**** Favorite Reads Q3 2014

Where has this year gone? I can't believe we are at the end of September, and the end of the third quarter. It is time to think about the books you've read during the past three months.

What were your favorite books during July through September? Did you have any five star reads?

Have you discovered any new authors that you want to share with the group?

Were there any books that you really disliked, or that you were unable to finish?

De leeuw van Vlaanderen, no question, the very best. I read plenty of good and great titles, but that one takes the cake.

Definitely nothing bad, though The Age of Innocence was really not to my personal tastes and I hated the ending.

What were your favorite books during July through September? Did you have any five star reads?

Mrs. Dalloway and Pride and Prejudice were definitely my favorites. Both were "new" authors to me (well, in the case of Austen, "new-ish" as I had attempted P&P before and abandoned it). I gave P&P 5 stars.

Have you discovered any new authors that you want to share with the group?
Most of my latest reads were from established authors, except for the case of Jeri Westerson, who is not too well known, but who seems to have a pretty dedicated group of fans of her Crispin Guest novels.

Were there any books that you really disliked, or that you were unable to finish?
No. The Stranger was probably my least "liked" book, but I didn't not like it. It was just, as baswood said, "unsettling."

I've had a good reading quarter, although I've read less than usual. My favorite book was History of the Rain by Niall Williams and I'm still surprised that it didn't make the Booker shortlist, although The Post Office Girl by Stefan Zweig comes a close second. I read some exceptionally good crime novels, including Tana French's The Secret Place, Seicho Matsumoto's Inspector Imanishi Investigates and the second in David Peace's Red Riding Quartet, Nineteen Seventy-Seven. I also read two very good collections of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Groves by Karen Russell and Mr. Tall by Tony Earley.

Since it's clear that I'm not going to finish any more books in the next few days, here goes.

It was a spotty reading quarter for me, with some stand-outs and some . . . well, not quite as great. I owe several of my favorites to the Reading Globally theme read for this quarter, on Mexico and Central America.

Favorites (in reverse order of when I read them)
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (new author for me, although I have had several on the TBR, including this one, for more than 20 years; read because of a Club Read recommendation)
The Captain's Daughter by Alexander Pushkin (also a new author for me)
The Edge of the Storm by Agustin Yanez (an RG read, and a new author)
The Dead Girls by Jorge ibarguengoita (another RG read, and another new author)
The Women's War by Alexandre Dumas
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (another RG read, and another new author)
The Treasure by Selma Lagerlöf (a Club Read recommendation)
Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb

Reading Analysis
Books read: Fiction 27 Nonfiction 3
Male authors: 24 Female authors: 6
Authors by region:
Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean: 7
South America: 2
England and the UK: 3
France: 5
Russia and Eastern Europe: 5
Other Europe: 4
US: 4
Authors New to Me: 13

I'm going to list my favorites now, because I know that I will never finish my current book before the end of the month.

Most of my favorites for the year have been related to my WWI reading plan, however for Q3 I spent less time in WWI. (I think I needed a break)

Favorite WWI theme:
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

Favorite fiction
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Secret Place by Tana French
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Honorable Mention
Stern Men by Elizabeth Gilbert

The rest were very good, and I was lucky to have no real disappointments.

Favorites
The Garden of Evening Mists (Audio) by Tan Twan Eng, read by Anna Bentinck - haven't been reading much new fiction, but this was striking, and terrific on audio. Another very good new novel I read is We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Being Wrong : Adventures in the Margin of Error (Audio) by Kathryn Schulz, read by Mia Barron - nonfiction that left an impression. I'm still thinking about this practically every day.

Suite Francaise by Irène Némirovsky

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo - Juvenile, but a great new-ish one ("new-ish" as in not a classic. It came out in 2006)

Other good ones
A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America (Audio) by Stacy Schiff, read by Susan Denaker - The 3rd audiobook here. I think I like this more now than I did while listening. Anyway, a great work.
The Liars' Club by Mary Karr - interesting memoir regardless, but the writing is terrific.
Granta 127: Japan - enjoyed this magazine a lot
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett personal essays that were really fun an interesting to read.

Stats
Books read: 17
"regular books" (excluding all audio, juvenile, magazines, etc.): 8
Formats: Hardcover 3; Paperback 5; ebooks 2; Audio 5 Lit magazines 2
Subjects in brief: Novels 4; Non-fiction 11; Poetry 1; Juvenile 1; History 7; Science 4; Journalism 1; Anthology 2; Classics 1; Biographies/Memoirs 3
Nationalities: US 12; UK 2; Australia 2
Genders, m/f: 2/12
Owner: Books I own 10; Library books 7
Year Published: 2010's 7; 2000's 4; 1990's 3; 1980's 1; 1960's 1; 1940's 1

This was an unusually bright quarter for me. All but one book got 4 stars. I think my average grades run high, but that may have something to do with what I select to begin with. I don't read anything — usually! — that hasn't been thoroughly vetted.

Did you have any 5 star reads?

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski
Bartleby & Co. by Enrique Vila-Matas

Just to show you how rich my pickings were this quarter, here are the 4½ star reads:

Odyssey of Homer tr. by Robert Fitzgerald
The Glorious Adventure by Richard Halliburton
The Delighted States by Adam Thirlwell
The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Piano Stories by Felisberto Hernández
Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before by Tony Horwitz
The Piazza Tales by Herman Melville

Have you discovered any new authors that you want to share with the group?

Ryszard Kapuscinski, a famous Polish international journalist was unknown to me, I am embarrassed to say, and Enrique Vila-Matas, a Spanish novelist well-known in Spain at least, but again, not on my radar screen. These are the authors of my above-named 5-star reads. Russell Hoban who wrote The Medusa Frequency (★★★★½) was new to me although it turns out he is very famous for his childrens' books; and Felisberto Hernández, a little known Uruguayan writer, who wrote Piano Stories (★★★★½).

Were there any books that you really disliked, or that you were unable to finish?

Only one clunker this quarter, thankfully, and I gave it too many stars: The Art of Being Unmistakable by Srinivas Roy (★★★½). Not recommended. It was terribly derivative and in hindsight 2 stars would have been plenty.

Summing up:
18 books read
2 ★★★★★
8 ★★★★½
7 ★★★★
1 ★★★½

1 Female writer
17 Male writers

11 Fiction
7 Nonfiction

This is turning out to be harder than one might think it should be. For example I would not not have read Tracks, and my life is richer for having read it, but it is not a great book. And I don't know that every book I respected was great even if they were great examples of what books like them should be:

Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life, Vol. 2: The Public Years
Religion from Tolstoy to Camus which also adds the puzzle of who's responsible or even what is responsible for what is valuable in it.
The Burgess Boys

And one book that I could recommend to someone in conversation and which shows evidence of a journalistic investigation still smacks of the superficiality of a lot of journalism: A Love Supreme: The Making of John Coltrane's Masterpiece.

Robert

I read 21 books in the 3rd quarter. That's pretty good for me!

My 5 star reads were:
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen and Patricia Spacks (a reread of S&S - 5 stars for the beautiful annotated edition)

I also read some mystery series this quarter. Two I started new and plan to continue - Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear and The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith and two I read the latest book released - Heartstone by C.J. Sansom and The Secret Place by Tana French.

Honorable mentions go to:
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

The only dud I had was La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas. Even though I found the book way too long and kind of boring, I'm still glad I read this Spanish classic.

16 books by women, 5 by men. 13 new to me authors.

Not my best quarter, and in fact, July and August were fairly awful. Still haven't found a 5 star read this year.

Best of the bunch:

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, Maggie O'Farrell
Bear, Marian Engel
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene
Being Wrong, Kathryn Schultz

One I didn't finish (but read way more of than I needed to!): Murder City, Charles Bowden

19 books in total, 13 new to me authors.
16 fiction, 3 non-fiction
female: 13, male: 6

10 UK
3 US
2 Canada
1 each from Australia, Italy, Algeria, and Iran.

My absolute favorite of the quarter was Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls. This is Anton DiSclafani's debut novel. I will definitely be looking for her next one.

Others I quite liked:
The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
Manon Lescaut by abbe Prevost - I would never have predicted that a French novel written in the 1700s would make my end of quarter best list.

My two least favorites are from series I enjoy so I'll likely give the writers one more chance:
Butchers Hill by Laura Lippman
The Absent One by Jussi Adler-Olsen

Having discovered The Blacklist and focused on knitting after some time away from it, I only read 7 books this quarter.

Only one book read since June, only 2 books, also.

Those Who Love by Irving Stone

QB VII by Leon Uris

Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card

The Guns of Navarone by Alistair MacLean

Maggie By My Side by Beverly Butler

Mikis and the Donkey by Bibi Dumon Tak (Early Reviewer book)

I'd not read anything by Irving Stone before, and I was really, REALLY impressed. Wow. He really did his research, yet brought his characters (John and Abigail Adams) to life. I'm going to try The Agony and the Ecstasy next.

My second Leon Uris read was superb, will read more by this author.

The first Alistair MacLean book I read was fun, exciting, and makes me want to read more by this author.

The only book that I completed that I really did not like was Firmin. I wanted to like it, and I kept reading, hoping...but by the end, I just was glad the ordeal was over.

Check out my reviews if you want to get more in depth descriptions of why I liked these books:

http://www.librarything.com/home#reviews

I don't spoil the plot in my reviews, so read with confidence. :)

>13 fuzzi: Alistair MacLean is one of my absolute favorite authors. His books would never win any prizes, but they're full of action and tons of witty laugh-out-loud lines, I simply adore them! And, now you need to read Force 10 from Navarone!

>13 fuzzi: & >14 .Monkey.: Ah, now I really need to read MacLean! Those types of authors are my favourites - the ones that never win prizes (so are never really hyped) but you fly through the pages when you read.

>15 PawsforThought: Oh yes, he's definitely like that. Fast-paced, and there's always some sort of witty banter from at least one of the characters. I've managed to acquire something around 30 of his by this point, never a disappointment! I was introduced to him a decade ago because my ex's father had a bunch and he knew I liked Clancy, and said if I liked him I should try MacLean. Very true, it's the same "military" action-adventure stuff and also with the witty bits, but MacLean's are minus all the hundreds of extra pages of detail that tend to drive people off Clancy, haha.

>16 .Monkey.: Haha! I've never read Clancy, as I'm not much for crime stuff in general.

>15 PawsforThought: >16 .Monkey.: I will definitely try more MacLean, just have to find him. I think I saw Force 10 From Navarone available on Openlibrary.org.

If you like action/adventure in a fun read, do try Louis L'Amour. Most of his books are considered "westerns", but I like them because they are good stories. I've read just about every book he's written, and own them as well: one shelf in my bedroom is dedicated to L'Amour and a few other western books such as Doc, The Outlaw Josey Wales, and The Virginian, all which I highly recommend.

>17 PawsforThought: If you want to try a less bloated Tom Clancy, I strongly recommend The Hunt for Red October. I reread it every 2-3 years. I've recently read Red Storm Rising, which I liked even though it was slightly dated. And I recall The Cardinal of the Kremlin fondly. The others I've read or attempted were just too big for my schedule.

>18 fuzzi: I'm pretty sure I read one of his a long long time ago and couldn't get into it, but I've been meaning to pick one up again for a while now. Any particular titles you suggest first?

I had requested Hunt for Red October from bookmooch or one of those kind of sites, nearly 15 yrs ago, because it was on this little list on this "map" my high school gave out to us seniors, of like 15 books everyone should have read before college, and the person actually sent me Red Storm Rising instead, so I was all bah okay fine I'll try out this one, and I loved it. Personally, I think it's far better than Red October and I've always been a bit puzzled why Red October gets so much fuss. I think most others of the Jack Ryan-verse are just as good if not better! There's been a few that take me a few weeks to get past page 100, because it's just so stuffed full of background info and technical info and stage-setting and I'm so bored, but, that stuff all comes into play later, so it's worth it to suffer through it, hahaha, and then later on go oooooh! :P But once the actual story starts up, I really enjoy them. And I love that he writes stuff that's relevant to present-day politics/world events. :)

>18 fuzzi: Oh, yeah, Red October. I'm fairly certain that's on more than one of my must read-lists.

>20 .Monkey.: Well, trudging through slow beginnings is fine as long as it IS worth it later. It took me AGES to get through the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring because it was all walking, walking, walking, meeting Tom Bombadill, walking, walking, walking. But after that I raced through the whole trilogy and I love them so much. It was worth the slow beginning. (Though I still think the first book should've been edited a bit more).
That's certainly not true for all books.

>20 .Monkey.: for Clancy, I'd suggest The Cardinal of the Kremlin. I really don't know why it never was made into a movie.

For Louis L'Amour I'd probably recommend Conagher, or Down the Long Hills, as they are two of my absolute favorites. Actor Sam Elliott has starred in not a few movie/television productions of L'Amour books, of which my favorite is also Conagher. I am not sure why, there's just something about the characters.

But if you want more of a epic, try Jubal Sackett. It was the first book of L'Amour's that I read, and the one that hooked me on the rest...

I'm bit late to this thread, but here goes:

I had no five-star reads this quarter -- those are very rare for me -- and only two 4-and-a-half-star reads: Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Karen Schulz (which seems to be making a lot of lists!) and Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. There were lots and lots of solid 4-star reads, though, so I can't complain.

Biggest disappointment was Quirkyalone: A Manifesto for Uncompromising Romantics by Sasha Cagen, possibly because I'm just not nearly enough of a romantic.

New author to me and probably the best book of the quarter: City of Angels, or The Overcoat of Dr Freud by Christa Wolf. I will read more by her.

Great adventure book, great author to revisit The Heart of Mid-Lothian by Walter Scott

New author to me whom I will read again Willa Cather - I read The Professor's House, not on my thread yet

New book to me that got me pursuing other related books The Master by Colm Toibin, no comments on my thread yet, but really well done