i was slowed down this month by the fact that the first book i read was 959 pages long. sheesh. in fact, i only read it as quickly as i did because it was a library book that couldn't be renewed because other people were on the waiting list behind me. for each of the 21 days i had it i was doing a lot of reading. good thing it was awesome or i wouldn't have made it.
a dance with dragons, by george r.r. martin (nerd alert. this is the 5th book in the series; this one came out in july. i got on the list at the library for it pretty shortly thereafter, and finally got the book in late september. and ohmygoodness it was definitely worth waiting for. the scandals continue. and the teasers; one character who played a major role in book 4 showed up for literally one line in book 5. so many characters! not enough time! the cliffhangers continue, as well; how am i going to wait until the next book comes out? and this dude can take 4 or 5 years between books. and he's getting old. george r.r. martin: DO NOT BECOME SENILE UNTIL AFTER YOU FINISH THIS SERIES.)
the magicians, by lev grossman (i'd heard a lot of good stuff about this book, but i thought it was only okay. it was described to me as harry potter meets the chronicles of narnia, and it, well, WAS harry potter (the first half of the book takes place in a school for magicians) meets narnia (except it's called "fillory" in this book. but it's narnia - let's be honest). i thought it was too much of a literal mixing of those worlds that we know from other books, and that was a bit bizarre. definitely entertaining, but i'm not rushing out to get the sequel.)
okay, i guess there's a 29 and a half. i listened to the audiobook of three cups of tea, by greg mortenson and david oliver relin. does listening to an audiobook count? i'm not exactly sure, but it was 13.5 hours long, so i will give myself some credit. my thoughts: perhaps listening to it gave me a different perspective that reading it, but this book is CHOCK FULL of puns and cliches, to the extent that i was gagging with the cheesiness factor. UGH. it's not very well written. but it was pretty interesting. i know there is controversy surrounding mortenson and how truthful this book is...and how good his bookkeeping skills are...but i do think he's done an incredible thing for pakistan by investing money in education there. i'm not rushing out to donate to him, but he tells a story about this part of the world that not everyone can tell. i'll give him credit for that. at the end of the audiobook they include an original song written about the book. it is, factually, the worst song ever written. mortenson's daughter sings it, and i will give her a pass because she's in elementary school, but i will not give a pass to whoever wrote the song. decide for yourself here. and, yeah - don't necessarily rush out to buy this book...
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