I’m not going to repeat the holiday reads for the first half of the month, as I’ve written a separate post about them, but here are some statistics for the whole month of August.
20 books read, of which 11 labelled as crime fiction. 13 women authors. 5 books in translation, plus one in German and one in French, so 7 foreign books in total. In terms of setting: 3 each in the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and the United States, 2 each in Greece and France, plus one book set in Mexico, Norway, Switzerland and the Solomon islands. A bit less variety than usual, perhaps, but this is probably because of the ‘easy escapist holiday reading’ mission that I had set myself. And easy usually means the familiar to most of us, right? Yet there have been plenty of more serious, questioning and thought-provoking reads as well.
Finally, here are the most recent books I have read, which have not been mentioned in previous posts. All of them are going to be reviewed more extensively either on this blog or on Crime Fiction Lover over the next couple of weeks.
Tore Renberg: See You Tomorrow – desperate losers in Stavanger
Frederique Molay: Crossing the Line – a medical school cadaver leaves a final surprising message
Friedrich Durrenmatt: Inspector Barlach Mysteries: The Judge and His Hangman – is a policeman ever justified in setting a known criminal up for a crime he did not commit?
Paula Daly: Keep Your Friends Close – family torn apart by their own weaknesses and a ruthless manipulator
Cathy Ace: The Corpse with the Platinum Hair – locked-room mystery in a Las Vegas VIP suite
Fumiko Enchi: The Waiting Years – sad story of the fate of wives and mistresses in Japan at the turn of the 20th century – this was going to be my review for Women in Translation month, but sadly I am not going to get around to writing it in August.
My top crime fiction read of the month is Louise Penny’s The Long Way Home and my top read across all genres is a tie between Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and Joan Didion’s Year of Magical Thinking.
findingtimetowrite 
I did German A Level ( am million years ago) and so began a lifelong love affair with F Durrenmatt…..I loved Der Richter
Me too! I had to read Die Physiker and Besuch der Alten Dame for Baccalaureate in German – those were apparently his works most suitable for students during a Communist regime. But it’s interesting that he thought his crime novels were just potboilers.
….oops but my fave was Das Versprechen. They made a Hollywood film of it a few years back ….but sadly it didn’t capture any of the moral dilemma of the original !
Marina Sofia – What I love about your reading choices is their variety. I always get new ideas for what to read next.
Impressive, Marina Sofia. I’m into crime fiction right now. Reading a series by Southwestern Author J.A. Jance in which the protagonist is a female sheriff. I see her writing skill progress throughout the series with some pretty good character development and description. Sometimes the dialogue is a bit stilted. For me this is entertainment rather than serious literary adventure. Just needing that right now…to much going on in my life.
The Year of Magical Thinking is a top favorite of mine. It helped me so much when my mother died.
Nice list. You gave me some ideas!
I don’t know how you do it, but I’m very glad you do—read, so much, that is—the only problem is my ‘to read’ list grows each time…I’m saving your posts now heh-heh 😀