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Reading report for March 2011

I read 16 books in March, several of which I started reading in a previous month. 6 were TBR challenge books, one a Top Mysteries challenge read, 2 were Gothic Challenge reads, and one a Buchmesse read.

One was an audio-book, Unseen Academicals, which was also a re-read, if you can call listening to audio-books "reading". I suppose you could call it "absorbing", because it is actually more than just listening.  Shortly before I listened to it I had read The Rules of Association Football 1863, a tiny little book that contains a short overview of the history of football and the original rules of the modern game, which  enhanced my enjoyment of Unseen Academicals because quite a lot of that book is taken up by a football game, although it isn‘t, per se, about football.

It looks as if April is going to be another month of finishing up books I started in a previous month, because in the last week I have started reading something like 9 books, and lost interest in all of them once I took a break. I occasionally go through such attention-span problems, but it never lasts very long. Until this one ends I am focusing on short stories so I will at least finish something in each reading session.

The Books:
  • The Rules of Association Football 1863.
  • Louisa May Alcott: Little Women or, Margaret, Jo, Elizabeth and Amy. First time I read this classic from beginning to end in an unabbreviated version. Lovely writing and good storytelling, but a bit too moralistic and preachy for my taste.
  • M.C. Beaton: Death of a Nag. Murder mystery.
  • Bragi Ólafsson: Sendiherrann, ljóð í óbundnu máli (The Ambassador). Literary novel. A disappointment.
  • Daniel Defoe: The King of Pirates. Epistolatory novel that glamorises piracy.
  • Agnès Desarthe: Good Intentions. Literary novel.
  • Neil Gaiman: M is for Magic. Short stories for kids and young adults.
  • Katie MacAlister: Sex and the Single Vampire.Urban fantasy.
  • Léo Malet: 120 Rue de la Gare. Noir murder mystery.
  • Ngaio Marsh: Black as He's Painted. Murder mystery.
  • Ngaio Marsh: Last Ditch. Murder mystery, police procedural.
  • Terry Pratchett: Unseen Academicals.Fantasy.
  • Sanders, Girling, Davies, Sanders: Would You Believe It? Useless information you can't afford to be without. Book of trivia, much of which is out of date, when it isn't plain wrong.
  • Edgar Wallace: The Four Just Men.Thriller.
  • Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto.Gothic novel.
  • Sarah Wendell & Candy Tan : Beyond Heaving bosoms: The Smart Bitches‘ Guide to Romance. Literary handbook.
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