October! It’s generally a good month. One of my favorites–beginning of Fall and all. Although it was kind of warmer weather than I like and it’s really now in November that we’re entering the weather *I* like.
Also October sucked because I spent the whole thing on the couch watching Stargate SG-1 and in pain. The Stargate part was totally fine. The pain thing got old over a month ago.
Fuck it. Whatever. Let’s talk about books. I read some in October. I also did some preliminary math and I’m pretty sure (keep in mind my math skills are poor) that I (only) need to read 18 more books in November and December (total–not each month) in order to reach my professed goal of 250 books for the year of 2011. Thus beating my total of 239 from last year. I didn’t really aim excessively over 2010’s victory upon the written word.
Books Read: 20
Books Partially Read: 6
Books Bought: 2
Money Spent: $8.50
Books Borrowed: 12
Books Given: 2
Books Re-read: 6
Money made (from selling books): $12 whole dollars! Of which I immediately spent $8.50 on more books! Damn my inveterate spending!
Books on To-Be-Read Shelf: 69. Seriously. I need to read more.
Favorite Books This Month: Pie by Sarah Weeks, Fly Trap by Frances Hardinge, and Super Natural Every Day by Heidi Swanson.
Look how few that is! And I only added the last one on impulse. And ok maybe also I re-read my book–Book ‘Em–last month again too as I was editing for publication. It’s still pretty good. I mean, I laughed multiple times at funny bits. But I didn’t include that in favorites because I’ve done that before. No need to toot my own horn! Actually there’s every need. I suck at self-promotion. Creating a marketing strategy for e-publishing is hard, people.
You might think Pie is a cookbook, but it’s not. It’s…ok, wait, actually it does have recipes in it at the beginning of each chapter so I guess it’s kind of like a cookbook. But really it’s a kid’s chapter book. Or whatever you designate a chapter book for slightly older kids as. It’s a kid’s book. It’s about this girl who inherits a cat from her pie-making aunt and the mystery surrounding the famous pie crust recipe her aunt invented. And there’s a boy and it’s sort of old-fashioned and pretty much it’s adorable. I loved it. My mom got it for me from her Scholastic Book Club thing so I was supposed to give it to her class after I read it but I’m keeping it. I already made one of the pies. Lemon Chess Pie. It’s got corn meal in it and it kind of makes a crunchy crust. I want to try to Coconut Cream Pie next. I have all the ingredients for it already. Looking for an occasion.
Super Natural Every Day IS a cookbook. A crazy delicious hippie one. I’ve only made one thing from it so far–this blackberry, coconut, pistachio tart thing. It is amazing. But I am excited to make many many more things from it. And eat them all.
Fly Trap is the sequel to Fly by Night which I read a couple years back. Finally got around to reading the sequel (it’s only been out a couple months so it’s not like I was procrastinating that bad). It’s about a girl named Mosca Mye and her goose and her friends and the evil Locksmiths. I liked it. I was worried because Kris said she re-read Fly by Night and it wasn’t as good anymore. This wasn’t as good as my memory tells me Fly by Night was, but still pretty delightful. I like Mosca.
Least Favorite Books This Month: The Bride Wore Scarlet by Liz Carlyle, Waking Up With The Duke by Lorraine Heath, Vanish by Sophie Jordan, As I Wake by Elizabeth Scott, and Misfit by Jon Skovan.
The first 2 were bad romances. The Bride one…they had special powers but not really interesting ones. The Duke one, guh. The woman’s husband was impotent and asked the Duke to impregnate his wife. Soooo basically it was about adultery and I gave up pretty quickly. The last 3 were bad YA novels. Vanish was a sequel to this dragon one I read a while back…you know it’s not even worth telling you why they were bad. They were just not interesting. Not any of these. Didn’t finish them.
So this month I will read at least 9 books on my path to 250 total. Here I go. Just pick one of the 69 on the shelf and start.
Do you know how hard it is to pick just one from 69?! So hard. Especially when these include a new Terry Pratchett, a new Richelle Mead, a book about shipwrecks and so many more. So many. 69. Maybe I’ll just read one of my own novels again. (Shameless self-promotion.)