April book roundup
May. 2nd, 2013 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardI was hoping that I'd manage to finish off all my books in progress before the end of the month, but no dice.
The complete list (finished):
The Homeric Hymns, trans. Apostolos N. Athanassakis
Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, Warwick Ball
The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East, Benjamin Isaac
Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (ebook)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones
Dragons of Winter Night, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
The Bane Chronicles: What Really Happened in Peru, Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan (short story, ebook)
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
The Northern Barbarians 100 B.C. - A.D. 300, Malcolm Todd
The Lost Villages: In Search of Britain's Vanished Communities, Henry Buckton
Prayers for Rain, Dennis Lehane
Books in progress:
Calling on Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
A Convenient Marriage, Georgette Heyer (abridged audiobook, read by Richard Armitage)
Rebels and Traitors, Lindsey Davis
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Edward Luttwak
I thought that I'd read more books this past month than I did in March, since I was on vacation almost all month, but I actually read fewer. (I'm checking the dates of when I finished books as opposed to my, um, nervous breakdown, along with what I was reading when and how much against my LJ entries, but I'm not sure that there are actually any conclusions to be drawn there.)
Of course, this was supposed to be my research month, but you can tell from the list of books I read that that didn't actually happen. I did finish up some of the books I had left over from earlier in the year, including a couple of my Roman world books. I tried to finish The Hobbit, but then I ran into the problem of trying to pick up a book that you put down when the sense of oncoming doom got too much for you: all of a sudden you're right back there, with no build-up, and you're left clawing at the pages and going, "Wait, Thorin, no, think about your life, think about your choices!"
The audiobook is still in progress because iTunes tossed out all my data twice and I lost my place in the audiobook, oh joy, and then my wrists went wonky and I couldn't knit anyway -- I'd pulled it up to listen to while working on a cable pattern that I couldn't concentrate on TV with. Also because I'd just watched The Hobbit twice and seasons seven and eight of Spooks and I think I was Armitaged out for a bit.
There was a lot of comfort rereading this month -- the Diana Wynne Jones and Dennis Lehane, and then I had a Dragonlance craving and went through the original trilogy for kicks. (Good times.)
In March I started keeping track of the books I buy too, so I thought I'd include my book purchases from April for kicks. (Though I realize that I didn't include Dragons of Autumn Twilight on here, which I bought as an ebook.) With these, I include in my notes the date, the title, the author, and where I bought it. This is purely for my own interest, and because I buy a lot of books. This is my to-read pile(s) from two weeks ago. (You'll notice it includes library books and cookbooks. It's less of a to-read pile and more of a "I have nowhere else to put these" pile.) Without going to the trouble of getting my camera out, my piles today have doubled -- I've got two stacks of equal height and a third stack about half as high, minus the books that are on my bed or elsewhere. In April, well, I have a tendency to spend money when I'm anxious and I was kind of anxious all through April. Anything with an asterisk is something that I already own back in the States.
House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones*
The Sugar Barons, Matthew Parker
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien*
Feed, Mira Grant
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Creatures and Characters, Daniel Falconer
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones*
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien*
No, that's not a typo. I really did buy two copies of FotR. The first copy was a solo copy, then a week later I walked into Oxfam and they had the entire trilogy in a matching set with a really cool cover. SHH I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM. (I might have bought another copy of The Hobbit yesterday, but it's not on this list given that yesterday was May. No Tolkien problems here, officer!)
I think we can safely say that there's a reasonably good chance that I'll be trying to pass off books to anyone I know in England when I move back to the States in September.
I suspect in May I'll actually be reading way more, because I've got projects and my dissertation proposal due this month, and that always leads to an uptick in book consumption. I'm also hoping I'll actually (re)read at least one of the massive pile of Tolkien books I've acquired -- I haven't read The Silmarillion yet, though I do have a copy of it now.
The complete list (finished):
The Homeric Hymns, trans. Apostolos N. Athanassakis
Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire, Warwick Ball
The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East, Benjamin Isaac
Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (ebook)
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones
Dragons of Winter Night, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning, Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
The Bane Chronicles: What Really Happened in Peru, Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brennan (short story, ebook)
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
The Northern Barbarians 100 B.C. - A.D. 300, Malcolm Todd
The Lost Villages: In Search of Britain's Vanished Communities, Henry Buckton
Prayers for Rain, Dennis Lehane
Books in progress:
Calling on Dragons, Patricia C. Wrede
The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
A Convenient Marriage, Georgette Heyer (abridged audiobook, read by Richard Armitage)
Rebels and Traitors, Lindsey Davis
Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, Tom Holland
The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire, Edward Luttwak
I thought that I'd read more books this past month than I did in March, since I was on vacation almost all month, but I actually read fewer. (I'm checking the dates of when I finished books as opposed to my, um, nervous breakdown, along with what I was reading when and how much against my LJ entries, but I'm not sure that there are actually any conclusions to be drawn there.)
Of course, this was supposed to be my research month, but you can tell from the list of books I read that that didn't actually happen. I did finish up some of the books I had left over from earlier in the year, including a couple of my Roman world books. I tried to finish The Hobbit, but then I ran into the problem of trying to pick up a book that you put down when the sense of oncoming doom got too much for you: all of a sudden you're right back there, with no build-up, and you're left clawing at the pages and going, "Wait, Thorin, no, think about your life, think about your choices!"
The audiobook is still in progress because iTunes tossed out all my data twice and I lost my place in the audiobook, oh joy, and then my wrists went wonky and I couldn't knit anyway -- I'd pulled it up to listen to while working on a cable pattern that I couldn't concentrate on TV with. Also because I'd just watched The Hobbit twice and seasons seven and eight of Spooks and I think I was Armitaged out for a bit.
There was a lot of comfort rereading this month -- the Diana Wynne Jones and Dennis Lehane, and then I had a Dragonlance craving and went through the original trilogy for kicks. (Good times.)
In March I started keeping track of the books I buy too, so I thought I'd include my book purchases from April for kicks. (Though I realize that I didn't include Dragons of Autumn Twilight on here, which I bought as an ebook.) With these, I include in my notes the date, the title, the author, and where I bought it. This is purely for my own interest, and because I buy a lot of books. This is my to-read pile(s) from two weeks ago. (You'll notice it includes library books and cookbooks. It's less of a to-read pile and more of a "I have nowhere else to put these" pile.) Without going to the trouble of getting my camera out, my piles today have doubled -- I've got two stacks of equal height and a third stack about half as high, minus the books that are on my bed or elsewhere. In April, well, I have a tendency to spend money when I'm anxious and I was kind of anxious all through April. Anything with an asterisk is something that I already own back in the States.
House of Many Ways, Diana Wynne Jones*
The Sugar Barons, Matthew Parker
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien*
Feed, Mira Grant
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Creatures and Characters, Daniel Falconer
Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones*
The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien*
The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien*
No, that's not a typo. I really did buy two copies of FotR. The first copy was a solo copy, then a week later I walked into Oxfam and they had the entire trilogy in a matching set with a really cool cover. SHH I DON'T HAVE A PROBLEM. (I might have bought another copy of The Hobbit yesterday, but it's not on this list given that yesterday was May. No Tolkien problems here, officer!)
I think we can safely say that there's a reasonably good chance that I'll be trying to pass off books to anyone I know in England when I move back to the States in September.
I suspect in May I'll actually be reading way more, because I've got projects and my dissertation proposal due this month, and that always leads to an uptick in book consumption. I'm also hoping I'll actually (re)read at least one of the massive pile of Tolkien books I've acquired -- I haven't read The Silmarillion yet, though I do have a copy of it now.