June Books!!!

Sorry, I just had to be the first! I'm excited to hear what everyone read...gotta go make my list!

1. Secret Bride: In the Court of Henry VIII by Diane Haeger
2. Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of the Phantom of the Opera by Colette Gale
3. Feast of Fools by Rachel Caine
4. Midnight Alley by Rachel Caine
5. How to Really Stink at Golf by Jeff Foxworthy
6. Hallam's War by Elisabeth Payne Rosen

So I wasn't able to do as much reading this month as the last few... ;( But what can I say. I was doing a grad class and doing all sorts of other things that you can't read while doing.

Secret Bride was AMAZING! I'm still reveling in it's wonderfulness. Definitely read it! Unmasqued was also amazing. There was a little too much sex for my taste but it happens. I've never really read a strictly "erotic" novel before. But Colette Gale really puts a wonderful spin on things and I really was into the storyline.

What more can be said of Rachel Caine. Her writing/sentence structure isn't amazing but the story she tells is.

Jeff Foxworthy had me laughing my butt off (as usual.)

Those 5 are way up on my overall reading list of good books.

Then there's my LTER ARC Hallam's War. It was just okay. Read my review...

Hey Jolene - great post. Glad you've gotten us started. I'm here at work, but just couldn't resist!

June was a low-volume month. I had to get my daughter through the end of 9th grade and packed for 4-week camp, plus there’s been lots of tennis to watch.

Here’s the list:

Blood Noir by Laurell K. Hamilton
Fire and Ice by Anne Stuart
Power Play by Joseph Finder
Shakespeare's Landlord by Charlaine Harris
Zoe's Tale by John Scalzi
The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman by Nancy Marie Brown
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler

As you can see, lots of fluffy light stuff.

Blood Noir is Hamilton’s 16th or 17th Anita Blake Vampire Slayer book. Books 1-6 are great, books 7-15 or 16 have moments but have been overwhelmed by multiple sex partners and lots of other strangeness. I really liked this one because there’s actually a story line. Hope for the series yet.

Fire and Ice was…. Well. I can’t even really remember it. I loved Anne Stuart’s historical romances. This current day stuff is interchangeable with quite a few other authors. Reading junk food.

Power Play was quite good. It was about a business retreat that turns into a hostage-taking-for-ransom standoff. The hero is interesting because he has so many skills advantageous to staying alive in a situation where most business people don’t know what to do. Fast, easy read.

Shakespeare’s Landlord was disappointing. I love Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse and Harper Connelly series, and thought this would be another good start to a series. It’s an early effort, though, and you can see how she has improved her characters, action, and story. I won’t read any more of them. Lily Bard, the heroine, is too bitchy and the story wasn’t very interesting. Yes, she was raped and tortured and it’s changed her life. I just didn’t want to hear about it every chapter.

Zoe’s Tale was good. I don't like much SF but really enjoyed the book, written from the viewpoint of a teenage girl. John Scalzi carried off the voice quite well. It’s part of a series, I guess, but it read well as a standalone. It was fun yet made some good political and social points. I might look up his other stuff.

The Far Traveler was for my July Bookclub meeting. Dry as dust and disappointing as a biography of Guldrid. Once I started reading it as Icelandic history and archaeology and discounted all her suppositions about Guldrid’s life, it became more interesting. I cringed when I read the parts about their digging up of a long house, and her assumptions and leaps of faith were ludicrous. Ah well, we’ll have a fun discussion on the 13th.

And, finally, Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. Cute but ultimately disappointing. It captured the very real restrictions placed on females in the early 19th century and gave us the dirt on clothes and how flattering candlelight is, but I didn’t particularly like the heroine. The denoument was rather slapdash.

And so, on to July. I’m reading The Aviary Gate a mildly disappointing book about 1599 Constantinople and an Englishwoman forced into a harem along with a present day woman trying to learn her story. I truly abhor books that use 20th century slang in other time periods. I know that the authors are trying to make you see that people were just people same as we are, but their thought processes and ideas were formed by their language and I never get a good sense of people in their time if they’re speaking the way I speak. Plus, it strikes me as just lazy. Grrrr.

And, The Vanished Pomps of Yesterday by Sir Frederic Hamilton about the 1870s-1920s as a British Diplomat. I’ve barely tapped it. It’s good so far, but I’m working on Aviary Gate because it’s an ARC and I’m feeling the pressure.

I’ve got lots of good books to read, just need to get past the Aviary Gate hump.

It made my day to come into work and log on here to see that not only has the discussion been started, but TWO people have posted! It's the simple things in life... But anywho, here is my list!

Lord John and the Private Matter, by Diana Gabaldon
My Wicked Highlander, by Jen Holling
My Devilish Scotsman, by Jen Holling
Mr. Darcy's Diary, by Amanda Grange
Chasing Harry Winston, by Lauren Weisberger
The Other Boleyn Girl, by Philippa Gregory
The Ruby Ring, by Diane Haeger
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling

So there you have it. I have a few rereads on here as well: The Other Boleyn Girl, and the two Harry Potter books are all rereads. Gregory's book I reread because the movie came out on DVD and I wanted to be able to do a fresh comparison (movie doesn't hold a candle to the text). And as for Harry Potter... well it's my favorite of all time and I had to reread them all before the sixth movie comes out in November.

Now, Lord John... well I love Diana Gabaldon. She's without a doubt my favorite contemporary author. I posted elsewhere that I didn't like the Lord John book as much as the Outlander ones. However, I still really liked it. I've decided to choose this book as my book of the month. (I figure my rereads shouldn't count because I'll always nominate Harry.)

The two Jen Holling books are filed under Romance in the bookstores. Yes, they're a bit cheesy but are ultimately pretty good if you ask me. They're great for light reading, but also give you a good story. It's about three sisters (it's a trilogy, one books about each sister) who are all witches in 16th century Scotland whose father is dying and desperate to marry them off to keep them protected. It's decent. I like them.

Mr. Darcy's Diary.... I thought I would hate this because I am a devoted P&P girl. While the voice wasn't spot on Mr. Darcy, you can't go wrong with retelling such a classic tale. In short, I ate this thing up in only one day.

Chasing Harry Winston... this was my bit of classified chick lit for my trip. It took me maybe 70 pages to really start giving two cares for the women in this book. They end up likable though and I was glad I read it. Not Miss Weisberger's finest though.

And finally The Ruby Ring... It's not the greatest Haeger out there. But perhaps that is because I usually am drawn to English or Scottish histories and this Roman one threw me for a loop. It's about a famous artist falling in love with his peasant model and their struggle to be accepted by society. Typical forbidden love tale, but a good one when you get down to it.

So there you have it! I am obviously currently continuing to polish off rereading Harry Potter's entire life story. Then I'm not sure... maybe some more Philippa, maybe another Austen or Gabaldon piece... the options are endless! (Feel free to recommend me something, I have no idea what I'll be in the mood for after Harry.)

I've been looking forward to this too! June's books were:

Dandelion Soup by Babs Horton
The Collector of Worlds by Iliya Troyanov
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
Amulet by Roberto Bolano
Helpless by Barabara Gowdy
Death at the Priory - James Ruddick
The Strange Death of David Kelly by Norman Baker
Mr Wroe's Virgins - Jane Rogers
Lisey's Story - Stephen King
Book Lust - Nancy Pearl
Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
The Story of a Marriage - Andrew Sean Greer
The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan
The Vanishing - Tim Krabbe
The Resurrectionist - James Bradley

Let's get the bad news out of the way first. I abandoned two books last month and it would have been three had I not owed a review of The Collector of Worlds - my June ER book. That one was a real struggle and a lot of skimming went on to get me to the end. You'd think anything based on the life of the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton would have to work very hard indeed not to be a jolly exciting book! I'll just say that the author seemed to have a unique talent in that direction.

The next book I abandoned was a real mark of failure for me. I have been a Stephen King fan ever since Carrie was first published and I love every word he ever writes - until now. This is the second time I've made an attempt on Lisey's Story and, although I got a bit further this time than last, I still couldn't summon up the slightest interest. I don't even know quite what went wrong here, but it did.

And the third one was Oscar and Lucinda. I know this book is considered a modern classic by the rest of the world but, to me, it was just a lot of time spent on nothing happening to two people I coiuldn't have cared less about. Sorry, all you O&L fans out there!

Anyway - on to the good stuff!

The Reluctant Fundamentalist was an intriguing and ultimately quite disturbing little book that played with the prejudices I didn't think I had.

Death at the Priory is more of a history than a whodunnit, though that certainly came into it too. A re-look at the circumstances and suspects surrounding the celebrated 19th C murder of Charles Bravo. After all these years, and despite a closer look at the evidence, any new theories can only be a 'best guess' but the guess the author comes up with is as good as any other and sounds plausible enough to me.

The Comfort of Strangers and The Vanishing are both short, disturbing and yet enjoyable. Both of them were a terrific antidote to some of the failures of earlier in the month.

Now the really good news - Two great ones this month; one fiction, one non-fiction. The non-fiction one was The Strange Death of David Kelly, investigating the death of the weapons inspector who was reputed to have committed suicide. It's a worrying book in many ways and, although it doesn't come to a definite conclusion as to what happened and who was responsible, it leaves very little doubt in my mind that things were not the way the government would have liked us to believe.

And my other joint number one for the month - The Story of a Marriage. I was lucky to get hold of this book as I got it through a swap for Collector of Worlds (which I wasn't all that sad to see the back of!) I thought this was a wonderful book, full of surprises and as sensitive a piece of writing as anything else I have read for a long time. I don't think I'll be the only person voting this book my number one this month, and I think the praise it has had from other LTers as well as from me, has been richly deserved.

Looking forward to hearing what everyone else has been reading!

Hey booksloth! This is the only year that I have told myself that I can't abandon books (and have only actually abandoned one!). I'm sorry you feel bad about abandoning books. There are a lot of threads discussing this "problem" out there. My usual take, except for this year, is that if I'm not enjoying a book, give it the old heave ho! Too many books, too little time.

It's been a novel (tee hee) experience for me to have to plow through books that I'd really rather abandon. A couple of them I've been glad I've finished, but there have been a couple of stinkers that I shouldn't have wasted time on.

Hol - I'm probably going to re-read the Harry Potters next year again. I've already read/listened to them 4 times total. Haven't listened/read for almost a year, so it will be time again soon.

Anyway, I forgot to pick my book of the month!!! It is, without a doubt, Blood Noir. It was fun, back on target for Ms. Hamilton, and moved the story of Anita forward in a meaningful way. The most fun read in June.

2nd place went to The Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman not for anything it said about the Viking Woman in question, but for the Icelandic history, archaeology, and her take on the culure of Iceland.

Here's my list folks:)

Of Human Bondage by Wm. Somerset Maugham
Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Path to the Nest of Spiders by Italo Calvino
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Blaze by Stephen King
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy

The classics that I chose to read were wonderful and I am glad to have read them, plus it strikes a few books off of my 1001 list.

Veronika started out as a good book but I felt completely let down by the ending.

The Road was a very simple yet awesome story. Every once in a while I will read a book that will contain an image that I cannot for the life of me get out of my head and this one did.

Path to the Nest was an ok book but the point kind of eluded me while reading it.

The Virgin Suicides was an ok book, but apparently the movie was made verbatim from the book. I always hope to get something new from the book if I have seen the movie and I was disappointed that I didn't.

Blaze was not the best King ever but at lest it was more readable than some.

This month has to go to The Road

Booksloth~ As for the book abandonment issue. I know that there are times when I can't get into a book and I think that a lot of that has to do with where my head is at at the time. I don't ever consider it book abandonment unless I put it down and say "I am never picking that up again" and so far this has only happened once in the last two years. I have a small stack of books that I have begun reading but for some reason stopped reading. I will go to that stack from time to time and pick one out if I think that I am now in the right frame of mind to read it. I concur that Lisey's Story was not the most enthralling book ever.. normally any King books will take me one to two days and that one took me about a week to get through.

My mom could quite possibly be the biggest Stephen King fan I have ever personally met. She has every single book he's ever written in her own personal library. I myself have only read one.... and go figure, it was The Shining. I have a couple other on my list to read
*The Talisman
*Needful Things

What are some of his absolute best that I should add to my ridiculous mountain of books to read?

Thanks to all for your support in my 'abandonment issues'! I don't mind doing it these days but when it gets to three in one month I start wondering whether I've just forgotten how to read.

Holl - your mum has some competition here! In my opinion, most of his best are amongst the earliest and really Carrie (the first ever) is a pretty good place to start and, VERY unusually for King, quite a short book. I love The Talisman, but I don't think it's completely typical of his books, though a plus point (among many) is that if you love it too it actually has a sequel in Black House.

I think everyone has their own list of King's 'best' books and, of course, it's all down to taste. My own recommendations would be The Dead Zone, The Stand, Salem's Lot, Firestarter, The Green Mile, Different Seasons (four excellent novellas) and (a personal favourite for me though not everyone's no 1, I'm told) Hearts in Atlantis.

For me, it was a question of reading one then never sleeping again until I'd got the lot, so I'm having real trouble understanding how you have read one then come to a pause! Still, if you enjoyed that one you have a lot of wonderful discoveries ahead of you. I'm quite envious!

I've now discovered and moved on to his son, Joe Hill, who shows every sign of becoming as good as his dad - thoughtful breeding there on the part of the Kings or wot?

Confession: the only reason I stopped reading King was because my mother actually made me. Haha, because I swiped her copy of The Shining when I was 12 and read it. Needless to say, she wasn't too pleased when my elementary school called her at work asking her if I had been given permission to read a Stephen King novel for free reading time. Looking back, I can't say that I blame her for being angry because if memory serves correctly, I had very vivid nightmares about twin girls beckoning to me.

Anywho, I've seen a lot of the films of King's works but have been told some of them are a disgrace to his writing when he wasn't directly involved with the making of the films. I admit that I used to love playing a game with my parents we called "Spot Stephen" to see where he made his cameos! Thanks for the advice, it's a great place for me to start.

The story of the Viking woman really has me interested. I need to put that on my list.
Carla R - I have to let you know that I loved The Virgin Suicides. I never saw the movie on that. I believe some people do not like his writing style and that overcomes the story. Have you tried any of his short stories? Try "Early Music" and if you don't feel differently then he is just not a writer for you. You have the right not to like something, I just think it was worth trying to get you to look at it differently. Tell me if I am wrong.

I just found this group. Is it open to more members? I'd love to share the books I've been reading!

Yar~ It's not that I didn't like the book, it's just that I wish I had not seen the movie now... it would have made the book much better. I have read Middlesex and I found that very good. I will probably take your suggestion and read Early Music as well:)

CarlaR and yareader2 - I absolutely abhorred, despised, disliked, and was totally irritated by The Virgin Suicides. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I hate it. Good writing, horrible story. Blech. But, to each her own!

tjsjohanna - we'd love to hear what you've been reading.

Consider yourself joined tjsjohanna! And welcome! If you already keep a record of what you read you're all set to go - if not, I'm sure you can remember plenty from the past month. Looking forward to hearing what you've got through.

In case you're not sure, the idea is to list what we've read in the past month and pick a favourite. Several people (inclduing me) then think it might be good to have some kind of vote or all read each other's faves at the end of the year. I'm not sure we've decided what we're going to do yet but I'm sure there'll be something.

And I loved The Virgin Suicides too! Not as much as Middlesex which was so brilliant I didn't breathe for the whole of the book but I'm definitely up for anything the guy wants to write.

I'm in the minority regarding TVS, but that's okay. I will be interested in seeing what the subject of his next book is before I consider buying it.

Regarding the end of the year - we'll definitely have more than enough books to choose from, whatever we decide to do! I'm all for doing something.

We can figure out what the do with these at the end... we have plenty of months ahead of us. I know it's a bit after the fact... but I too loved The Virgin Suicides. But I'm not sure why... just sucked me into it. :)

And welcome tjsjohanna! It's great to have new people to bring new books to the table. Let us know what books you tackled in June!

Thanks for the welcome! O.K. Here are my June reads.

Brave New World Aldous Huxley
Legacy of the Force: Invincible Troy Denning
Nurturing Adoptions Deborah Gray
The Winding Ways Quilt Jennifer Chiaverini
The Secret Life of Bees Sue Monk Kidd
The House Always Wins Marni Jameson
Madness: A Bipolar Life Marya Hornbacher
At Home in Mitford Jan Karon
The Two Kinds of Decay Sarah Manguso
Talking Mysteries: a conversation with Tony Hillerman Tony Hillerman
River Secrets Shannon Hale
Ready or Not Meg Cabot
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle Barbara Kingsolver
Dragonhaven Robin McKinley
Home to Holly Springs Jan Karon
Hobbits, Elves, and Wizards Michael Stanton
Being the Mom Emily Watts
Bikeman Thomas Flynn
The New Year's Quilt Jennifer Chiaverini
The Opal Deception Eoin Colfer
The Lost Colony Eoin Colfer

So, I like to read YA - which makes my reading total higher than I expected. My favorite new find is Artemis Fowl. I love these books and was so disappointed to find myself at the end of the series when I felt like I was just getting started! Dragonhaven is by one of my old favorite YA authors Robin McKinley. I can never resist her books.

Four of these are books I was asked to review on "Go Review that Book!" - Hobbits, Elves and Wizards, At Home in Mitford, The Secret Life of Bees, and Brave New World. These are all re-reads. I love Jan Karon - there is something about the things she writes about that really resonates with me. I find myself thinking I can do better about living my faith when I read about Father Tim.

I've been trying to read a little non-fiction again - but I like stories so I gravitate to memoirs. By far the most enthralling read was Madness: a Bipolar Life. I highly recommend it - I felt like at the end I had a more clear view of the disease of bi-polar and what it was like to live with it.

Finally, I'll give a plug to Bikeman. I got this as part of the Early Reviewers program. It is an epic poem about 9/11. The author, a journalist, rode his bike down to the towers just after the first plane hit and in this poem he describes his impressions. Despite not being a huge fan of poetry, this really made a impression.

I hope that is what I'm supposed to do. I can give more info, if needed, but this post is huge already!!

This club is a great idea. I can't remember all that I read in June, but I'm going to start a list of all that I read in July and post that list at the end of this month.

I enjoyed reading all of your lists, so thanks for sharing.

I enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl. I thought the book much better than the movie. Sometimes I really wish they wouldn't make movies based on books because they're usually very disappointing - the exception being The Lord of the Rings, which I thought was directed, written and acted wonderfully.

Karenmarie, I can see how the subject is disturbing. I'm glad you liked his writing. Some people complain that he writes in too much detail, but I love it. This is a great example of a kiss:

"He tasted first the grease of her Chap Stick, then the sad Brussels-sprout flavor of her last meal, and past that the dust of lost afternoons and the salt of tear ducts. The peach schnapps faded away as he sampled the juices of her inner organs, all slightly acidic with woe. "

I also cannot get over the use of plural narrators and communal memory. Everything that was tragic and wrong was hidden behind house cleaning and leaf-raking.

The greatest part of a masterpiece painting is the study. When a viewer could look at the sketches behind the finished product. So many elements of TVS are reflected in Middlesex that I felt that by reading this one is looking at the master's trial of situations between characters. It is an amazing and still for me too a borrible story.

Welcome again to the newbies! It's lovely to see the group swell like this (though it has just occurred to me that the more members, the more books we're going to have to read if we're to check out each others favourites - ah, what the heck, we'll think of something)!

tjsjohanna - I hereby hand over my crown as 'reader of the most books per month'! You've really been going some to fit that lot in!

I love that we all have such different tastes. There are so many books in other people's lists that I've never even heard of and I'm picking up hints all over the place for writers who are new to me.

ETA Guess. You know it's typos again!

tjsjohanna - did you like The Secret Life of Bees? I read The Mermaid Chair and didn't like it at all. Now I'm hesitant to read Bees, but I've heard that it's quite good.

Anybody else read any Sue Monk Kidd and have an opinion?

I read Bees - not thinking it would really be my kind of thing - and was surprised how much I liked it, though I can't remember too much about it right now. One of those feel-good, 'all-women-together' books as I recall.

I really like Bees and I was disappointed with Mermaid. I was expecting the calibre of writing to be the same in Mermaid, and I found it stilted. I just couldn't get into the story in Mermaid at all.

Karenmarie, I would encourage you to read Bees... I'm sure you'll find it alot more enjoyable in comparison to Mermaid.

Thanks guys! I'll put it on my wish list.

I haven't read Mermaid, but I really enjoyed Bees. I thought there were some interesting things going on with the topic of being motherless - and of that "awakening to the world" that kids go through as they move from thinking the world revolves around them to seeing that it doesn't.

June re-cap:

Dear American Airlines by Jonathan Miles
In the Land of No Right Angles by Daphne Beal
Goldengrove by Francine Prose
The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
The Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCraken
The Mighty Queens of Freeville

My clear favorites - and books I am highly recommending -
Dear American Airlines
The Story of a Marriage

I was fortunate to have been at the national booksellers convention at the beginning of the month. In addition to going to Prince's house for a private concert (an event of a lifetime!), I found my two favorite books of the month.

You would think being a bookseller, I would already have attached myself to these two wonderful novels, since they were already being sold in our shops. But with so many books out there, soemtime syou miss the gems.

These are both slim novels but pack a lot of punch!

Booksloth and I have been having some conversations about The Story of a Marriage. If anyone else decides to read it, perhaps we could start a thread. It has some suprising plot twists, so we don't want to discuss them out in the open.

Ok karenmarie, if you read The Secret Life of Bees I want to know if you like it, because I had problems with it. We could be opposing readers like polarized magnets. All I can say is she missed the boat to me, but I can see why it was embraced, she tells a good story.