After two heavily-scheduled months of reading, September was an opportunity to relax a little - at least, that was the plan. What actually happened was that I was lucky enough to receive some rare review copies of new books that I had been hoping to read, so I didn't really get through everything I wanted to have a look at. Still, there's nothing new about that...*****
Total Books Read: 8
Year-to-date: 96
New: 6
Rereads: 2
Rereads: 2
From the Shelves: 6
From the Library: 2
On the Kindle: 0
Novels: 6
Short Stories: 2
Non-English Language: 2 (2 Japanese)
In Original Language: 0
Books read in September were:
1) Scraps of Heaven by Arnold Zable
2) Sorekara (And Then) by Natsume Soseki
3) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
4) Spirit of Progress by Steven Carroll
5) Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
6) Violin Lessons by Arnold Zable
7) The White Trail by Fflur Dafydd
8) The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
Murakami Challenge: 1 (3/3)
Books read in September were:
1) Scraps of Heaven by Arnold Zable
2) Sorekara (And Then) by Natsume Soseki
3) Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami
4) Spirit of Progress by Steven Carroll
5) Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
6) Violin Lessons by Arnold Zable
7) The White Trail by Fflur Dafydd
8) The Street Sweeper by Elliot Perlman
Murakami Challenge: 1 (3/3)
Aussie Author Challenge: 4 (17/12)
Victorian Literature Challenge: 1 (27/15)
Japanese Literature Challenge 5: 2 (4/1)
Japanese Literature Challenge 5: 2 (4/1)
Tony's Recommendations for September are: Arnold Zable's Violin Lessons and
Elliot Perlman's The Street Sweeper
Only eight books this month, but it was a vintage crop. While both my Japanese offerings were as enjoyable as ever, and Fflur Dafydd's imaginative retelling of an ancient myth was a lot of fun, I was leaning towards the wonderful Phineas Finn for a while. However, the two Australian books on learning from the past, the slight, enigmatic Violin Lessons, and the weighty, densely-plotted The Street Sweeper are two books which simply cannot (and shouldn't) be ignored...
Off we go into October then. What's up for this month? Well, I've got a lot of reading to do for something that's happening next month - and some of you may even know what that is ;) Also, I have a big milestone coming up. For the first time in the three years of Tony's Reading List, I should (fingers crossed) crack three figures in October. The champagne is already on ice!
