Friday, July 11, 2014

July Reading plus The Big Read Catch-up: May 2014

July: Finished: Book #94: The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet (Reif Larsen), a most intriguing illustrated novel about a boy genius and cartography; Book #95: The Great Wave: Gilded Age Misfits, Japanese Eccentrics, and the Opening of Old Japan (Christopher Benfey); Book #96: The Crabtree Affair (Michael Innes), another classic British mystery; and Book #97: We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea (Arthur Ransome), a re-read of a favorite British children’s novel.

The Big Read Catch-up:  May 2014 Books Read

Nonfiction

Audubon Nature Encyclopedia, Volumes 9 and 10
Golden Treasury of Knowledge, Volume 8

A Desert Country Near the Sea:  A Natural History of the Cape Region of Baja California (Ann Zwinger)
Enchanting descriptions of the plants, wildlife, and landscapes of this area.

The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek (Barry Cunliffe)
Interesting, though more about the various European cultures of that time than about Pytheas himself (about whom, it turns out, very little is known).

An Eye for a Bird: The Autobiography of a Bird Photographer (Eric Hosking)
Hosking was a renowned British photographer active from 1930s-1980s whose bird photographs were especially innovative; earlier chapters offer fascinating descriptions of his efforts to get good shots of birds on their nests using blinds and platforms; later chapters descend into a duller litany of places he traveled to around the world.

Natural World (An Eyewitness Book; Steve Parker)
The “Eyewitness” series are oversized picture-laden coffee table books.

Fiction

Appleby’s End (Michael Innes)
A Night of Errors (Michael Innes)
One Man Show (Michael Innes)
Classic British mysteries.

The Golden Spiders (Rex Stout)
In the Best Families (Rex Stout)
Over My Dead Body (Rex Stout)
Classic American mysteries.

Cold Cereal (Adam Rex)
Unlucky Charms (Adam Rex)

First two books in a middle-grade trilogy about a rift between our world and the realms of fantasy, which was quite funny but had way too many characters and outlandish plot elements.

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