August Retrospective

A Look Back on August

I'm managed a fair amount of reading in August - mostly thanks to the horribly changeable weather that has kept me in the house the majority of the time. Where has our summer gone this year? Thankfully I have a two week holiday coming soon in Florida, and I cannot wait to feel that sun and heat... I have been trying hard to schedule blog posts for my two week absence, so that there is *plenty* to entertain you, and I have some fantastic articles and reviews lined up. This month I also managed to complete my Angry Robot reading, which has been a long process - started way back in March. I was so pleased to see some very good quality manuscripts submitted and here's hoping they get taken on by Angry Robot. In terms of other stuff - I now have a date for my dance exam. This will take place on Sunday 6th November, and I am both excited and nervous. Lots of practice between now and then. Plus the new football season has started and I was absolutely astonished to watch Manchester United crush Arsenal by 8 goals to 2. Amazing times...

Reading

I have not only replicated the mammoth reading effort of July - I have surpassed it! Fifteen books completed! Of course, some of them were only little books but every book counts, right?

Here's the list:

58) A Game of Thrones by G R R Martin
59) Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones
60) Far From Home by Na'ima B Robert
61) Queen of Sorcery by David Eddings
62) Sea Witch by Helen Hollick (self-published)
63) Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
64) The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell
65) Numbers by Rachel Ward
66) Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce
67) What the Nanny Saw by Fiona Neill
68) There is no Dog by Meg Rosoff
69) Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy
70) The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
71) Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
72) Bricks by Leon Jenner

- It's been mostly about the women this month! 10 books read by women and 5 by men.
- So...4 YA novels, 2 novels for the kids, 3 fantasy, 1 chick lit, 1 family saga style, 1 historical fantasy, 1 urban fantasy, and 2 that are generally unclassifiable...Another nicely mixed-up month!
- 6 were books from my own shelves and 9 were review copies.

Best Book of August

This one features as my best book because of nostalgia, because it still stands up to reading and because it's a very good coming of age children's book:

Pages Covered

And as well as being up on books read, I'm up on number of pages read this month as well! 5,993 this month compared with 5,516 last month. My ongoing total for the year is 33,078 :-). Longest book this month was A Game of Thrones (yes, epic fantasy is loooong), while the shortest was Earwig and the Witch (short but very sweet!)

Places Visited

From the Australian outback to Zimbabwe, from Chicago to Dublin - I have flitted around the world. But I have also gone to the Seven Kingdoms, Arendia and Tortall. I think of them all I would like most to spend time in Tortall. I mean, lady knights, mythical creatures and people I would love to be friends with - just so glorious...

Plans for September

I have 60-odd emails in my inbox that currently relate to reviews that I owe. That needs reducing bigtime, so I shall be trying to use September to get these down. Having said that, my reading depends so much on mood that I might start resenting these books for being novels I *have* to tackle. We'll see how I go. Oh, and have I mentioned my holiday? *grins*

Over to You

How did your August go? What did you read? What did you get up to? Spill!