Eight books read in the month which I'm disappointed in - two less than par. That said they were all very good and not a stinker among them.
They were......
E. Michael Helms - Deadly Dunes (2015) (4)Paul D. Brazill - The Last Laugh (2016) (5)
Daniel Vlasaty - Only Bones (2016) (4.5)
David Putnam - The Squandered (2015) (4)
Frederic Dard - Bird in a Cage (1961/2016) (5)
Frank Westworth - Fifth Columnist (2016) (4.5)
Martin Holmen - Clinch (2016) (4.5)
Mike McCrary - Genuinely Dangerous (2016) (4.5)
Book of the Month.... well two 5 star reads to choose from - Paul D. Brazill's - The Last Laugh and Frederic Dard's Bird in a Cage. Dard's dead and Brazill's breathing so step forward PDB!Paul D. Brazill has the last laugh fittingly with The Last Laugh!
Of the rest - 4 reads at 4.5 and 2 rating 4 stars
A bit more trivia or data........
3 of the 8 were new-to-me authors........ Martin Holmen, Frederic Dard, Daniel Vlasaty - all of them I would want to read more from and hopefully will
5 authors have been read before - Mike McCrary and Frank Westworth (once each), a third go for both E. Michael Helms and David Putnam and Mr Brazill has been enjoyed multiple times.
Gender analysis - no surprises here - 8 dudes, no chicks - 1 less than last month.
Must do better Mr Keane. (I'm no Donald Trump I can assure you)
4 authors hail from the US, 2 from England, 1 from France, 1 from Sweden
All 8 reads were fiction.
3 were paperback reads, 4 were Kindle editions, 1 was a hardback.
7 from this decade - 5 from this year. 2 from last year, 1 from the 1960s originally, but only brought to an English readership this year.
None of the 8 books were pre-owned!
I'm going to have a fat chance of clearing the tubs if that trend continues!
3 were kindly sent by the authors, 5 were sent to me by publishers - Pushkin Vertigo (2), All Due Respect Books (2) and Coffeetown Press (1) - many thanks to all!
Favourite cover? Clinch by Martin Holmen.
Bird in a Cage a close second. Stylistically I really like the new covers from Pushkin. The old ones near on induced an epileptic fit trying to ascertain what the book was and who it was by.
Total page count = 1789 (about 30-odd down on August)
1 < 50,
0 between 51 < 100,
2 between 101 < 200,
2 between 201 < 300,
3 between 301 < 400,
0 > 400 pages
David Putnam's The Squandered was the longest @ 352.
Very glad to hear you had a good reading month in terms of quality, Col. ANd after all, that's more important than quantity, I think. Not surprised that PDB won out for you this time; he's a very talented writer.
ReplyDeleteMargot cheers. Happy to report I still have more from PDB on the pile!
DeleteCol, that's as contemporary as any reading list can be. Great variety of authors and books.
ReplyDeleteNothing from 2017, haha!
DeleteI always enjoy reading the statistics, but will hope for more female authors in future!
ReplyDeleteI'll see what I can do!
DeleteThanks very much, Col!
ReplyDeleteNo problem - I really enjoyed the stories
DeleteCol, I feel lucky when I can read 8 books in a month. It sounds like a good number of your books were longer than usual though. I will be getting to Brazill's stories and / or books soon.
ReplyDeleteTracy thanks. I hope you enjoy Paul's work when you get to it.
Delete