Reading - 2nd Quarter

I suppose it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise I was short of the 25 book goal this quarter. With all of the house stuff going on, reading hasn't been at the top of the priority list. Here are the 18 books I did manage to read the last three months:


Looking over these books, I realized with the exception of the 7th Harry Potter book (read at the beginning of April) all of these are books I have never read. I tend to re-read books a lot - some favorites and some I just want to catch something I missed the first read - so quite different for me. This and the inclusion of more than usual "current" novels almost makes up for the shortfall. A few thoughts:

Recommend: The Greatest Generation - No surprise here. A very well researched and documented account, from everyday Joe's to the 41st President. I tend to gravitate towards anything from the WWII era; I especially enjoyed how Brokaw carried the stories forward to current day and displayed how the lessons learned from the Depression and the war were applied throughout the rest of these people's lives.

Not Recommended: Bee Season - Actually a fairly well written book, I enjoyed about the first half. But thereafter the quirky family became just plain weird and in a way not enhancing the story. I've read weird, lots of it and enjoyed most. But this came to an unrecoverable point, where I did not care about the ending, only that it would come swiftly.

Surprise: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid - I'm not sure how I found this book, I think from a best seller list when I was looking for non-fiction. An autobiography poking fun at small town 1950s, it was a great first-hand view of this quintessential American "good 'ole days" decade. Plus, it has lots of laugh out loud moments.

Disappointment: The Reader - This book wasn't terrible and I'm not suggesting it isn't worthy of reading. But it did fall short of my expectations; very easy reading and not quite the depth I was expecting.

While I enjoyed a more even cross section of my reading categories (Young Adult - 5, Classics - 3, Fiction - 7, Non-Fiction - 3), when I picked up Madame Bovary after a long stretch of the "current stuff" I confirmed classic literature is still my oasis.