September Monthly Recap

It’s time for our monthly recap! Find out which books were favorites, which were duds, and which ones we plan to read the following month. We’ll end our wrap up with a calendar of book-related events/facts from the Month of September and we’ll highlight our upcoming October content. We’ve also added a list of upcoming book releases for October (scroll to the end for the list).

One randomly selected follower (email or wordpress follower) will win a $10 amazon gift card. Scroll down to see if you are the winner. The prize is only awarded if you contact us with your email address so make sure to check these monthly recaps each month to see if you won! We also want to hear from you so let us know what you read in September and what you look forward to reading in October. 

Book Worm

Well my aim for September was to keep going with the man booker longlist and I achieved that. I now only have 5 books left to read. While the shortlist has already been announced, I intend to read all of them so that I can tell you scientifically whether the judges made the right decision. So far I dispute 2 of their choices for shortlist 🙂

Favourite Book read in September: The Shadow Lines: A Novelby Amitav Ghosh. Honorable mentions go to 2 very different books: The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles and A Brief History of Seven Killings: A Novel by Marlon James.

Least favorite book read in September: Once again, there was not a book I hated in September. The lowest scoring book at 3 stars was The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota.

October Goals: In case you hadn’t guessed it, my goal for October is to continue reading the man booker 2015 long list books. I also plan to read Nicholas Nickleby and as many books in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time series as I can manage. Poor old Life After Life is back on the back burner again for now 😦

Jen
September was a prolific but rather lackluster reading month for me. I read several 1001 books but none that really stood out.

Favorite book read in October: The only stand out for me was Rusdie’s new book, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights. Honorable mention goes to one of the Man Booker longlist novels, The Chimes by Anna Smaill. No 1001 books made my list of monthly favorites.

Least favorite book read in October: The Buried Giant by Ishiguro. That was an easy pick for me. I really disliked it. It put me to sleep multiple times. You’ll be able to see why I disliked it so much when I post my review – soon!

October Goals: I will once again attempt to refrain from buying any new books this month. I didn’t too badly last month (if you don’t count ebooks). I hope to continue making a dent in my TBR. Primary goals will be to finish David Mitchell’s new book before the release date, read at least one Halloween appropriate book, and work in a few other books for some Shelfari reading challenges.

Here’s a look back at literary events in September.

What can you look forward to on our blog in October? We will feature our recurring posts: Love it or Hate it (The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt), Read Around the World (England), Featured Author (Jeffrey Eugenides), and Kid’s Corner. We’ll also feature reviews of several of the Man Booker Longlist books. We have scheduled reviews for The Buried Giant, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and David Mitchell’s Slade House. We will also begin our Halloween challenge and we hope you join us for that one!

For more on upcoming content you can always check out our event calendar — featured on our sidebar.

Here are a few books that will be released in October:
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George Martin. Release date: October 6. I’d really appreciate it if Mr. Martin would stop writing all the other books and finish Game of Thrones books.
The Gap of Time: A Novel (Hogarth Shakespeare) by Jeanette Winterson. Release date: October 6
The Secret Chord: A Novelby Geraldine Brooks. Release Date: October 6
Thirteen Ways of Looking: Fiction by Collum McCann. Release date: October 13
A Strangeness in My Mind: A novel by Orhan Pamuk. Release date: October 20
After Alice: A Novel by Gregory Maguire. Release date: October 27
Slade House: A Novel by David Mitchell. Release date: October 27

We want to hear from you. What books did you read in September? Which your favorites? Least favorites? Is there anything you are looking forward to in October?

The winner of our follower appreciation is a wordpress follower: Caroline from Beauty is a Sleeping Cat. In order to claim the prize you need to reply to this post or email me saying that you want to claim the prize! You must claim your prize before the end of the October otherwise it will go back into the pool for the next winner. Congrats, you win a $10 gift card to Amazon! NOTE: winners are randomly selected from pool of either wordpress or email followers of this blog.