Believer Book of Advice edited by Eric Spitznagel (audio): Fun, I guess, but insubstantial.
2. Island Of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt’s Doomed Quest To Clean Up Sin Loving New York by Richard Zacks (audio): I’ve always resisted reading about the 26th president, but I gave in and I’m super glad I did.
3. The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith by Matthew Bowman (audio): Very dry. Very, very dry.
4. The President and the Assassin: McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century  by Scott Miller (audio): Two books about (well kind of) Teddy Roosevelt in one month! I know! There was a lot of historical detail and explanation of early 20th century America and I loved every minute of it. I’m so predictable (I accidentally typed “presidential” first, just so you know).
5. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust (audio): A collection of essays about, well, death during the Civil War. I loved every minute of it because I am a nerd.
6. The Forever War by Dexter Filkins (audio): Great essays from a New York Times reporter about the war in Iraq. I…loved every minute of it because I am a nerd.
7. The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity by Nancy Gibbs & Michael Duffy (audio): This book was made for me
8. The Letter Q: Queer Writers’ Notes to their Younger Selves edited by Sarah Moon: Post (and giveaway) coming tomorrow! For real!
9. Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman (audio): Klosterman is such a dude.

While I will not be attending BEA in NYC this year, I WILL be participating in Armchair BEA for the first time! So that’s exciting. I’ll be around, friends.

Image via Wikipedia-- it was this kind of reading month

Total Books Read: 10
Audio: 9
Print: 1
Ebook: 0

Fiction — 2

1. City of the Sun (Frank Behr #1) by David Levien (audio): It’s not really a secret that I have a rather, um, oversized love for Myron Bolitar, the sports-agent-turned-frequent-detective star of Harlan Coben’s mystery series. I’ve read all the Bolitar novels (maybe I’ve even read them twice), and I am on a mission for a new mystery series to love. City of the Sun was my first attempt to fill the Bolitar-sized gap in my reading list, and I’m sad to report it didn’t quite cut it. Frank Behr, ex-cop turned private detective, is as big as a (you guessed it) bear. His largeness seems to be his best quality; sadly, it wasn’t enough for me and I think one Frank Behr novel is enough for me.
2. Undone (Georgia #1) by Karin Slaughter (audio): I was a bit more impressed with Undone, the first in a series that brings Slaughter’s two heroes, Will Trent from the, uh, Will Trent story and Dr. Sara Linton from the Grant County series together. The only problem is that there are six books in the Grant County series and two books in the Will Trent series, all of which take place long before the events in Undone. So I’ll be reading those series in the near future, or at least before  (Hi, my name is Cass and I have a medium to severe addiction to mystery series.)