**Best Reads 2nd quarter (April- June) **

We are nearly at the half way point of the year and it is time to reflect on reading done during the last three months (April-June). For us "serious" readers in club 2012 it's a chance to take stock and see if we are hitting our targets, whatever they may be.

Counting up I have discovered that I have read only 18 books during the last three months. That is less than usual but I blame this on Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory which seemed to take forever to read.

Recommended modern fiction
I am on track with my aim to read all of Patrick White's novels this year and there were two outstanding ones this quarter The Tree of Man and Voss. The Aunt's story was also very good

I also re-discovered D H Lawrence through my book club choosing to read Lady Chatterleys Lover A brilliant novel and one that has made me want to read all of Lawrence again.

I could not recommend anything else

Recommended Classic Fiction
The Novellino of Masuccio by Salernitano Massucio was a book of short stories written in 15th century renaissance Italy.

Non Fiction
The Italian Renaissance has been a topic that I have wanted to explore this year and I have already uncovered some gems:

Renaissance in Italy is a 7 volume set by John Addington Symonds a Victorian writer. I have read three so far and they have been fascinating
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by jacob Burkhardt was written earlier than Addington Symonds but is equally as good, containing a broader sweep of the period in one volume.

On Painting an instruction manual written in the 15th century for aspiring renaissance artists is absoluetly fascinating

The Paston Letters provides essential reading for anybody wishing to know about life in 15th century England.

D H Lawrence: Novelist by F R Leavis is excellent literary criticism

I also enjoyed
Why be Happy when You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson
Books of Hours and Their Owners by John Harthan

Not so great
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

A Real Struggle
Morte D'Arthur Sir Thomas Mallory

My count is 19 for the quarter...but only nine of those are books in the normal sense. Three others are graphic novels, each recommended.

Recommended Modern Fiction
When I Lived in Modern Times by Linda Grant - I'm having trouble reviewing as I'm having trouble separating my own emotional attachment to the book from how to present to anyone else. Anyway, I loved the entire atmosphere around this look at 1946-pre-Israel, UK-controlled Tel-Aviv.

Recommended Classic Fiction
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - Highly recommended.
The Five Books of Moses : A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter - If you somehow decide to read the bible, I highly recommend Alter. His translation is very good, but his notes about the text, which often focus on the literary sense in Hebrew, are wonderful.

Recommended Poetry
This Close to the Earth by Enid Shomer

Recommended Non Fiction
nothing to recommend

Recommended Graphic Books
Radioactive : Marie & Pierre Curie : A Tale of Love & Fallout by Lauren Redniss - A work of art.
How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden - A look at Israel from a conflicted Jewish perspective in the form of a travel memoir. I bonded with the author
Exit Wounds by Rutu Modan - Fiction, Tel Aviv again. A taxi driver is informed by a young woman that his estranged father may be the unidentified victim of a cafe bombing.

In Purgatory
The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller - It was only OK, less than I anticipated. So why am I still thinking about it?

Before anyone expresses shock that I read 26 books this quarter, I'll point out that 13 of them were the Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri that I became addicted to and devoured (only one left . . . but I see there are four more that haven't been translated into English yet, so there's hope). Other than them, and a few others, I had more than the usual number of reading disappointments over the past three months. I'm hopeful that I'm turning that around, as I'm in the midst of two very compelling reads that I won't finish in the days that remain of this month, Memoirs of a Revolutionary by Victor Serge and The Rebel Angels, the first volume of Robertson Davies's The Cornish Trilogy.

So here's the way I come out for the quarter.

Favorite Contemporary Fiction
The Inspector Montalbano mysteries by Andrea Camilleri Wonderful characters, a wry sense of humor, luscious food, and a detective who tries to do the right thing.

Favorite Reread of a Classic
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov One of my all-time favorites that certainly bore rereading.

Most Ambitious but Mystifying Reads
Dreams and Stones by Magdalena Tulli Beautiful prose, interesting ideas.
The Box Man by Kobo Abe Endlessly puzzling, and not entirely to my taste.

Most Ambitious yet Flawed Read
Europe Central by William T. Vollman At times breathtaking, at times tedious.

Less Ambitious but Flawed Read
Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil A poetic portrait of a former world of opium dens in Bombay which failed (for me) when it tried to make changes in drug use into a metaphor for broader social and economic changes.

Favorite Nonfiction
The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore One of my favorite writers, with fascinating insights and history.

Runner-Up Nonfiction
Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia by Thant Myint-U Fascinating exploration of a little known area, although not quite what the title suggests.

Most Surprising Read That I Actually Enjoyed
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War Yes, there are zombies, but it's more about how people react to disaster.

Books That Weren't as Great as I Had Hoped Based on the Author's Previous Work
The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa Not quite biography, not quite fiction, and more straightforward than Vargas Llosa's usual work.
Day of the Oprichnik by Vladimir Sorokin It would be hard to top Ice Trilogy, and Sorokin didn't.

Biggest Dud
How to Write a Sentence; and How to Read One by Stanley Fish I really only skimmed this because it annoyed me so.

So far I've read 16 books this quarter and may finish another tonight (it is solid but will not be a standout). The best are:

A History of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia by David Christian
The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout
Doc by Mary Doria Russell

Four other novels were quite readable, but again not real stand outs.

Robert

I read 21 books this quarter. My favorites are 3 novels and one poetry collection.

Black Rain by Ibuse Masuji
Augustus by John Williams
The Box Man by Abé Kobo
Trilce by César Vallejo (Smith-Gianuzzi translation)

2nd Quarter favorites:
Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh
Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
The Long Ships by Frans G Bengtsson

All fiction – whoops! I usually try to read roughly 1 non-fiction for every 2 fiction books I read, but this quarter I read 18 books and only 2 of those were non-fiction. The good news is that I read some fantastic books this quarter! I think I’ve been too brain dead from a stressful few months at work to concentrate on non-fiction.

6 The long Ships is one of my all-time favorites, and probably due for a reread.

Didn't read very many books but they were all pretty good.

The best from this quarter:

Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

The very good:

Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley
The Brummstein by Peter Adolphsen
The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

The good:

A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Prachett

Just snuck in
Flame Into Being: The Life and Work of D H Lawrence by Anthony Burgess; finished 23.59 hours on June 30th and a four star read.

If I'm doing the math right, I've read 38 books this quarter, which may sound impressive, until you compare it to the number of books I've added to the TBR stacks. Sigh.

Anyway. I always have terrible trouble picking the best or my favorite of anything, so, as usual, I'm going to go strictly by how I rated things for this list, flawed and subjective as that is.

So, books that I've given at least 4.5 stars this quarter:

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit
This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper
Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home by David Philipps
Planetary Vol. 4: Spacetime Archaeology by Warren Ellis
Matched by Ally Condie

Well, that's an interesting assortment of books, I guess.

I've read 12 books this quarter.

Books with 4.5 stars:
Property by Valerie Martin, historical novel
Still Life by A.S. Byatt, contemporary novel

Books with 4 stars:
Kabuki Dancer by Sawako Ariyoshi, fictionalized biography
Venus and Adonis and Rape of Lucrece by Shakespeare, narrative poems
Ragnarok: The End of the Gods by A.S. Byatt, retold myth

I didn't read any unbelievably wonderful books this quarter, and nothing particularly bad either. Here were my favourites:

Two I read for www.Belletrista.com: Water Children, by Anne Berry, and Homesick, by Roshi Fernando.

I also listened to three great audio books: The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje, Flaubert's Parrot, by Julian Barnes, and Look at Me, by Jennifer Egan.

I also really enjoyed The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble.

Novels:
Gillespie and I by Jane Harris (favorite)
Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw
Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding
Scenes from Early Life by Philip Hensher

Nonfiction:
Panther Baby by Jamal Joseph
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning (favorite)
The Patient Survival Guide: 8 Simple Solutions to Prevent Hospital- and Healthcare-Associated Infections by Dr, Maryanne McGuckin

Poetry:
One with Others by C.D. Wright
Natural Birth by Toi Derricotte
The Undertaker's Daughter by Toi Derricotte (favorite)

Books I'll likely Re-read again:

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

I started reading this book for the first time in 2010 and got as far as page 637 before I
put it down and started reading another book at the time. Unfortunately I didn't get around
to finishing the book so I was unable to count it in my 2010 Statistics

Ammonite by Nicola Griffith

I own several books by Nicola Griffith

Unholy Night by Seth Grahame-Smith

Clash of the Titans by Alan Dean Foster

Fear In Fenway: A Duffy House Mystery by Crabbe Evers

As a Red Sox fan I thoroughly enjoyed this book

My Turn At Bat by Ted Williams

By reading this book I learned some things about Ted Williams that I never knew before

I struggled to get through:

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I know it's a Classic and all but I felt it should've grabbed me by the throat and not let up
until the last page. I ddin't particularly like the ending of the book too. I think it could've
ended much differently so Bram Stoker could've written a ton of sequels by letting Dracula
escape at the last minute

Books I liked but could've been better

Ark of Doom by Richard Woodley

I was disappointed with the ending.

Haunted Houses by Bernhardt J. Hurwood

I like the book but it was awful short and could've used longer stories

Beatles1964