Thursday, October 31, 2013

What I've Been Reading: October 2013

Sorry to have gone missing for a normally scheduled post there!  This month has been full of fun things for this librarian, from a week's vacation spent doing projects around the house, to a quick trip to have my eyes lasered!  Needless to say, even as much as I love reading, it's been hard to fit it in around days in the yard and some very tired eyes.  But!  If you've been reading around here for a bit, you know that I am nothing if not resourceful when it comes to finding time and ways to get my book fix, so I have still got a solid list of (mostly fluffy) books to share with you this month!

The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion.  You already know I couldn't keep it to myself--I loved it!  You can read my full review here.  This is a bit of a sleeper hit, and one I cannot recommend enough.  NOT your average love story, by any means.  295 pages

Thankless in Death, by J.D. Robb.  Eve Dallas, decorated lieutenant of the future's NYPD, has come up against many a challenge in her career.  But this time around, the challenges are twofold.  First, she has a rapidly escalating serial killer on the loose, and she is just a step behind him even as he proves increasingly more deadly and elusive.  Second, she has come up against a rather awkward career crossroads.  Is she ready for the promotion everyone thinks she ought to take?  Robb (aka, bestseller Nora Roberts) delivers as always.  402 pages

A Perfect Hope, by Nora Roberts.  I'm afraid this month is going to get a little repetitive, so my apologies in advance.  Vacation reading, for me, usually winds up being fairly light and easy, and since I spent a lot of my summer reading some very heavy stuff, I took this opportunity to play catch-up.  This is the final installment of the Inn Boonsboro trilogy, and innkeeper Hope Beaumont finally gets the opportunity to put her past behind her and move forward, straight into the arms of the most inscrutable of the three Montgomery brothers, Ryder.  324 pages

Mile 81, and The Dune, by Stephen King.  Mile 81, a novella originally published as an ebook back in 2011, and The Dune, a short story originally published in Granta magazine, also in 2011, were brought together in an audiobook format in 2012.  A perfect duo of short and scary to get into the Halloween groove!  In Mile 81, young Pete Simmons is left unsupervised by his older brother and decides to go on an even better adventure than the one he's "too little" for, sneaking out to a local rest-stop which has been long-closed and drinking himself into passing out, thanks to an abandoned bottle of vodka.  As he sleeps, however, sinister and strange things are afoot out in the parking lot.  In The Dune, a retired Supreme Court Justice relates to his lawyer a lifetime obsession with a mysterious sand dune on an unnamed island, just off the shore of his family's Gulf Coast property.  The reason behind his obsession, however, is more shocking than just the possibility the dune being the location of Bluebeard's treasure.  100 pages (approximate)

Key of Light & Key of Knowledge, by Nora Roberts.  The first two books in the Key Trilogy--the third is on my Kindle and ready to go.  Three women, all living and working in the same small town, cross paths and become friends when they are all summoned to a creepy old mansion at the outskirts of town and given a shared quest.  Roberts mixes Celtic lore and contemporary romance with her usual flair, and while parts of the story fall a little flat (fantasy isn't her strongest suit--I prefer her normal contemporary fiction and her future-set Eve Dallas series--your mileage may vary), it's certainly an entertaining read.  Key of Light follows newly jobless art dealer Malory as she finds love and a new life's work in the process of completing her third of the quest.  Key of Knowledge follows shrewd Dana, a librarian whose love of books can't make up for the cut in her hours at the local library, as she mends a heart broken years ago even as she puts the pieces together for her part of the quest.  342 pages, 327 pages

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman.  This is a reread for me--one of my very favorite books, and it gets better every single time, especially this last time, as I read the 10th anniversary edition, which is the author's preferred text.  Shadow has just been released after doing three years of prison time, only to find that the life he'd hoped to go back to no longer exists.  Gone are the wife and job he'd left behind.  As he struggles to come to grips with this new, untethered existence, he is offered a new job by Mr. Wednesday (aka Odin), a man he meets on the way to his wife's funeral.  Shadow becomes Mr. Wednesday's errand boy, and so begins his life as a pawn between the Old Gods, brought to America by generations of immigrants, and the New Gods, those of industry and technology, as a war between the two factions grows ever nearer.  Trust me, you really want to read this.  It is slated to become an HBO series (Gaiman has been working on the pilot script this year) and Gaiman has also acknowledged that he is working on a sequel, exploring the world of the New Gods in more detail.  Get ahead of the curve on this one--you know I wouldn't steer you wrong!  541 pages


October totals:
8 titles
2,331 pages

Year-to-date:
75/75 titles = 100%  Done!  With two months to spare!  I'm going to bump this up to 100 titles next year, for sure.
27,349/35,000 pages = 78%  This one is going to be the real challenge.  Can she do it?  Stay tuned to find out!

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