August readings

Once again, I've been rather slack at updating this blog but I have been doing rather a lot of reading. So here's last month's list:

• Seven Up (Janet Evanovich)
• The Ill Made Mute (Cecilia Dart-Thornton)
• O is for Outlaw (Sue Grafton)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J K Rowling)
• The Bean Trees (Barbara Kingsolver)
• The Amtrak Wars: bk 1 Cloud Warrior (Patrick Tilley)
• Paris to the Moon (Adam Gopnik)
• The Amtrak Wars: bk 2 First Family (Patrick Tilley)
• P is for Peril (Sue Grafton)
• The Lady of the Sorrows (Cecilia Dart-Thornton)
• The World According to Mimi Smartypants
• Q is for Quarry (Sue Grafton)
• The Amtrak Wars: bk 3 Iron Master (Patrick Tilley)
• Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett)
• The Mind Map Book (Tony & Barry Buzan) - still reading

I think there's meant to be another book in there somewhere but I can't remember.

Best book of the month: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver. I read 'The Poisonwood Bible' a number of years ago and I'm not sure if I enjoyed it, but I found it an absolutely gripping read. There was an overwhelming sense of dread right from the first paragraph - I knew something terrible was going to happen, it was a case of keeping reading until it did.

'The Bean Trees' definitely didn't have that feel. Dreadful things happened but generally they happened outside the immediate story so that I could isolate them from the characters but once again, I found it a gripping read but in an enjoyable fashion. I know that the library has other books by her but I'm saving them and not doing my usual of reading all of an author's books one after the other.

Worst book of the month: The World According to Mimi Smartypants. I think my problem with this book was that I had high expectations but it was light, very short and I didn't feel I got to know Mimi at all. There was a list of characters (real people) at the front but I'm pretty sure that some of them never featured or, if they did, I didn't notice. This was the first book from a blog that I've read and I trust that others will be better.

Biggest disappointment: Paris to the Moon. The back of the book said it was about an American family living in Paris and some of it was. Actually, it was the articles that he wrote while living in Paris with his family so there was very little about his family in it. I enjoyed the family writings but the rest (of course) now felt very dated as it was quite political. Pity, as I had high hopes.