July 2014 Reads

Averaged exactly one book a day for the month of July, as I completed 31 books.  Most of these, unlike other months, were in English, as I concentrated on reviewing as many 2014 releases as I could manage.  20 of the 31 have already been reviewed, a few others were reviewed when I first read them in one language or another, and 4 will be reviewed in the coming weeks.  Not a bad reading/reviewing percentage, I suppose.

159  Dinaw Mengestu, All Our Names (already reviewed)

160  Adam Wilson, What's Important is Feeling (already reviewed)

161  Evie Wyld, All the Birds, Singing (already reviewed)

162  D. Foy, Made to Break (already reviewed)

163  Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), The Time Traveler's Almanac (already reviewed)

164  Andrzej Sapkowski, Il battesimo del fuoco (Italian; already reviewed the Spanish translation)

165  Andrzej Sapkowski, Baptism of Fire (already reviewed the Spanish translation)

166  Celeste Ng, Everything I Never Told You (already reviewed)

167  Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See (already reviewed)

168  Edan Lepucki, California (already reviewed)

169  Edmundo Paz Soldán, Iris (Spanish; already reviewed)

170  Tom Rachman, The Rise & Fall of Great Powers (already reviewed)

171  Anna Hope, Wake (already reviewed)

172  Cristovão Tezza, O Professor (Portuguese; already reviewed)

173  Andrés Neuman, Talking to Ourselves (already reviewed)

174  Lev Grossman, The Magician's Land (review will be posted on August 4)

175  Shane Jones, The Crystal Eaters (already reviewed)

176  Jorge Luis Borges, Ficções (Portuguese; already reviewed Spanish original)

177  Lydia Davis, Can't and Won't (already reviewed)

178  Ben Hatke, Julia's House for Last Creatures (young children's book; very good; gave copy away for my niece to read when she's 2-3 years older)

179  Can Xue, The Last Lover (already reviewed)

180  Scott Cheshire, High as the Horses' Bridles (already reviewed)

181  Adam Sternbergh, Shovel Ready

182  Simon Ings, Wolves (already reviewed)

183  Joyce Carol Oates, Carthage (review in the next week)

184  Seamus Heaney, Beowulf (poetry; translated fiction; very good)

185  Frederick Rebsamen, Beowulf (poetry; translated fiction; best of the three verse translations I read)

186  R.M. Liuzza, Beowulf (poetry; translated fiction; very good)

187  J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf:  A Translation and Commentary (already reviewed)

188  Catherine Lacey, Nobody is Ever Missing (review in the next week or so)

189  Paula Bomer, Inside Madeleine (short story collection; review forthcoming)



Updated Yearly Goals:


Spanish:  37/50 (ahead of pace by 8; 1 read this month)

Portuguese:  20/50 (behind pace by 9; 2 read this month)

French:  24/50 (behind pace by 5; 0 read this month)

Italian:  26/50 (behind pace by 3; 1 read this month)

Women writers:  61/189 (behind pace by 2%; 33% for the month, or 10/31 read this month)