Books of the Month – February 2011

Book of the month

I can’t decide between two great reads as book of the month so I’ll highlight the two very different books by two terrific female crime writers

Liza Marklund’s Studio 69 about a young journalist just starting out in her career and having to feel her way amidst an investigation into a brutal murder is a top notch example of crime fiction as a mechanism for observing real-world social and political issues.

Katherine Howell’s Cold Justice is a superbly plotted thriller about a 19-year old unsolved case of a murdered boy. It was a really credible depiction of how a case could be solved after so much time and without much in the way of new evidence just because the people involved had changed.

Books read this month

I finished 15 books in February (we won’t dwell on the additional 3 DNFs) though I didn’t make any progress for some of my challenges as my reading mood didn’t take me there. With the notable exception of the dreadful Ben Elton book it was a very solid month for reading.

Just Because (i.e. not for a challenge)

• Ben Elton – Meltdown (rating 2)
• Dick Francis – Crossfire (rating 3.5)
• Julie Hyzy – Buffalo West Wing (rating 3)
• Martin Edwards – The Serpent Pool (rating 4) (I lost my review but Maxine said it better than I would have anyway)
• Nevada Barr – Burn (rating 3.5)
• Peter May – Blowback (rating 3) (review to come)
• Val McDermid – The Torment of Others (rating 2.5)

Aussie Authors Challenge (4 read, 8 to go)

• Andrew Croome – Document Z (4 stars)
• David Whish-Wilson – Line of Sight (4 stars) (link goes to Fair Dinkum Crime)
• Katherine Howell – Cold Justice (4.5 stars)

Canadian Challenge (11 read, 2 to go)

• No progress this month

Eastern European Challenge (1 read, 1 to go)

• I tried and failed to read Leeches by David Albahari so I’ve still got three to go for this challenge.

Global Challenge (4 read, 10 (0r 17) to go)

• Bev Robitai – Murder in the Second Row (New Zealand) (3.5 stars)
• John le Carré, Our Kind of Traitor (7th continent – International) (2 stars)
• Michael Stanley – The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu (Africa) (3.5 stars)

Historical Fiction Challenge (2 read, 3 to go)

• No progress this month

Ireland Challenge (1 read, 3 to go)

• No progress this month

Nordic Challenge (3 read, 8 to go)

• Liza Marklund – Studio 69 (Sweden) (4.5 stars)
• Michael Ridpath – Where the Shadows Lie (Iceland) (3.5 stars)

What’s In a Name #4 (1 read, 5 to go)

• No progress this month

Books acquired this month & toppling that TBR

I’d really rather not be admitting this in public but they say the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have one. My overall challenge for the year is to reduce the number of books I have on hand to read from 200 (as at 1 January 2011) to 120. By the end of January I was down to 189.

At the end of February I am back up to 199.

Oh the shame.

I could make a lot of excuses about receiving gifts, wisely using book vouchers before a local chain went into liquidation, having several library books to read for an upcoming amateur sleuth blogging event I will be participating in, going crazy on buying Aussie crime fiction due to the re-launch of Fair Dinkum Crime (the Australian crime fiction blog that Kerrie and I have established) but in the end it all boils down to me being weak and having no self control. I’m just glad it was books my mother introduced me to as a toddler and not cocaine 🙂

Here are some highlights of this month’s addiction (and my excuses):

blame Maxine*

won it

my fault

a gift

my Aussie blitz

for bookclub

blame Margot*

my Aussie blitz

blame Maxine*

blame Maxine*

more Aussie blitz

blog post research

Warning Warning Warning

*Maxine blogs at Petrona, Margot blogs at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist. Visit their sites at your own risk and if you do, don’t come back here complaining that your own TBR piles are now out of control. You’ve been warned 🙂

Today has been ‘one of those days’ I will be heartily glad to see the end of so I am going to bed for an early night with Tarquin Hall instead of preparing a chart of the month.