November 2012 Reads

Read a few less books in November compared to October, but 45 still is not a bad number.  A good number of these, around a third, have already been reviewed (most were National Book Award finalists in various categories) and a few more will be reviewed in the near future.  Only 5 were re-reads (2 of which were reviewed).  Several poetry collections read.  Books were read, with varying levels of comprehension in the following languages:  English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Serbian, and Romanian (the last being surprisingly difficult for a Romance language; I understood more Serbian than I did Romanian, even taking word root familiarity into account).  Disappointing (part, but not all of it is due to the mixture of award finalists and foreign language works on hand) only about 20% of the books read were by women. 

Anyways, here's the list.  Feel free to comment or to ask questions.

402  Adam McOmber, The White Forest (may review later this month)

403  Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers:  Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (non-fiction; already reviewed)

404  Luís Filipe Silva (ed.), Os Anos de Ouro da Pulp Fiction Portuguesa:  Os Melhores Contos do Sec. XX (Portuguese; already reviewed)

405  Anthony Shadid, House of Stone:  A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East (non-fiction; already reviewed)

406  Tim Seibles, Fast Animal (poetry; already reviewed)

407  Anne Applebaum, Iron Curtain:  The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1945-1956 (non-fiction; already reviewed)

408  Domingo Martinez, The Boy Kings of Texas (non-fiction; already reviewed)

409  Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson:  The Passage of Power (non-fiction; already reviewed)

410  Mark Lawrence, Prince of Thorns (already reviewed)

411  Kuzhali Manickavel, Insects are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings (short fiction; very good)

412  Alberto Moravia, Boredom (very good)

413  Nick Mamatas, Bullettime (may review later this month)

414  Milorad Pavić, For Ever and a Day (excellent)

415  Mo Yan, The Republic of Wine (may review in near future)

416  Guido Cavalcanti, Poesie di Guido Cavalcanti (Italian; poetry; very good)

417  Jose de Echegaray, O locura o santidad (drama; Spanish; good)

418  Haley Tanner, Vaclav & Lena (already reviewed)

419  Adam Wilson, Flatscreen (may review later this month)

420  Clair Vaye Watkins, Battleborn (collection; already reviewed)

421  Justin Torres, We the Animals (re-read; already reviewed)

422  Cesare Pavese, Los cuentos (Spanish translation; collection; good to very good)

423  Various, Forty Stories (free e-book collection, uneven but most were good, with a few being very good stories)

424  Angélica Gorodischer, Kalpa Imperial (Spanish; re-read; already reviewed)

425  Andrzej Sapkowski, Lux perpetua (German translation; good to very good, what I could understand at least)

426  Stuart Nadler, The Book of Life (collection; re-read; review forthcoming)

427  Barry Hughart, The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox (decent, but not all that great)

428  Pierre Louÿs, Aphrodite:  mœurs antiques (French; good)

429  Milorad Pavić, Sedam smrtnih grehova (re-read; Serbian; very good)

430  Milorad Pavić, Siete pecados capitales (re-read; Spanish translation; very good)

431  J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy (already reviewed)

432  Javier Marías, Negra espalda del tiempo (Spanish; may review in near future)

433  Grazia Deledda, Carne al vento (Italian; may review in near future)

434  Carl Spitteler, Imago (Spanish translation; may review in near future)

435  Bruno Schulz, L'epoca geniale e altri racconti (short fiction; Italian; review later this month)

436  Ivan Aleksoevich Bunin, The Gentleman from San Francisco and Other Stories (collection; may review in near future)

437  F.L. Fowler, Fifty Shades of Chicken (cookbook; already reviewed)

438  Jacinto Benavente, Los intereses creados (drama; Spanish; may review in near future)

439  Juan Pablo Villalobos, Fiesta en la madriguera (Spanish; good)

440  Kevin Barry, City of Bohane (review later this month perhaps)

441  Karolina Waclawiak, How to Get Into the Twin Palms (review later this month)

442  Jorge Ibargüengotia, La mujer que no (collection; Spanish; very good)

443  Salvatore Quasimodo, The Selected Writings of Salvatore Quasimodo (poetry; bilingual Italian-English; very good)

444  André Chénier, Poésies Choisies (poetry; French; very good)

445  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (German; first time reading it in this language, but curious to see if it'd be intelligible in German.  It was...barely)

446  George Coṣbuc, Poezii (poetry; Romanian; only understood the gist of it, barely)


Don't know if I could read enough during the holiday slow period in order to squeeze in 500 for the year, but I should have somewhere around 110-130 reviews posted here for 2012 reads by year's end.  Expect a couple at least by Monday evening.