Saturday, August 04, 2012

A reading fool

Up until about a week ago, I've been in a reading frenzy.  I think it was the two grad classes I took back in April and May...I wasn't allowing myself to read so that I would finish.  Once the classes were done, I think I read 7 books in 3 weeks or something crazy like that.

At the beginning of the year, I was reading a bunch of free books I found for my Kindle.  They were...well, there was a reason they were free.  After my classes were finished in June, I read many many books in a row about death or dying or murderers.  It was...thought provoking in a depressing sort of way.  I've been struggling through a few books lately.  I gave up on The Elegance of a Hedgehog, because I am too dumb to read it.  My vocabulary is not good enough.  It literally hurt my brain to finish a page of that book.  So much to my disappointment (in myself), I allowed myself to admit defeat and raise the white flag on it.  Now I'm reading The Gift of Rain, by Tan Twan Eng.  It is very well written, but it is not sucking me into the story yet.  That could be the fault of the Olympics, though. :P

Books I've read so far in 2012...

The Land of Later On
Divergent
Peony in Love###
The List
Noah's Compass
Life of Pi
Seven Exes are Eight Too Many
The Memory of Running***
Forbidden Mind ###
Practical Magic
Gossamer ###
Life As We Knew It
The Dead & The Gone
The Double Bind ***
One Day
This World We Live In
Fall of Giants ***
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
The Island of Ted ###
50 Shades of Grey ###
Jasper Jones
Midwives
The Hour I First Believed ***
People of the Book ***
The Girls from Ames
Sister ***
Talk Before Sleep
Olive Kitteridge
Secrets of Eden
The Year of Magical Thinking
Bitterblue ***
Becoming Sister Wives
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague
The Thirteenth Tale ***


***= I particularly enjoyed
###= I particularly hated


My favorite so far this year has to be People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.  Very original, very interesting, very well written.  No, wait...I love Fall of Giants too.  I can't wait for the sequel out this fall.  Oh!  No, The Thirteenth Tale was very good also...a ghost story of sorts.  Very fun.

And you can see why my floors aren't very clean ;)

Any suggestions on great books you've read lately?  And if you are thinking the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy, please just move along and don't hit the comment button.  I am happy you enjoyed it and encourage reading in any form.  But we clearly have different tastes in books :)

5 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I'm not sure if we have the same tastes at all (though I can safely say the reviews of 50 Shades of Grey trilogy sound awful) but two authors I really enjoy are John Irving (book example = A Prayer For Owen Meany) and Joyce Carol Oates (book example = I'll Take You There). A book I never thought I'd like but did is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guinn.

Thanks for posting your list of books! I've added quite a few to my growing list of books I'd like to read.

Jayme said...

In the Sea, There Are Crocodiles was very intriguing.

Have you ever read The Shack? Religious book but I loved it.

Pamela said...

I don't think we have the same taste in books since you loved "The Pillars of the Earth" and I couldn't even finish it. While you read books for smart people, I read entertaining teen novels :) But I noticed "Divergent" was on your list, which I really liked. So, I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest "Legend" by Marie Lu. It's similar to "Divergent". Happy reading!

KaraP said...

I read some of the same Kindle freebies that you did..just finished Bitterblue..enjoyed it as much as I thought I would. I love Kristin Cashore!

Andrea said...

G- Have you read the Hunger Games? Rachel was telling Dave and I about it, and I think it sounds like it would be a book I would enjoy. I was wondering your thoughts. I have avoided watching the movie so far, because that can ruin the book... and let's face it, I can't take any chances!