48. Portuguese irregular verbs / Alexander McCall Smith (7/1; fiction)
49. Scent of Evil / Archer Mayor (7/7; fiction)
50. The Silver Chair / C. S. Lewis (7/8; fiction)
51. The Beekeeper's Apprentice / Laurie R. King (7/12; fiction)
52. The Horse and his Boy / C. S. Lewis (7/13; fiction)
53. Origin in death / J. D. Robb (7/15; fiction)
54. The Magician's Nephew / C.S. Lewis (7/18; fiction)
55. The Last Battle / C.S. Lewis (7/20; fiction)
56. From the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler / E. L. Konigsburg (7/21; fiction)
57. The amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay : a novel / Michael Chabon (7/28; fiction)
58. Reaper Man / Terry Pratchett (7/28; fiction)
59. The seven-per-cent solution / Nicholas Meyer (7/31; fiction)
Portuguese irregular verbs was an accounting of the vaguely amusing adventures of a professor of Portugese. It killed time at work well enough, but wasn't anything exciting. I won't bother with the rest of the series.
Scent of Evil was the next book in a really excellent mystery series by Archer Mayor, about a detective in Vermont. I should put the next one on reserve.
I finished the Chronicles of Narnia this month. I'm glad that I read them in publication order, because I wouldn't have wanted to know the stuff that was in The Magician's Nephew at the beginning of the series. I'm glad I finished the series, but I really didn't like Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle very much. I knew the Christian allegory would be getting more prominent as the series went on, but I wasn't ready for it to go from allegory to smacking you upside the head with the point.
I've been developing a taste for Holmesian fiction that isn't by Doyle lately, and The Beekeeper's Apprentice and The seven-per-cent solution were both due to that. Beekeeper's is the beginning of a series about young Mary Russel, who quite literally stumbles upon a retired Sherlock Holmes upon the downs one day, and becomes his apprentice and eventual partner in detection. It's a joy to read about Holmes paired with a partner who is both treated as an equal, and demands to be treated as an equal (and amusing that that partner is to be found in the form of a teenage girl, considering Holmes' general lack of patience with women.) I slurped down this book pretty well whole, and the next in the series is checked of the library and waiting. I didn't enjoy Seven-Percent as much; it was told from Watson's point of view and is fairly faithful to Doyle's original telling of the two characters, and mostly because of that, I didn't like it nearly as much. I hate how Watson is always treated as a dundering moron by Doyle. Seven-Percent is the mildly rambling account of what "really" happened between Holmes and Moriarty and how Holmes was cured of his cocaine addiction.
In Origin in Death, Robb verred much more off into sci-fi land than she normally does. It was one of the few times that I've found myself saying "This book is excellent, but it would play much better on the screen." It was great big huge fun, of course, and now I'm waiting for the next one.
From the mixed-up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was inspired by a really good thread on kid lit in
minervacat's journal. Kid lit makes good reading when at work at the gym, since I don't have to concentrate on it as much, a plus when you're getting interupted constantly. This was one of my favorite books when I was a kid, and it's stood the test of time well.Kavalier & Clay was the book club book this month. I enjoyed it, and my comments are over there (which reminds me, I need to bump that thread tomorrow.)
I loved Reaper Man. I love Pratchett. There's nothing quite like getting to see the human side of Death, eh? And Death did something really nice at the end that made me a little teary. I'm debating whether I want to go back and start at the beginning of the world, after all, so I don't OD on one particular theme.