August Book Report

August 2021

I finished 13 books last month.

A quote from this month's reading:

“Love is not, anywhere, taken seriously. It's not respected. It's the one thing in the world everyone wants, but for some reason people are obliged to pretend that love is trifling and foolish.”
― Carol Shields, The Republic of Love

Here is my progress toward various goals and challenges:

• 1 was non-fiction and none were poetry (toward my goal of 10 non-fiction books and some poetry this year) 
• 4 were books I own but hadn't read before (#unreadshelfproject2021) 
• none count toward the Turtle Recall Challenge
• 1 counted toward the Canadian Book Challenge (which restarted on July 1)
• 2 were from my Classics Club List and 1 counted toward the Back to the Classics Challenge

Here are the books I finished in August 2021: 

1. The Sleepers of Erin by Jonathan Gash (2-stars)
2. Blackberry Wine by Joanne Harris (4-stars)
3. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines by Pamela Terry (4-stars)
4. The Republic of Love by Carol Shields (4-stars)
5. The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix (4-stars) -- I love the cover of this book.
6. On Writing Well by William Zinsser (3-stars)
7. Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley (3-stars)
8. The Third Bullet: Stories by John Dickson Carr (3-stars)
9. After All These Years by Susan Isaacs (4-stars)
10. Come to Grief by Dick Francis (audiobook, 3-stars)
11. The Old Silent by Martha Grimes (3-stars)
12. Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley (4-stars)
13. Double Indemnity by James M. Cain (4-stars)

I read a lot more books this month than usual that might be described as "romance." Not sure what brought that on, but I did enjoy them. On the other hand the Isaacs novel where the cheating ex-husband ends up with a knife in his back on the kitchen floor was quite satisfying.