Book Binge Completed!

Oh! I totally had this long, thorough, linked-up entry with reviews of the books I'd read and everything and BLOGGER ATE IT! ARGH!

So, now to see if I can recreate it. Stupid Blogger!

• Lake Woebegon Days by Garrison Keillor - done. I'd picked this one up at Goodwill because I was feeling a bit MN homesick. If you know anything about the author, or his monologues on the radio show A Prairie Home Companion (which I've seen live, thank you very much), you won't be surprised to hear it is neither fast-paced nor brief. I did enjoy the slow descriptions of life in a small town though. This one took a much larger portion of my month than my fiction books usually take.
  

• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman (reread) - done. Excellent. Probably best if you've been to London and/or enjoy the confluence of reality with (a bit dark) fantasy. I do wish the tube map at the front of the book would've been in color though.
  

• I'll Be Watching You by Samuel M. Key (horror pen name of Charles de Lint) - done. Overall good. I didn't like his pacing sometimes though. I didn't like the balance between the different sections of her life; it felt like we were rushed through some parts. If you liked the movie Sleeping with the Enemy, this has a similar subject matter/style.
  

• Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay - done. While I ADORE some of his work (Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne), this one reminded me more of his Fionavar Tapestry (a trilogy), which just isn't strong. While this book did have some aspects of "this story comes after those," it's still a stand-alone. I just don't like him being "modern;" he tries too hard and seems too conscious about having his characters use terms like jpeg, downloading, etc.
  

• The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston (nonfiction, on Kittenpie's recommendation) - done. Fascinating! I'm going to have to read his book The Hot Zone soon. I never knew so much about smallpox or Ebola or how they're worked with in the lab or how smallpox was defeated. Also, now I know that vaccination is related linguistically to "vaca" (Spanish for "cow" with the Latin being "vacca") since Edward Jenner used cowpox to successfully inoculate a small boy after noticing that milkmaids rarely got smallpox.
  

• Granuaile: Ireland's Pirate Queen c. 1530-1603 by Anne Chambers (nonfiction) - still in progress. This one won't be done by month's end. I picked it up after realizing that this reading nonfiction books thing, begun as a resolution, has grown on me. I can see often having a nonfiction in progress any more. This one's a bit dense with Irish names and place names, but I get a kick out of recognizing (and having visited) some of them.
  

• Lost Notes by David Murphy (short stories; reread) - done. After starting Granuaile, I realized that I don't like to only have a nonfiction on my bedside table. Sometimes I'm just in the mood for something lighter, or fluffier, or less content rich. While Lost Notes certainly isn't light, being a collection of short stories, it was easy to pick up and put down. Very very rich stories that stick in my mind.

So there you have it! Thanks, Mary P., for hosting the Book Binge!