July 2012 Reads

Read 33 books in July, 13 of them being re-reads.  Twelve were either non-English editions or bilingual, with another four being English translations.  More books written by men than women this month, due in part to the re-reads/foreign editions.  Only three books are likely to be shelved in SF/F/H categories, but several others share a close literary kinship with speculative fictions.  Five books, three of them re-reads, are YA/children's lit.  Another three are of a religious/metaphysical bent, and two books made me rethink matters of life, love, and laughter.  But enough talking, here are the titles:

228  Steven Erikson, The Devil Delivered and Other Tales (non-Malazan stories; better written than most of his fantasies)

229  Nnedi Okorafor, Long Juju Man (re-read; YA; enjoyable)

230  Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit (re-read; an old favorite; children's lit)

231  Goran Petrović, Atlas descrito por el cielo (re-read; Spanish; very good)

232  Goran Petrović, Diferencias (re-read; Spanish; short story collection; excellent)

233  Goran Petrović, Opsada Crkve Sv. Spasa (Serbian; outstanding)

234  Goran Petrović, Le Siège de L'église Saint-Sauveur (French translation of the above)

235  Goran Petrović, Sitničarnica "kod srećne ruke" (re-read; Serbian; excellent)

236  Goran Petrović, La Mano de la Buena Fortuna (re-read; Spanish translation of the above)

237  Ernesto Cardenal, Poesía Completa:  Tomo 1 (re-read; Spanish; poetry; outstanding)

238  Branko Miljković, Vatra i Ništa/Fire and Nothing (bilingual Serbian and English; poetry; excellent)

239  Antonio Machado, Compos de Castilla (Spanish; poetry; very good)

240  Augusto Monterroso, La oveja negra y demás fábulas (Spanish; story collection; very good)

241  John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan:  An American Life (non-fiction; well-deserved winner of the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award and Pulitzer Prize for Biography)

242  William Faulkner, Knight's Gambit (good, but not his best work; story collection)

243  Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River (very good)

244  Karen Thompson Walker, The Age of Miracles (better than what some SF critics have made it out to be; very good debut novel)

245  Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man's Fear (perhaps I'll elaborate more later about my meh reaction to this second volume)

246  Carlos Fuentes, Inquieta Compañía (re-read; Spanish; story collection; very good)

247  Moacyr Scliar, Kafka's Leopards (re-read; excellent)

248  Friedrich Dürrenmatt, The Visit (play; good but uneven for me; need to see it performed to judge better)

249  Doris Lessing, The Grass is Singing (excellent)

250  Thomas Ligotti, Noctuary (short story collection; excellent)

251  Joseph Brodsky, Watermark (I will write an essay about this in the near future)

252  Alan Lightman, Einstein's Dreams (same as above)

253  Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows (re-read; children's lit; already reviewed)

254  Kenneth R. Overberg, Into the Abyss of Suffering:  A Catholic View (non-fiction; not rating it)

255  Leonardo Sciascia, Il mare colore del vino:  Tre racconti (Italian; excerpt from a longer story collection; outstanding)

256  Astrid Lindgren, Pippi Longstocking (children's lit; already reviewed)

257  Fulton J. Sheen, Way to Inner Peace (non-fiction; not rating it)

258  Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man (non-fiction; some food for thought for later)

259  Ogdred Weary, The Curious Sofa (re-read; illustrated; diverting)

260  Scott O'Dell, Island of the Blue Dolphins (YA; review forthcoming)