Friday 6 November 2015

OCTOBER 2015 - READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

Numbers-wise October was my most disappointing month of the year so far. 6 books completed, although it might be a stretch to call a 21 page short story a book, but hey we play by my rules over here.

Barely 1000 pages completed, though if I factor in the various books I've start-stumbled on, that landmark would be passed with ease.
(That's about half of what I read in September!)

William Craig - The Strasbourg Legacy (1975) (4)

Anonymous-9 - Crashing Through Mirrors (2014) (4.5)

Piero Chiara - The Disappearance of Signora Giulia (1970/2015) (4)

Peter Temple - Ithaca in My Mind (2012) (4.5)

Todd Luchik - Forgotten Boy (2015) (4.5)

Gordon M. Williams - The Siege of Trencher's Farm aka Straw Dogs (1969) (4.5)

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A bit of useless data..........

6 reads from 6 different authors,

4 of the 6 were new-to-me authors.

4 of the 6 were 4.5 star reads and 2 were 4s - no stinkers among them, but nothing that 100%  rocked me.

October’s Book of the Month –  Gordon M. Williams - The Siege of Trencher's Farm aka Straw Dogs! Time to watch the film, I think.

5 of the 6 authors read were male. 1 female. A slight increase on last month - haha!

Cover of the month! Gordon M. Williams again and the film tie-in version of Straw Dogs!

2 of the 6 authors hail from the US. 1 from Canada - now a US resident, 1 from Scotland, 1 from Italy, 1 from Australia,

1 book from the 60s, 2 from the 70s - 1 a recent translation only just published in English this year, 3 from this decade - 2012, 2014 and 2015.

All 6 were fiction.  4 novels, 1 novella, 1 short story.

1 book was sent to me by the author, 1 from the publisher, 1 from Net Galley – cheers!


3 were bought - 1 recently in an effort to kick start my month; an attempt that failed dismally.

2 were paperbacks, 4 were Kindle reads.


Total page count - 1000

Plus point - when I get around to updating my personal sidebar challenges, I will have 1 to add to my Espionage challenge, 1 for my Down Under - Aus/NZ challenge and 1 for my Scottish author challenge.


Disappointments - my reading mojo disappeared. I like to hit a monthly double figure reading count and I didn't. I also missed out on my two ongoing authors series reads - Max Allan Collins and Nolan, Bill Pronzini and Nameless - hey I'll make sure I read one of each in November then.

I can tell when I hit a lull, the number of books started increases as I haven't quite found the right book for the particular reading moment.  Four books up on the sidebar at the minute - I'm sure I'll get stuck in and enjoy them in November. I think the lull is just me a bit jaded and not a reflection on the quality of the prose I'm trying to enjoy.

Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise, collates crime fiction bloggers monthly round ups and their best books over here.
Check out what others enjoyed in October here.

8 comments:

  1. I think we all hit those reading lulls at times, Col. Hopefully you'll get your mojo back for this month. And at least your reads weren't a crop of duds. You had some good 'uns.

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    1. I've not yet recovered it totally, but fingers crossed! Agreed - quite good books read quality-wise, but a little bit of oomph or enthusiasm was missing....

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  2. Col, don't lose heart! You are reading way more than me.

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    1. Prashant - thank you. I'll try and take some comfort from that. I'm kind of debating whether to try for a lot of short stories this month which might kick-start me - once I've cleared my current sidebar reads.

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  3. If you can just get those started books finished... I'm looking out for the David Whish-Wilson.

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    1. I'm working on it! They're still dogging me though....

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  4. We read the same number of books this month. I haven't done a summary post. I am going to do one at the end of November and combine two months. I just can't keep up with too many posts right now, but I do like listing what I read. I do hope you watch the movie version of Gordon M. Williams' book, so we can see what you think.

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    1. I'll have a hunt around for the DVD and if possible try and watch it this month while the book is still fresh.

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