I’m almost certainly going to run out of alliteration for months soon! J is a difficult letter for month summaries.
I’m a bit behind in my reviews, so I only managed to post six reviews. Half of these were ebooks and half were non-fiction, surprisingly! I was also introduced to the works of Andrey Kurkov through Melville House Publishing. I celebrated a blog birthday and took part in the fantastic Literary Giveaway Blog Hop though! Unfortunately, Australia lost its final Borders stores this month and I’ll show you my pickings in stages over July (there’s quite a few of them).
My favourite read of the month was a tie – Death and the Penguin by Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov for its irony and penguin and Hospital Babylon for its hilarity combined with sadness.
Now onto the challenges…
My challenge: Tourist level (3 books by 3 different authors)
No Aussie authors read this month – shame! I have read five books this year though.
Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge 2011
My challenge: Hajime (one book)
Still haven’t gotten any further yet – must read one soon – perhaps when my work schedule is a bit quieter ( the worst will be over in a fortnight). Should I choose Sputnik Sweetheart or The Elephant Vanishes?
The Sense and Sensibility Bicentenary Challenge 2011
My challenge: Neophyte (read the original)
Completed! My review is here.
Historical Fiction Challenge 2011
My challenge: Struggling the Addiction (10 books).
Now up to 14 – only book that counted this month was Small Island – a great read of post-war Britain.
2011 Reading From My Shelves Project
My challenge: 20 paper books (am excluding ebooks).
I’ve hit 32 for the year…but have bought way too many books in June (see forthcoming posts). I can’t cram any more into my bookshelves!
In terms of the blog, I had a very busy month due to the blog hop. This didn’t stop the strange search terms coming, I had some great ones, including:
- stewardess 60s, stewardess birthday
- richard hammond visits a diving pool
- nissan x trail fuel lift pump
- australian breakfast singapore borders
- food mentioned in the immortal life of henrietta lacks
- gear for teen boys
- you are not that old swedish book written by doctor from stockholm published october 2011
- sense and sensibility is a horrible book
- singapore grand hyatt club cocktail hours
- erline jenschke
- preincarnation and chosing a time period to live in
Michael Palin was the most popular search term and most of you were interested in the literary Giveaway Blog Hop (mine was won by Mae). Fortune Cookie by Bryce Courtenay is still very popular and rightly so – it’s an excellent book, combining Mad Men-style advertising with Singapore and a mystery.
Did you get much reading done in June?
Looks like you had a good month reading. I’m particuarly impressed by the progress you’ve made reading books off our own shelves…that’s definitely something that I need to work on.
I need to stop buying…my progress is actually negative because I’ve run out of space!
Great an busy month, congrats! 🙂 I really want to read Death and the Peng, it sounds great. And fingers crossed for next months alliterations 😉
Hmm, I’m running out of time with the alliterations ‘junk in July’? ‘jelly July’! I need to Google it further.
Love the search terms! Do you feel reassured that you are not an old swedish book? Also, I love it when people type things like “sense and sensibility is a horrible book” – it’s like they’re casting out their feelings out to the internet and hoping for an echo back.
I do actually. I love some of those, the funniest ones seem to have absolutely nothing to do with my blog, I wonder how many sites they’ve trawled through previously!