Books in August, 2010

So this has been the longest month ever. I got home from Deutsch Camp on the 8th, and was afraid that I'd have no summer left. But the last 2 and a half weeks have been the longest weeks ever. I just want the cold to come. And school work and schedules. What does all this have to do with the books I read this month you ask? Nothing. I just felt like complaining about August, my least favorite month. Onward, reading ho!


1. Spindle's End, Robin McKinley
This book was a complete head trip. I guess it's my new favorite fantasy book ever. It dealt with all my favorite themes like sacrificial love. It was really thick and magnificent and I want to marry Barder.


2. Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson
This was really good historical fiction. Actually it was too good. It had so much FACT that it distracted from the story. I think it could have been improved by being about 100 pages longer.


3. The Death of Adam, Marilynne Robinson
A mind-blowing book of essays on modern thought. Family and Puritans and Prigs were my favorites. I never thought I was the sort who would like reading theology but I have proved myself wrong this year.


4. We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
This book was like a children's book, but for adults. It had the same magical, meandering, plotless beauty that children's literature does so well. It read like a fantasy but it was completely probable, the author did a magnificent job plotting it.


5. Heretics, GK Chesterton
My third book of his, and my second of his theological endeavors, this book really convicted me. It's amazing that something written almost a hundred years ago could still be so relevant and true. Read it now.


6. Flowers in the Rain, Rosamunde Pilcher
This was a lovely collection of short stories. They were all romantic and ridiculous and very British and very beautiful. It was just escapist loveliness.


7. The Dreamer: The Consequence of Nathan Hale, Lora Innes
This is actually an online graphic novel, but I am counting it because I read it. It is everything that a girl who spent her childhood watching Liberty's Kids could want.


8. Cannery Row, John Steinbeck
I think that I'd rather read about the midwest than about Yorkshire or something. There is a kind of gloomy magic to be found in stories about American landscapes. This book was pretty plotless but absolutely gorgeous. It felt labored over, and that's a beautiful thing.

Yeah, I didn't read that much this month. It was too hot to read. Today was such a waste of a day. Yawn.