Second quarter book report (2009)

Here's the next installment of my anal-retentive detailed review of the books I've read this year. Did I manage to improve on last quarter's total of 23 books? Read on. As before, the parentheses contain the genre of the book and the number of times I've now read it.

Key: F: Fantasy; H: Historical; Hr: Horror; M: Mystery; MG: Middle Grade (ages 8-12); NF: Nonfiction; SF: Science Fiction; SS: Short Stories; YA: Young Adult (age 13+); *not in the last ten years at least.

04/06/09: Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors, (F, SS, 1)
04/10/09: Sheri S. Tepper, The Margarets (F, 1)
04/11/09: Jane Austen and Shane Graham-Smith, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (H, Hr, 1)
04/11/09: Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief (YA, F, 1)
04/14/09: Austen, Sense and Sensibility (H, 5 or 6)
04/16/09: Riordan, The Sea of Monsters (YA, F, 1)
04/17/09: Riordan, The Titan's Curse (YA, F, 1)
04/18/09: Riordan, The Battle of the Maze (YA, F, 1)
04/21/09: Various authors, Magical Beginnings (SS, F, 1)
04/26/09: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (YA, F, 3)
04/27/09: Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (YA, F, 2)
05/01/09: Julia Barrett, The Third Sister (H, 1)
05/03/09: Jane Gillespie, Brightsea (H, 1)
05/07/09: Joan Aiken, Eliza's Daughter (H, 1)
05/08/09: Orson Scott Card, Seventh Son (F, >5*)
05/10/09: Card, Red Prophet (F, >5*)
05/12/09: Card, Prentice Alvin (F, >5*)
05/13/09: Card, Alvin Journeyman (F, 3)
05/14/09: Card, Heartfire (F, 2)
05/20/09: Carrie Bebris, Suspense and Sensibility (H, M, 1)
05/23/09: Card, The Crystal City (F, 1)
05/25/09: Norman Jewison, This Terrible Business Has Been Good to Me (NF, 1)
05/28/09: Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (YA, F, 1)
06/02/09: Stephen King, The Dead Zone (Hr, 3-5*)
06/07/09: Scott Westerfeld, Peeps (YA, Hr, 1)
06/09/09: Riordan, The Last Olympian (YA, F, 1)
06/22/09: Bob Woodward, The War Within (NF, 1)
06/25/09: Lois McMaster Bujold, The Sharing Knife: Horizon (F, 1)

Total: 28 books, five more than last time. You can see I slowed down toward the end of June, wading through the dense (but fascinating) Bob Woodward book on the Iraq war and my current read, Dante's Inferno. (Review coming soon.) Still, all that training on the stationery bike gave me lots of time to read, catching up on 7 current YAs, checking out some Austen analogs, and revisiting some of my favorite fantasies in order to check out the most recent sequel.

If I had to pick a favorite among what I read, it would be difficult; Rick Riordan's "Percy Jackson" series is a hoot if you love mythology; Scott Westerfeld's Peeps is a great, boy-centered antidote to all the Twilight vampire foolishness, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies had me giggling nonstop. So a pretty good quarter on the reading front. We'll see if I can keep up over the summer with all the usual madness going on.