A Look Back on June
June has been a good month, really enjoyable. Not only did I manage to get in a week away from work, which I spent reading and not much else, I also met Mieneke and Wiebe and saw a lot of literary friends at AltFiction. I went to Alton Towers, which was ace and clearly practice for Florida in September. Reading has gone exceptionally well - and June marked my first self-published novel reviewed on Floor to Ceiling Books. Hopefully there will be many more, I know I've been inundated with requests, and been very pleased by the professionalism of those querying me.
The Kindle reading is starting to pick up - and I've managed to accumulate 71 books on it, so I had best pick it up more often!
Finally, the Open Month reading for Angry Robot books has been going apace. We've almost finished reading the partials (down to the last 100) and then I have 47 (as of today) full manuscripts to assess.
And, big news: handed in my first edited novel for Morrigan Books.
Reading
The holiday helped! I cantered through a fair number of novels this month and I'm *almost* back on track to achieve 100 books in 2011. Here are the links to the novels reviewed:
37) Magus of Stonewylde by Kit Berry
38) The Adamantine Palace by Stephen Deas
39) The Queen Must Die by K. A. S. Quinn
40) Before I Go To Sleep by S J Watson
41) Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck
42) Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
43) Sometimes It Happens by Pauline Barclay
44) Empire in Black and Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky
45) Trust Me, I'm A Vet by Cathy Woodman
9 books! Way better than the previous couple of months!
- 6 books by women, 3 books by men
- 2 epic fantasy, 3 YA, 1 thriller and 3 chick lit - yet again, I demonstrate my inability to stick in one genre
- Of the above 3 were from my own shelves and 6 were review copies.
Best Book of June
This one is a very easy choice, considering I was absolutely blown away by:
Pages Covered
Let's just do a swift calculation! Okay, despite the fact that I read WAAAY more books than May, it wasn't all that many pages, considering the fact that most of the novels I whipped through were 400 pages and less. Page count was 3,608 in June, bringing the total pages this year to 21,569. Longest novel for June was Empire in Black and Gold, while the shortest by a fraction was The Queen Must Die.
Places Visited
Many and varied! London, India, Talyton down in Devon, the Lowlands surrounded by Kinden, Stonewylde. You would think that the place I'd want to go to myself was Stonewylde, being as it is presented as a country idyll, but it all seems a bit too secretish and cultish for me. Personally I love the idea of deepest darkest Devon.
Plans for July
Getting those Angry Robot submissions completed and wrapped up, for sure. I've been working on them on and off since March 1st, and would like to draw a line under the process - I'm sure those waiting for replies appreciate the fact as well. Apart from that, I want to try and fit in a few more self-published novels. If I have any more time, then it'll be trying to catch up with some of the series that I've let slide the last couple of years (Dresden files, Wheel of Time etc). I probably won't be getting excited about A Dance of Dragons, since I have not re-read the previous four just yet - and I don't anticipate George will be speeding up his writing any!
Over to You
How did your June go? What did you read? What did you get up to? Spill!
Sounds like June was a good month for you!
ReplyDeleteMy June started out rather crummy when it came to reading, but with the wonderful event of breaking my finger in a spetacular way, I managed to get a lot of reading done and am caught up on my own challenge to read 100 books this year.
ReplyDeleteMy own June recap's on my blog right now, actually, with all the details. :)
I dived in Weber's Safehold series, almost 2000 pages for the first three volumes. I discovered Diana Raybourn (thanks to you and Minieke!)and read three of her books. Sprinkle some Josh Lanyon mysteries and there's my recipe for June. And I forgot a somewhat arid academic book on SF (and no, academic and arid are not synonymous).
ReplyDeleteJune was great - I spent week by the pool in Fiji - every day was 31 degrees celcius and sunny.... read "Embassytown" by Mieville, The two "Monarchies of God" omnibuses by Paul Kearney and "Leviathan Wakes" by Corey. All of these reads were phenomenal - I would highly recommend all of them and they are each so different.
ReplyDeleteAlso at the end of the month I started my ASOIAF re-read so given my reading pace I will be a bit late starting ADWD, but I'll get there!
But seriously folks, read Embassytown, The Monarchies of God and Leviathan Wakes - you won't regret it :-)