July Reads

Do you remember my TBR list?  Here it is again if you don’t.

Did I finish it.  Please.  As. If.  No.  No, I didn’t.

But, this is what I did read and whether I recommend them:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.  Recommended?  Yes.  It’s a fun little story.  I’m planning to work my way through the whole series.  We’ll see.  I’m totally a flake with this kind of goal.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.  Recommended?  No, not really  Whateves on this one.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.  Recommended?  Yes.  It’s not fun, but it is amazing.

The Baby Sleep Solution by Suzy Giordano.  I won’t bother to recommend or not.  Non-fiction book about babies sleeping.  Color me exhausted.

The Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.  Recommended?  This book has a clear polticial purpose which makes it a combination of hard reading and funny.  It’s sort of bi-polar.  But sure.  Read it.

The Book of Mormon.  Recommended?  Yes.  Obviously.  But yay, I met my goal of reading it in a month.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Recommended?  No, DNF.  So, so boring.  I read the second half via chapter summaries.  Note to self.  This is the second time I haven’t finished.  Meh, self, Meh!  Let’s not have a replay of our association with Wuthering-boredom-I-don’t-give-a-crap-Heights.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville.  Recommended?  No.  DNF.  I’d like to pretend that I could see the good in this and recommend it to the world, after pushing back my glasses and fluffing my bun.  But, I’m not that girl.  I read classics because my belief is that if it’s still in print 150 years later, there’s probably a reason.  I can see the  reason here.  I just don’t care enough to spend my little reading time trodding this boring, boring road of characters I don’t give a crap about.  My friend pastelninja, however, does not feel the same.  Feel free to agree with her.

Love With a Chance of Drowning by Torre DeRoche.  Recommended?  Yes.  But as it’s a memoir and not a plot driven book, I’d suggest you’d only pick it up if the idea of cruising is enticing to you.

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu.  Recommended?  Yes.  This should have been on my TBR list, but it wasn’t.  I was about 1/2 through it at the end of last month.  I finished it this month.  It brought me to tears, made me pause in admiration, and I thought it was truly wonderful.  I bought, a long time ago, on-the-cheap for kindle. Now, I’m hunting a hardcover too.  Because I just love it that much. So, go.  Read it.

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Recommended?  Obviously this was also not on my TBR.  You may be able to tell that I have a theme of my non-TBR books.  It’s because of what I’m writing now.  *wink, wink* (This statement does NOT mean I’m not working on the sequel to my own book.)

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch.  Recommended?  Yes.  Though there are many, many F-bombs.  It reads like Patricia Briggs, Charlaine Harris, the early non-trashy Laurell K. Hamiltons.  You know, in that sort of lovely urban fantasy way. If you like those authors, you’ll like this one I think.  (It’s called Midnight Riot in the US if you don’t care about which copy you get. 🙂 )

The Gold Bug by Edgar Allan Poe.  Recommended.  No.  I realize I should say yes.  It’s Poe!  But mostly its a long, super boring, lesson in crptography.  Amazingly, this was Poe’s best seller.  Um, The Tell-Tale Heart people.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie.  Recommended?  Yes.  I’ve read this one before.  Read again for REASONS.  And it was delightful yet again.

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket.  Recommended?  Yes.  This guy can write the pants off middle reader fiction.  Love him.  Loved the series the first time.  Loving it again.

The Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King.  Recommended?  Yes.  Man, this book was magnificent.  Magnificent and dark, so don’t read it if you’re looking for light and fluffy.

Oh and one more.  Mine:

These Lying Eyes by Amanda A. Allen.  Recommended?  Yes.  You should definitely read it.  You should buy it twice, and again for each of your friends.  Maybe even more times than that.

If you wanted to buy it, you could do so HERE.

~Amanda

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