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Bibliofile - June


I increased my total books read this year to 51 with the completion of 8 books in June. And it was another eclectic collection.

I rekindled my interest in detective novels through Inspector Kurt Wallander and Jack Reacher in Firewall and Persuader, respectively.  Both very satisfying reads. That makes 8 Wallender volumes and 7 Reacher novels under my belt.

I also read two books about...books. The first was the delightful The Book Thief about a little girl who's life we trace through her interest in reading and how she satiates that interest through stealing books. The second was The Shadow of the Wind about a young boy who discovers a fascinating book  in a bookstore known as the book cemetery and decides to find out more about the author. He finds out a lot more than he bargained for.

In music this month I read about music producer, writer, performer Bert Berns in Here Comes the Night. Berns wrote the song where the title comes from for Van Morrison. It's a fascinating overview of the music business from about the mid fifties to the late sixties and includes tales of legendary songwriters Lieber& Stoller, Goffin & King and Doc Pomus. I was so taken with this musical history I went out and bought 5 CDs representative of these writers.

Here's the whole list for June and my ratings out of 5. Not a dud in the bunch.

Firewall - Hanning Mankell ****
Here Comes the Night - The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of
 Rhythm and Blues *****
Persuader - Lee Child ****
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak *****
Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King ****
Enduring Love - Ian McEwan ****
The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon *****
The Color of Law - Mark Gimeniz ****

I have the lovely and talented Linda Medrano to thank for recommending The Color of Law the first in a series about a lawyer by Mark Gimeniz which I enjoyed immensely. Thanks Linda!

How about you? Have you got something you really enjoyed recently and can recommend?
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Comments

nonamedufus said…
I've kept meaning to read Provence. And the other sounds interesting. I'm going to look into them both. Thanks for the recommendation.
2 July 2014 at 20:11
Bryan G. Robinson said…
I have The Book Thief on my mental to-be-read list but haven't got to it yet. I've had a few people recommend The Shadow of the Wind too. Latest favorite books: The Rot & Ruin series by Jonathan Maberry. This weekend I hope to catch up on a little more reading, but I'm about half of what you've read this year. Hope your Canada Day was a good one.
4 July 2014 at 08:42
nonamedufus said…
I loved both these books Bryan. Both different but both very enjoyable reads. I'll look into Mayberry. Thanks for the recommendation. So many books so little time.
4 July 2014 at 10:25
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