Books of the month: June 2015

Pick of the month

We’re all going to politely ignore the fact I never bothered to wrap up my monthly reading for May aren’t we? Not that my reading quantity was much better in June. I’m blaming Leif G.W. Persson’s never-bloody-ending FREE FALLING AS IF IN A DREAM for most of my recent stagnation. It took ages to wade through and put me off the written word in general for some time afterwards. Should just have stopped reading it all together. My pick for June though would be Deon Meyer’s COBRA which was fabulously narrated for me by Saul Reichlin. It’s entertaining and political and touching all at once.

The rest (titles preceded by the ++ symbol are all recommended)

• ++ THE BANK INSPECTOR by Roger Monk (a new Aussie author writes a gentle tale that doesn’t involve a murder)
• ++ THE BISHOP’S WIFE by Mette Ivie Harrison (fascinating insights into the Mormon community)
• ++ THE INVISIBLE GARDEN by Dolores Redondo (introduces a great new character in Spanish crime fiction)
• THE MYSTERY OF A BUTCHER’S SHOP by Gladys Mitchell (I wasn’t able to participate in the Past Offences Classics challenge in June because I couldn’t get hold of a book for the nominated year so I read this older title from my own collection – I didn’t review it because I couldn’t think of anything to polite to say about it)
• THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE by Alan Bradley (for me there are much better child narrators than Flavia)

Progress Towards 2015’s Book-ish Goals

Challenge	Goal	Progress
Australian Women Writers Challenge	Read and review 25 eligible books	8*/25
Reading US Fiction Challenge	Read 6 books by new to me authors set in different states of the US	2/6
Personal – Outside my comfort zone	Read at least 6 books that aren’t crime/mystery/thriller novels	2/6
Personal – Read Globally	Read at least 10 books set in countries that aren’t Australia, America or England	22/10
Personal – Reduce TBR	Read at least 20 books I owned as at 31 December 2014	12/20
Personal – Buy Australian	Buy no physical or eBooks from non-Australian stores	0/0
Personal – Read older books too	Participate in at least 6 of the monthly ‘pick a year’ reading challenges hosted at Past Offences	5/6

*have read 10 books but only reviewed 8 of them

I’m in danger of catastrophic failure on a couple of fronts but at least I’m doing well on my global reading, reading older books and buying no printed word books (physical or electronic) from non-Australian sources.

Reading outside my comfort zone is – not surprisingly – the hardest of all. I’ve actually brought several books home from the library that would fit this category and taken them back unread. Naughty I know.

I’m really going to try to find some interesting and new to me male American authors for the last half of the year. I don’t think I’m asking for much: just some decent characters, a noticeable dearth of serial killers and a bit of social or political commentary underpinning a great story.

 Looking ahead

I really must do something about the alarming number of Australian books I have been neglecting (in favour of the Petrona Award and International Dagger Award shortlists). To that end I’ve started July with the latest book by one of my favourite Aussie women writers – Felicity Young. THE INSANITY OF MURDER is officially released on 1 August but I’ve been lucky enough to receive an early copy and I couldn’t think of anything better to do during my street’s planned power outage today than dive in. Not sure what to read next but I’m definitely going to read at least one book from 1987 for this month’s Past Offences Challenge.

What about you? Had any particularly good reads during June? How are your reading goals looking now that we’re half-way through the year? Got something good lined up for July?