Books of the Month - June thru August

June Book of the Month
The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
I was lured in by the vague, air of mystery blurb on the back of the book from the publisher, about not telling us what it is about. It may seem like a pretty silly tactic but to be honest I probably wouldn't have bought it if it had said "this is a story about a middle-class English woman's friendship a Nigerian refugee". That is what it is about, but if I had ignored it on that summary, I would have missed out on a wonderfully written book, that was beautiful and moving. I may have also been put off by a story told from the perspective of two women that was written by one man, but again this was done brilliantly. It has some very bittersweet bits of humour in here.


July Book of the Month
Willard and His Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
A short, surreal story from Brautigan who most famous works (In Watermelon Sugar and Trout Fishing in America) I wasn't so impressed with. But I loved this one. It is about two couples living in the same apartment block, and three brothers who are looking for their stolen bowling trophies. The Willard of the title is a papier-mache bird - its that kind of book!


August Book of the Month
Riven Rock by T C Boyle
My new favourite Boyle book. This one is loosely based on the true story of Stanley McCormick who spends most of his adult life locked away from society due to his mental illness. The book charters his treatment by various doctors, which at times descends into farce, but other parts of the book were genuinely moving. I was reduced to tears by the end.

999 Challenge Update: End of August

I've not posted in ages due to a new job and various other stresses. I've also lapsed on the 999 challenge reviews over on the challenge website, so this update is merely a list for now. I'm quite close to completing the challenge with four categories completed, although it now getting tougher to get hold of books to fit the categories.


1001 Books to Read Before You Die
1. Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates
2. The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien
3. Slow Man by J M Coetzee
4. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain
5. Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
6. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
7. The Successor by Ismail Kadore
8. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
9. Mr Vertigo by Paul Auster


Fiction Authors that are New to Me
1. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann
2. Underground Man by Mick Jackson
3. The Flood by David Maine
4. The Man who was Thursday by G K Chesterton
5. Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
7. The Girls: A Novel by Lori Lansens
8. When I was Five I Killed Myself by Howard Buten
9.The Other Hand by Chris Cleave


Crime and Detectives around the world (each one from a different country)
1. Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Hoeg (Greenland)
2. Real World by Natsuo Kirino (Japan)
3. Ice Moon by Jan Costin Wagner (Finland)
4. Right as Rain by George Pelecanos (Washington DC, USA)
5. Messenger of Athens by Anne Zouroudi (Greece)
6. The Snack Thief by Andrea Camilleri (Sicilly)
7. Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith (Soviet Union)
8
9.


Theme: Dystopia
1. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
2. The Declaration by Gemma Malley
3. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
5. Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
6.Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
7.The Giver by Lois Lowry
8. We by Yevgenry Zamyatin

Retro: Beats, Hippies, 1960s and Counter-Culture (fiction and non-fiction)
1. Retro Retro: Fictional Flashbacks by Amy Prior
2. 1968: the year that rocked the world - Mark Kurlansky
3. Hippie by Barry Miles
4. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
5. I think therefore who am I by Peter Weissman
6. When I Was Cool - Sam Kashner
7. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan
8. Willard and his Bowling Trophies by Richard Brautigan
9. Hippie Hippie Shake by Richard Neville


Around the World (fiction set outside of the UK and USA - each one from a different country)
1. Cloudstreet by Tim Winton (Australia)
2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khalid Hosseini (Afghanistan)
3. Distant Star by Roberto Bolano (Chile)
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Dominican Republic)
5. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
6. Tropical Fish: Tales from Entebbe by Doreen Baingana (Uganda)
7. Elegy for Easterly by Petina Gappah (Zimbabwe)


Non-Fiction
1. Shakespeare by Bill Bryson
2. Los Angeles without a Map by Richard Rayner
3. The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Laver
4. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale.
5. Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
6.The Last Shot by Darcy Frey (sports related book picked by my OH)
7. Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
8. Hippo Eats Dwarf by Alex Boese



Complete Works of - T C Boyle
1. East is East
2. Inner Circle
3. A Friend of the Earth
4. Talk Talk
5. Budding Prospects
6. Riven Rock
7. World's End


Themed Titles - Animals (a different animal in each title)
1. The Boy Who Kicked Pigs by Tom Baker
2. White Tiger by Aravinda Adiga
3. Giraffe by J M Ledgard
4. Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks by Christopher Brookmyre
5. The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
6 The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa
7. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
8. Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
9. Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman