August: Weeks One and Two

Books Bought:

• The Satanic Verses (Salman Rushdie)
• The Three Weissmanns of Westport (Cathleen Schine)
• Brat Farrar (Josephine Tey)
• And Another Thing... (Eoin Colfer)
• Silent Spring (Rachel Carson)
• The Little Drummer Girl (John Le Carre)
• Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books (Aaron Lansky)
• See, Mix, Drink (Brian D. Murphy)

I spent the first week and a half of August at home in Texas...which means I visited my favorite used book store THREE TIMES. But I only bought books the first two times - that means I'm improving, right? Also, let me just brag about how I got the first six books on that list for a total of $6.21. Thank you, Rice Village Half Price Books, and your wonderful $1 fiction shelf.

If there's one thing I can't resist, it's trying new mysteries (after reading everything written by Agatha Christie, what other choice do I have?) - and if there's another thing I can't resist, it's books about books. I've read reviews of a couple of Josephine Tey's books (not the one I bought, however), so when I saw one on the $1 shelf I decided to try it. As for John Le Carre...well, I haven't read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy yet, but I just finished watching the old TV adaptation (as well as the new movie) and am pretty much 100% sure I'm going to love the book, so I ended up buying another of his books, too. I also couldn't resist buying Eoin Colfer's sixth installment to the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "trilogy." Outwitting History is a book about books - enough said. See, Mix, Drink isn't a usual purchase for me, but Matt and I had just seen the book at Urban Outfitters for three times the price, so we decided to each buy one and learn to make drinks. I like the book because it's not just recipes, but includes diagrams and charts for each drink, too. I love diagrams and charts!

I was enjoying being home so much that I had little time to read (unusual for me). I'm still halfway through A Game of Thrones, as well as several other books, so we'll see what I manage to actually complete in the last two weeks before school starts!

July: Weeks Three and Four

Books Read:

• The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer)

The end of July was pretty crazy - moving to a new apartment, dog-sitting, and driving back to Texas, to name the big things. I kind of temporarily forgot about this blog, which was actually OK because I haven't completed very many things. Whenever my life is in flux I tend to hop around between different books. With that in mind, this list is necessary:

Currently Reading:

• The Great Animal Orchestra (Bernie Krause)
• A Game of Thrones (George R. R. Martin) *apparently if you're a fantasy writer it's hip to have the double "R" thing going*
• The Gift of Fear (Gavin de Becker)

I am LOVING A Game of Thrones (I know, I'm getting into this a little late in the game) - such complex characters! That's all I can say about it so far, other than I'm hooked.

A note on the only book I finished in the past couple of weeks: The Interestings is a great book if novels about ordinary people are your thing. I personally love them; in this case I especially enjoyed the ordinary people described because the relationships in this book started at a high school summer camp for the arts, which I can completely relate to as I spent every summer in high school at music festivals. I just realized that it's slightly ironic that the word I used to describe the characters is "ordinary," but perhaps that was the ultimate message of the book, anyway.