Sunday 1 May 2011

April 2011 Wrap-Up

It's that time again, a chance for me to tell you about all the books I read in April - don't you feel honoured..

Total Books Read: 11
Year-to-date: 48

New: 8
Rereads: 3

From the Shelves: 6
From the Library: 3
On the Kindle: 2

Novels: 9
Novellas/Short Stories: 2

Non-English Language: 6 (2 Japanese, 2 German, 1 French, 1 Spanish)
In Original Language: 3 (2 German, 1 French)

Books read in April were:
1) Du Côté de chez Swann by Marcel Proust
2) Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
3) The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami
4) 1988 by Andrew McGahan
5) The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow by Thea Astley
6) The Spare Room by Helen Garner
7) Liebe Deinen Nächsten by Erich Maria Remarque
8) The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9) Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
10) Storm's Short stories and Novellas* by Theodor Storm
11) When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro

* A bunch of random selected free e-texts - 
Martha und ihre Uhr, Im Saal, Im Brauerhaus, Im Sonnenschein, Immensee, Auf dem Staatshof, Pole Poppenspäler & Viola Tricolor

Murakami Challenge: 1 (2/3)
Aussie Author Challenge: 3 (7/12)
Victorian Literature Challenge: 2 (11/15)

Tony's Recommendation for April is: Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans

A controversial choice?  Well, hard to look past Proust, but I'll reserve judgement on him until I'm further into his epic, seven-part masterpiece A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.  I was very tempted by The Autumn of the Patriarch and (of course) the wonderful - and wonderfully sad - Jude the Obscure, while if this award went on enjoyment factor alone, my German find of the month, Theodor Storm, could have been going home with the honours (metaphorically speaking...).  However, after being pipped at the post before, this month Kazuo Ishiguro gets the plaudits for another well-crafted work, with an intriguing and ever-so-slightly untrustworthy narrator telling us of his life and adventures in inter-war Shanghai.  Do read it :)

That was April- time flies, no? See you next month...