Reading In August

I've had a relatively "busy" July. For the first time since January, the number of posts I created in a month has hit double-digits. It's just ten - nothing to write home about, but, it's still a nice feeling, if you know what I mean. I'm not comparing myself to some of you book bloggers out there, who stack up more than twice that in a fortnight! :) Read about nine books in July (two reviews are still pending), and thought it was a good month reading-wise.

I read three different books by Nobel Prize winners:

  1. J.M. Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K
  2. Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea
  3. Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child

And three books that appear on the 1001 Books To Read Before You Die list: (sorry, there's an overlap)

  1. J.M. Coetzee's The Life and Times of Michael K
  2. Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea
  3. Haruki Murakami's Kafka On The Shore

So, yes, I enjoyed my July, but for the fact that I didn't make a dent in my to-read pile, as I was at my parents, and then fell ill and then ended up visiting the library and reading books that were lying around there. So, August is going to be about hitting that massive to-read pile, and conquering it somewhat. It'll be a while before I do that, but a girl's got to try!

So, without much further ado, here's my proposed book-stack for August - likely to change, but it's what I plan on right now.

books_to_read_in_aug10

Yep, it's almost got an "around the world" theme to it, with books from India, Turkey, Russia, France, Nigeria and Czechoslovakia.

  1. Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake
  2. Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française
  3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus
  4. Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red
  5. Milan Kundera's Farewell Waltz
  6. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita

Also, if my library would be nice enough to get some of the books from the Booker longlist, I'll be reading those. Note for next year: do not exercise the self-imposed reading ban in the months of July, August and September. I'll be keeping an eye out on all the reviews, and come September, I'll be treating myself to a chunk of the Booker longlist and shortlist.

What do you have in store for August? Will you be tackling the Booker longlist?